Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Poverty In India And Its Decompositions: A Critical Appraisal Of The New Method, Durgesh C. Pathak, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

This paper has two objectives. First, it critically discusses the new method of measuring poverty. In doing so, it raises some concerns implicit in the report - (a) the need to go beyond calories to have an understanding of nutritional requirement, which could not be adequately addressed in the new method, (b) the need to incorporate expenditure on health, education and sanitation, as these are not being adequately provided by the state, which also raises serious apprehensions on whether India is a welfare state, and (c) the need to come up with multi-dimensional measures of poverty. Nevertheless, the paper contends …

Two Decades Of Human Development, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

This is Lecture 1 of the course 'Contemporary Issues in Human Development and Policy' offered during January-May 2012 at IGIDR

Course Outline, Contemporary Issues In Human Development And Policy, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

This is the course outline for 'Contemporary Issues in Human Development and Policy: A New Millennium Perspective' January-May 2012, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai.

Hunger, Ethics And The Right To Food, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

he management of hunger has to look into the issues of availability, accessibility and adequacy of food supply. From an ethical perspective, this paper argues in favour of the right to food. But, for this to become viable, the state has to come up with an appropriate and effective bill on food and nutrition security, address the issue of inadequate provisioning of storage space by state agencies leading to rotting of food grains - a criminal waste when people are dying of hunger; and rely on local level institutions involving the community, that complement the administrative structure to identify the …

Conflict Resolution Through Mutuality: Lessons From Bayesian Updating, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

If priors are deterministic (zero or unity) and conditional evidence is uncertain (lies between zero and one) then Bayesian updating will lead to posteriors that are the same as priors. This in a sense explains the persistence of fundamentalist belief. Under such a belief system, only if conditional evidence is deterministic and diametrically opposite to that of the prior then a process of change can set in. Conflict resolution is possible through dialogues that calls for mutual respect and allows reasonable pluralism – a Rawlsian prerequisite. If interaction is the basis then self-defeating scenarios can be avoided by giving space …

Persistence Of Crisis In Indian Agriculture: Need For Technological And Institutional Alternatives, Srijit Mishra, D. Narasimha Reddy

Srijit Mishra

The crisis in Indian agriculture has two dimensions - agricultural developmental and agrarian livelihood. Some aspects of the agricultural crisis are decelertion in production, productivity and value of output from early 1990s in almost all crops. Withdrawal of the state from public investment in irrigation and related infrastructure, providing access to formal credit, and waning link between research & extension and farming. As a result, the farmer faces multiple risks, vagaries of weather, price shocks, and spurious inputs among others, further compromising on his already lower returns. On agrarian crisis, what is worrying is that the deceleration in agriculture happened …

Progress In Human Development: Are We On The Right Path, Hippu Sk Nathan, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

The conventional measure of Human Development Index (HDI) is a linear average across dimensions, HDI1. Under this, poor attainments in any dimension gets perfectly compensated for better attainments in any other dimension HDI2, which is based on Euclidean distance measuring shortfall from the ideal, addresses the above anomaly. In our analysis of progress, we use HDI2 to develop the notion of an ideal path and penalty to capture deviation from this; and a measure of fluctuation. The measures are applied to 127 countries for the period 1990-2004. The results show that Sub-Saharan countries have suffered on account of sharp decline …

Nutrient Based Subsidy (Nbs) & Support Systems For Ecological Fertilization In Indian Agriculture, Srijit Mishra, Gopikrishna Sr

Srijit Mishra

The intensive agriculture model was introduced in India in the 1960s as part of the Green Revolution. This brought in a package which included massive irrigation projects, new high yielding input responsive varieties and chemical fertilizers. Initially, it did increase production. But now, the food production is stagnating and one has been observing diminishing returns and falling dividends, especially in the agriculture intensiveareas of the country.

The chemical and synthetic fertilizers, particularly Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium (NPK), are highly subsidized. The amount of subsidy on this has grown exponentially during the last three decades from a mere Rs. 60 crore …

Gujarat Elections 2002: Vote Shares Across Regions, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

This paper attempts to analyse in each constituency vote shares accruing to the two major parties in the state with the use of triplot or ternary diagram method. A triplot enables a two-dimensional display of three categories of shares or proportions, in this case vote shares, accruing to the BJP, Congress and ‘others’. Triplot diagrams provide a thematic representation of the fact that an increase in vote shares of BJP and to a lesser extent the Congress does have a relationship with the decline of ‘other’ contestants.

Isolated And Proximate Illiteracy, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

This paper is a discussion of the externality that an illiterate person would get from being in proximity to a literate person.