Can India grow without Bharat?

The essays in this Section B (as well as C, D and E) discuss and outline the key reforms required to promote faster growth of employment and output. Those in Section C dwell on the halting progress in economic reforms, especially since the advent of the UPA government and despite its much vaunted 'dream team' of top economic managers (Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Montek Ahluwalia). These essays highlight the baneful influence of bad economic ideas embedded in the National Common Minimum Programme and trace their consequences in populist programmes and policies.
Section F consists of appraisals of budgets (from 2004 onwards) and tax policies. They show that these policies have been a mixed bag, with both good and bad initiatives. Foreign trade and payments issues are analysed in Section G, including critiques of the newfound love for bilateral and regional trade agreements and of a somewhat fanciful aspiration for a common currency for SAARC. Section H offers analyses of monetary and fiscal policies and warns against any complacency on fiscal deficits, especially given the past correlation between rising fiscal deficits and slowing growth.
The last group of essays stray outside the realm of pure economics and consider some foreign policy issues, including two on China-India as well as a recent, favorable appraisal of the UPA government's foreign policies in its first two and a half years in office.