Unfinished agenda: India and the world economy

An analysis of the crises and problems of world economies, with particular reference to India, could not have appeared at a more opportune time than the present work by Dr. A.M. Khusro The chapters in this book are actually a series of thought-provoking articles which the author wrote as Editor of Financial Express Almost all the articles appeared simultaneously in the Financial Express and the Indian Express and they all appeared within a three-year period, June 1990 to June 1993,

Written by one of the country's leading economists, recently turned Editor, the chapters have firm theoretical underpinnings though the deceptive lucidity of presentation conceals intricate theory and avoids the jargon of economic writings. The book is divided into four parts:

Part I deals with the crisis period in the Indian economy in the early 1990s and highlights the critical politico-economic issues during three govemments-those of Prime Ministers V.P. Singh, Chandrashekhar and P.V. Narasimha Rao.
As economic behaviour is substantially conditioned by the political situtation, Part 11 deals with what the author calls the Politics of Uncertainty This part deals, among other things, with the manner in which the various political parties proposed to tackle the politico-economic crisis on the eve of the national elec tion in mid-1991, as evidenced by the various party manifestos;

Part Ill deals with the sea-change in economic policies which was brought about in the post-June 1991 period the Narasimha Rao govenment under the financial and economic leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh. Various facets of policies and the impact as well as the limitations of these policies are lucidly examined and issues ranging from agriculture to industry, from budgetary policies to international trade policies and from industrial deregulation to social uplift are dealt with analytically as well as critically. It is noteworthy that the policy recommendations made by the author, in advance of the actual policy changes,

tumed out, in many cases, to be extremely close to the actuality In Part IV, the discussion moves to the international arena and themes ranging from the Gull War to the recession in the West, from President Gorbachev to President Clinton and from the European Community to Indo-Pak trade relations are made the subject of attention.
Though the chapters were all written within a three-year period, the reader would get the best advantage of the author's analysis and recommendations he places himself around the date in question and reads the analysis in the perspective of the actual time of occurrence