Articles by C T Kurien

Impure Economics C T Kurien Economics as Ideology and Experience: Essays in Honour of Ashok Mitra edited by Deepak Nayyar; Frank Cass, London, 1998; pp xviii + 291,

Social Sciences: Old Dogmas, New Challenges C T Kurien Social Science and Development: Quest for Relevance by P C Joshi; Har-Anand Publications, Delhi, pp 354, Rs 495, TRAVEL down memory lane to the 1940s the second world war, the Quit India Movement, the Cabinet Mission, end of the war, the Interim Government, Independence, excitement, expectations... Think of the sensitive young men and women in high schools and colleges during those years, inspired by the freedom movement and of the exhortations of the leaders to serve the country, to build it, to shape it, to hold it up in the comity of nations. How would these patriotic youngsters respond to the new situation and its challenge? Some would go into the newly started Indian Administrative Services, to become part of the team led by Nehru, Patel and Azad and thus to be directly and immediately involved in the exciting task of nation-building. Others would opt to stay on in academia to take on the less visible, but equally exciting and longer term mission of searching for the roots of Indian society, critically reviewing the impact of the colonial era, analysing the problems that confront the new nation and suggesting remedies for them, and through alI such efforts to evolve a science of society relevant for our limes and our needs. These youngsters of the 1940s are now in their late 60s and early 70s, Some of them, belonging to both the streams, have recently been looking back over the past half a century and sharing with the present generation the visions they had when the country attained freedom, the issues that dominated their professional careers and their thoughts about the unfinished agenda.

Emerging Global Economy C T Kurien The nature of restructuring and reforms that the emerging global economy makes necessary is not as simple as privatisation, liberalisation, marketisation, globalisation or whatever other slogan that is found attractive and marketable for the time being. It calls for a proper understanding of the far-reaching changes taking place in the global economy and intelligent responses to them with a clear perception of social priorities.

Values, Efficiency and Exploitation C T Kurien KAUSHIK BASU (March 17) finds my queries (October 21, 1989) "strongly worded". "Sharply posed" would have been more accurate, for so they were. I had made a special effort to pose my questions as clearly and specifically as possible hoping that the responses too would be like that. Unfortunately, Basu in his response is mostly arguing by analogy In responding to him, let me begin with what I had considered the most crucial aspect in his original presentation, the relationship between 'efficiency' and 'exploitation' (a) Basu's argument was that the concepts of optimally and efficiency are so well defined that there are objective ways of verifying whether society is optimal and efficient. Note that here Basu is using the concept of 'efficiency' in a technical and defined sense where it has a meaning which it derives from that definition. The word 'efficiency' enters very frequently into common parlance also where it is understood in a very different sense. Basu was right in warning about this distinction and in pointing out that even in their professional discourse some economists (or many economists including some 'distinguished' ones, if Basu will find it more appealing) are not careful to observe that distinction, I agree, A problem that economics has is that its theoretical terminologies may appear to be similar to expressions in common parlance, but as constructs they are different from their counterparts in day-to-day conversation.

Dual Strategy for a Dual Economy?
C T Kurien An, Introduction to India's Economic Development since the Nineteenth Century by Amlan Datta; Popular Prakasan, Bombay, 1989; pp 94, Rs 95.