Reflection on economic development and social change c.2

Vijayendra Kasturi Ranga Vardaraja Rao, who completed seventy-one years of his life on 8 July 1979, occupies an eminent position in the public life of India for his services to the nation in many fields. He has also won an enduring place in the international community of scholars for his work as an economist and as an institution-builder. The present volume of essays in his honour brings together contributions by a group of scholars who have known him closely and have held him in high esteem. It presents a bunch of studies on the theme of economic development and social change which has been and is of deep interest to V.K.R.V. Rao. The fact that the contributors belong to many disciplines is an indication of the position enjoyed by him not only in economics but in social sciences as a whole.

The volume begins with an appreciation of the many-sided contributions of V.K.R.V. Rao to Indian economics and to institution building for social science research by the editors. The twenty-four papers included in the volume are arranged in six parts: (i) Rethinking on Development; (ii) Economic Structure and Policy; (iii) The Demographic Dimension; (iv) Development as a Social Process; (v) Perspectives in Social Sciences; (vi) Contributions of Professor V.K.R.V. Rao A Bibliography. The papers have been contributed by twenty-six social scientists from India and abroad, who are specialists of repute in their respective fields. Among the contributors are internationally known economists and sociologists such as Jan Tinbergen, Theodore W. Schultz, Colin Clark, H.W. Singer, A.K. Cairncross, Sukhamoy Chakravarty, A.K. Das Gupta, K.N. Raj. B.N. Ganguli, J.P. Naik, and Ramkrishna Mukherjee.