Oxford India Short Introductions Series – serie

This Short Introduction aims to offer a clear analysis of the state of employment in India. In a simple and concise manner, it narrates the past trends, current issues, and future possibilities of employment. Beginning with employment conditions at the start of India's planned development and mapping its evolution, it highlights how this evolution has been linked to growth strategies, demographic change, and institutional developments. Defining basic concepts, such as employment, unemployment, labour force and labour participation, it also touches on theories of employment, its broad features, and issues relating to its analysis and policy, providing empirical data wherever essential.

Political Economy of Reforms in India discusses the political economy of the country's growth, globalization, and welfare. It finds that the political economy of growth and globalization are intimately connected. And, the political economy of welfare, though dependent to a much greater extent on state intervention than growth, is critically dependent on the growth process. Governments and markets can both fail to deliver. Understanding the political process of economic change is critical for evolving a view about the importance of governments and markets in economic activity. This book highlights the critical importance of political economy during the course of development. Economic ideas about growth, globalization, and welfare have to traverse a political distance before citizens can benefit from economic institutions and policies. Mukherji reviews the importance of various factors that affect economic change in India and finds that the way the government, especially its technocrats, think is important for producing change.

Access to information is indispensable to the functioning of any true democracy. An Indian citizen's right to information is guaranteed by Constitution of India and implicitly embedded in his right to the freedom and expression. Bringing together the major aspects of the Right to Information Act 2005, this book presents a clear and concise introduction to: - the evolution of the Act and the various privileges conferred under it, - the procedures involved in seeking information, - the duties of information suppliers, and - the kinds of information which are exempted from disclosure. Through in-depth comparative analyses of the law in various other parts of the world, it captures the strengths and drawbacks of the RTI Act, its success stories, and suggests policy measures to improve its implementation.

Religion in India is a constantly evolving and transformative entity that cannot be engaged with in isolation from other dimensions of life. This short introduction moves beyond traditional text- and scripture-based academic approaches to provide an overview of the dynamic role of religion in contemporary Indian society. Examining religion through the perspectives of religious actors, interlocutors, and practices, it highlights how religion intersects with the state, secularism, identity, and civic and economic life. An indispensable resource for general readers, students, and researchers, this book will foster grounds for dialogue towards a flourishing of pluralism in present-day India.

Who exactly are the middle classes in India? What role do they play in contemporary Indian politics and society, and what are their historical and cultural moorings? The authors of this volume argue that the middle class has largely been understood as an income/ economic category, but the term has a broader social and conceptual history, globally as well as in India. To begin with, the middle class is not a homogeneous category but is shaped by specific colonial and post-colonial experiences and is differentiated by caste, ethnicity, region, religion, and gender locations. These socio-economic differentiations shape its politics and culture and become the basis of internal conflicts, contestations, and divergent political worldviews. The authors demonstrate how the middle class has acquired a certain legitimacy to speak on behalf of the society as a whole, despite its politics being inherently exclusionary, as it tries to protect its own interests. Further, perceived as an aspirational category, the middle class has a seductive charm for the lower classes, who struggle to shift to this ever elusive social location.

The idea of citizenship goes beyond a legal-formal framework to denote substantive membership in the political community. While citizenship is identified with an ideal condition of equality of status and belonging, it gets challenged in societies marked by inequalities. As an idea that inspires struggle, citizenship remains an institution that is unbounded, changing, and always incomplete. This short introduction lucidly describes the history of citizenship in India, before moving on to the pluralities and the contemporary landscapes of citizenship. It traces the amendments in the Citizenship Act, 1955 and argues that the legal enframing of the citizen involves a simultaneous production of its other-the non-citizen. This book looks at the multiple margins that constitute the sites of constant churnings, releasing powerful new idioms, imaginaries, and practices of citizenship.