Tag Archives: Economics

In My Hands Today…

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India Moving: A History of Migration – Chinmay Tumbe

From adventure to indenture, martyrs to merchants, partition to plantation, from Kashmir to Kerala, Japan to Jamaica, and beyond, the many facets of the great migrations of India and the world are mapped in India Moving, the first book of its kind.

To understand how millions of people have moved-from, to and within India—the book embarks on a journey laced with evidence, argument, and wit, providing insights into topics like the slave trade and migration of workers, travelling business communities such as the Marwaris, Gujaratis, and Chettiars, refugee crises, and the roots of contemporary mass migration from Bihar and Kerala, covering terrain that often includes diverse items such as mangoes, dosas, and pressure cookers.

India Moving shows the scale and variety of Indian migration and argues that greater mobility is a prerequisite for maintaining the country’s pluralistic traditions.

In My Hands Today…

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South vs North: India’s Great Divide – Nilakantan RS

Compare two children—one born in north India, the other in the south.

The child from south India is far less likely to die in the first year of her life or lose her mother during childbirth. She will also receive better nutrition, go to school, and stay in school longer; she is more likely to attend college and secure employment that pays her more. This child will also go on to have fewer children, who in turn will be healthier and more educated than her. In a nutshell, the average child born in south India will live a healthier, wealthier, and more secure life than one born in north India.

Why is south India doing so much better than the north? And what does that mean?

In this superbly argued book, data scientist Nilakantan RS shows us how and why the southern states are outperforming the rest of the country and its consequences in an increasingly centralized India. He reveals how south India deals with a particularly tough set of issues: its triumphs in areas of health, education, and economic growth are met with a policy regime that penalizes it; its success in population control will be met with a possible loss of political representation. How will the region manage such an assault? Hard-hitting, troubling, and full of fascinating data points, South vs. North is an essential book about one of the biggest challenges that India faces today.

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Women Money Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality – Josie Cox

For centuries, women were denied equal access to money and the freedom and power that came with it. They were restricted from owning property or transacting in real estate. Even well into the 20th century, women could not take out their own loans or own bank accounts without their husband’s permission. They could be fired for getting married or pregnant, and if they still had a job, they could be kept from certain roles, restricted from working longer hours, and paid less than men for equal work.

It was a raw deal, and women weren’t happy with it. So they pushed back. In Women Money Power , financial journalist Josie Cox tells the story of women’s fight for financial freedom. This is an inspirational account of brave pioneers who took on social mores and the law, including the “Rosies” who filled industrial jobs vacated by men and helped win WWII, the heiress whose fortune helped create the birth control pill, the brassy investor who broke into the boys’ club of the New York Stock Exchange, and the namesake of landmark equal pay legislation who refused to accept discrimination.

But as any woman can tell you, the battle for equality—for money and power—is far from over. Cox delves deep into the challenges women face today and the culture and systems that hold them back. This is a fascinating narrative account of progress, women’s lives, and the work still to be done.

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The Almighty Dollar: Follow the Incredible Journey of a Single Dollar to See How the Global Economy Really Works – Dharshini David

Have you ever wondered why we can afford to buy far more clothes than our grandparents ever could . . . but may be less likely to own a home in which to keep them all? Why your petrol bill can double in a matter of months, but it never falls as fast?

Behind all of this lies economics.

It’s not always easy to grasp the complex forces that are shaping our lives. But by following a dollar on its journey around the globe, we can start to piece it all together.

The dollar is the lifeblood of globalisation. Greenbacks, singles, bucks or dead presidents: call them what you will, they are keeping the global economy going. Half of the notes in circulation are actually outside of the USA – and many of the world’s dollars are owned by China.

But what is really happening as our cash moves around the world every day, and how does it affect our lives? By following $1 from a shopping trip in suburban Texas, via China’s central bank, Nigerian railroads, the oilfields of Iraq and beyond, The Almighty Dollar reveals the economic truths behind what we see on the news every day. Why is China the world’s biggest manufacturer – and the USA its biggest customer? Is free trade really a good thing? Why would a nation build a bridge on the other side of the planet?

In this illuminating read, economist Dharshini David lays bare these complex relationships to get to the heart of how our new globalised world works, showing who really holds the power, and what that means for us all.

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Last Among Equals: Power, Caste & Politics in Bihar’s Villages – M.R. Sharan

Sanjay Sahni was living an ‘araam zindagi’ in Delhi, working as an electrician, until a chance encounter with a computer sent him hurtling into the labyrinth that is the NREGA—one of the world’s largest rural poverty alleviation programmes—and the corruption within. It led him back to his village, where eventually, he and his comrades (primarily women from the Dalit and most backward castes) formed the anti-corruption group Manrega Watch. Their tale is one strand of village politics, a story of resilience among citizens, those outside the system.

But what of the ‘insiders’? The complex local-state unit of the village has at the top a mukhiya, who, like the one in Sanjay’s village, wields great power, even to do harm. Ward members—closest to their constituents and the most socially representative group in the panchayati raj system—are at the bottom of this structure.

Development economist M.R. Sharan brings these two interweaving strands of insiders and outsiders together to tell a tale of hope: that those on the margins can challenge entrenched hierarchies. Through government action—reservation, decentralisation, transparency measures—and through citizen engagement, social movements and elections, change is possible, if not necessarily easy. Take the resourceful ward member, Kamal Manjhi, who repurposed the grievance redressal system to complain against the state: this was essentially a member of the local state, using a state mechanism to arm-twist another part of the state to do its job.

Last Among Equals eschews the usual sweeping narratives of national and state politics, reaching instead for the ‘swirling, vivid sub-narratives that escape easy categorisations’, the darkness of the material leavened with deep empathy. The result is a captivating, often searing narrative of how lives are lived in the villages of Bihar—and indeed in much of India.