Jayati Ghosh

It is apparent that despite the persisting food insecurity of the bulk of the population and the near-emergency with respect to the nutrition of children, women and other vulnerable groups, the Government of India is still not taking the job of ensuring universal food security with sufficient seriousness. Its attitude towards meeting its 2009 election promise of legislating a comprehensive Food Security Act is an example of this lack of seriousness. Political and social mobilisation around this issue, to make it a resonant demand that cannot be ignored, is therefore essential.

Declining fertility rates have changed the age structure of India's population, resulting in a "bulge" in the working age-group. This "demographic dividend" has improved the dependency ratio leading to the hypothesis that the bulge in working population will lead to an acceleration in growth. However, recent employment figures indicate that the absorption of the Indian youth into the labour force is not as high as one would expect. This is perhaps due to the poor employability of the workforce, which is severely affected by a deficit in educational attainment and health. This needs to be remedied in order to take advantage of the opportunity for growth that the demographic dividend is supposed to give India.

The Twelfth Finance Commission's proposed plan for restructuring the debt of state governments contains stringent conditions that probably violate the basic tenets of fiscal federalism. Macroeconomic norms dictated by global finance capital could not obviously be reconciled with the requirements of economic democracy.

The current crisis in emerging markets may signify the end of a phase of international capitalism in which deregulation and increased economic integration have led to increased volatility and uncertainty. This article examines - with a focus on Thailand and South Korea - the factors that led to financial liberalisation, the link between financial openness and crisis and the problems that persistence with open regimes creates for efforts to overcome the crisis. The experience shows that developing countries will have to control and regulate capital flows in accordance with national priorities.

This paper attempts a reasoned assessment of whether the package of economic reforms currently being implemented in India has any relation to the strategies that have allowed for the apparent economic success of other eastern and south-eastern Asian countries. After identifying the important elements of the adjustment strategies followed in some of these countries with particular reference to some key areas of economic policy, the divergence of these strategies from the standard 'liberalising ' or 'market driven