India: Rising Economic Giant or Bubble in the Making? (A Public Lecture by Lawrence Surendra)

August 15, 2011 (Monday)

10:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon

Conference Room
Third World Studies Center 

Lower Ground Floor, Palma Hall

College of Social Sciences and Philosophy

Roxas Avenue, University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City

Departing from previously social-oriented policies, India began in the 1990s to develop an open-market economy centered on economic liberalization, industrial deregulation, privatization of state-owned enterprises, and reduced controls on foreign trade and investment. This has accelerated the country's growth, which has averaged more than 7% per year since 1997 and hit 10% in 2010. Services are the major source of economic growth, accounting for 55% of output as India became a major exporter of information technology services and software workers. Its 2010 GDP of $4 trillion ranks it fifth in the world. India now stands, together with China, as the new economic giants set to challenge the long-running hegemony of the West. Problems remain, however. Growth has been accompanied by increasing joblessness and widespread poverty and gross inequality still persist. Access to basic social services still eludes most Indians. Social tensions and communal conflicts fester even as rural-urban migration continues unabated. Ominously, the 2011 growth figures appear to signal an economic slowdown.

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Lawrence Surendra is Environmental and Development Economist and Science and Technology Policy Specialist. He is the Planning Commission Chair Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Mysore. He is a Member of the Karnataka State Environment Appellate Authority. He has worked with UN-ESCAP, the United Nations University and UNESCO, Bangkok; was Adviser to the Stockholm Environment Institute and a scholar-in-residence at the Dag Hammarksjold Foundation, Uppsala. He was the founding Executive Director (1980-1988) of Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA). He is engaged in research and advocacy on public policy issues relating to environment and democratic governance, eco-regeneration, eco-sanitation, renewable energy, plant bio-diversity’ local knowledge systems, and sustainable agriculture. He and his wife, Pushpa, live near Mysore on an organic horticultural farm, incorporating ecological principles and design in the maintenance of the farm and natural resource use.

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Organized by the Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA Philippines) and the UP Third World Studies Center.