Yes / Purpose – The four Asian tigers, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan (also called Four Dragons) experienced miraculous high growth rates in the pre-1990s period and rapidly transformed their economic status from less developed “basket cases” to developed high-income countries gaining entry to the rich OECD club of countries. These countries even in the post-1990s, barring few years, have continued to grow further and are an inspiring role model for the newly emerging economies. The purpose of this paper is to adduce certain trends in these countries since the 1990s and specifically examine role of human capital and knowledge building, productivity convergence and intra-regional trade in the Asian tigers’. The authors examine these in the context of India. Design/methodology/approach – The paper in a simple descriptive yet analytical approach explores the relevance of above factors in the Indian context. Findings – The study observed that India ranks far below the Asian tigers in the knowledge economy index (KEI). The results at the sub-national level showed large disparities across the states in knowledge economy reflecting country’s difficulties in catching up with other countries overall. Regarding labour productivity, the results show that India was moving away from the benchmark country until 1990 ( pre-reform period) and started catching up particularly due to physical capital (not necessarily human capital) since 1995 onwards. Originality/value – The study is unique due to several reasons. First, it contributes to the literature examining contemporaneous Asian tigers and Indian economies performance as not many studies exist in this area. Second, the study also builds a unique first ever KEI at the sub-national level for India and is, therefore, a contribution in this respect. Finally, the study also contributes to the literature on Indian economic development.

This thesis postulates the annihilation of the poor as the authorised end of development. This circumstance, I contend, is an effect of the entanglement – that is, the mutual affectability (Barad 2007) – of the human and capital as descriptors of ethical and economic value, respectively. Accordingly, I suggest that the annihilation of the poor by capital under the sign of development is authorised as the preservation of value. I designate this as the postcolonial capitalist condition. The argument unfolds through encounters with three sites that have become metonymic with destruction wrought by development: the state response to peasant revolt against land expropriation in Nandigram, the Bhopal gas leak, and the recently emergent surrogacy market. I offer these as different instantiations of the annihilation of the poor, each of which gives lie to the recuperative myth of development. Here, annihilation proceeds by leaving a material trace upon the body. I follow this trace to argue the indispensability of the body in performing the ideological work of development – that is, to preserve an idealised appearance as human through the eradication of the poor that appear as subaltern – even as it establishes itself as an emancipatory truth. Thus, in this thesis I offer an analysis of the violence of capital not as socio-materially imposed (per Karl Marx) but rather as an onto-materially authorised (following Georges Bataille). As such, I seek to explicate the differential mattering of bodies – as both, appearance and significance – under development.

The present study challenges the negative and static stance of the recent literature on Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, and espouses a balanced and moderate approach. The existing literature focuses only on human development and ignores the underlying social, political and economic changes taking place in the state. It ignores the decline in credit to the state. The present study synthesises and amalgamates various streams of literature on the state to fill the gap. It uses bank credit and its role in UP’s economic development as a tool to explore the changes and structural and regional shifts in the state. It examines bank credit to various regions, districts, occupations, rural and urban populations, large and small borrowers and gender in UP. This study explores credit in a multi-dimensional framework as a route to growth, development, inequality, globalisation, urbanisation, and empowerment. The study further explores the relationship between bank credit and the state’s human development. As a critique of the existing literature, the study examines whether UP is really lagging behind other states of India. Through a twin indicator approach, broadly grouped into income and non-income, the study shows that the state does lag on income front. The non-income indicators analysis, however, shows that a number of other states including high-income states are lagging. The study eschews the watertight categorisation of east and west UP as pursued in the existing literature, and adopts a broader regional classification. This showed that, although gradual, change has occurred in UP. The overall findings of the study suggest that structural and non-structural constraints characterise the development of the state. The multiple roles of credit have generated growth, helped in poverty reduction, but also influenced regional inequality and rural-urban inequalities, and widened the gap between small and large borrowers in the state. The empowerment of women through credit from commercial banks remains a distant goal as women receive less than 20 per cent of the total credit. Another significant finding of the study is that the income and non-income factors are strongly correlated, for instance, the strong negative relationship between income and the Human Poverty Index. The study, therefore, underlines the need for increased economic growth to achieve better economic and human development outcomes.

The present study challenges the negative and static stance of the recent literature on Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, and espouses a balanced and moderate approach. The existing literature focuses only on human development and ignores the underlying social, political and economic changes taking place in the state. It ignores the decline in credit to the state. The present study synthesises and amalgamates various streams of literature on the state to fill the gap. It uses bank credit and its role in UP’s economic development as a tool to explore the changes and structural and regional shifts in the state. It examines bank credit to various regions, districts, occupations, rural and urban populations, large and small borrowers and gender in UP. This study explores credit in a multi-dimensional framework as a route to growth, development, inequality, globalisation, urbanisation, and empowerment. The study further explores the relationship between bank credit and the state’s human development. As a critique of the existing literature, the study examines whether UP is really lagging behind other states of India. Through a twin indicator approach, broadly grouped into income and non-income, the study shows that the state does lag on income front. The non-income indicators analysis, however, shows that a number of other states including high-income states are lagging. The study eschews the watertight categorisation of east and west UP as pursued in the existing literature, and adopts a broader regional classification. This showed that, although gradual, change has occurred in UP. The overall findings of the study suggest that structural and non-structural constraints characterise the development of the state. The multiple roles of credit have generated growth, helped in poverty reduction, but also influenced regional inequality and rural-urban inequalities, and widened the gap between small and large borrowers in the state. The empowerment of women through credit from commercial banks remains a distant goal as women receive less than 20 per cent of the total credit. Another significant finding of the study is that the income and non-income factors are strongly correlated, for instance, the strong negative relationship between income and the Human Poverty Index. The study, therefore, underlines the need for increased economic growth to achieve better economic and human development outcomes.

The present study challenges the negative and static stance of the recent literature on Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, and espouses a balanced and moderate approach. The existing literature focuses only on human development and ignores the underlying social, political and economic changes taking place in the state. It ignores the decline in credit to the state. The present study synthesises and amalgamates various streams of literature on the state to fill the gap. It uses bank credit and its role in UP’s economic development as a tool to explore the changes and structural and regional shifts in the state. It examines bank credit to various regions, districts, occupations, rural and urban populations, large and small borrowers and gender in UP. This study explores credit in a multi-dimensional framework as a route to growth, development, inequality, globalisation, urbanisation, and empowerment. The study further explores the relationship between bank credit and the state’s human development. As a critique of the existing literature, the study examines whether UP is really lagging behind other states of India. Through a twin indicator approach, broadly grouped into income and non-income, the study shows that the state does lag on income front. The non-income indicators analysis, however, shows that a number of other states including high-income states are lagging. The study eschews the watertight categorisation of east and west UP as pursued in the existing literature, and adopts a broader regional classification. This showed that, although gradual, change has occurred in UP. The overall findings of the study suggest that structural and non-structural constraints characterise the development of the state. The multiple roles of credit have generated growth, helped in poverty reduction, but also influenced regional inequality and rural-urban inequalities, and widened the gap between small and large borrowers in the state. The empowerment of women through credit from commercial banks remains a distant goal as women receive less than 20 per cent of the total credit. Another significant finding of the study is that the income and non-income factors are strongly correlated, for instance, the strong negative relationship between income and the Human Poverty Index. The study, therefore, underlines the need for increased economic growth to achieve better economic and human development outcomes.

The present study challenges the negative and static stance of the recent literature on Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, and espouses a balanced and moderate approach. The existing literature focuses only on human development and ignores the underlying social, political and economic changes taking place in the state. It ignores the decline in credit to the state. The present study synthesises and amalgamates various streams of literature on the state to fill the gap. It uses bank credit and its role in UP’s economic development as a tool to explore the changes and structural and regional shifts in the state. It examines bank credit to various regions, districts, occupations, rural and urban populations, large and small borrowers and gender in UP. This study explores credit in a multi-dimensional framework as a route to growth, development, inequality, globalisation, urbanisation, and empowerment. The study further explores the relationship between bank credit and the state’s human development. As a critique of the existing literature, the study examines whether UP is really lagging behind other states of India. Through a twin indicator approach, broadly grouped into income and non-income, the study shows that the state does lag on income front. The non-income indicators analysis, however, shows that a number of other states including high-income states are lagging. The study eschews the watertight categorisation of east and west UP as pursued in the existing literature, and adopts a broader regional classification. This showed that, although gradual, change has occurred in UP. The overall findings of the study suggest that structural and non-structural constraints characterise the development of the state. The multiple roles of credit have generated growth, helped in poverty reduction, but also influenced regional inequality and rural-urban inequalities, and widened the gap between small and large borrowers in the state. The empowerment of women through credit from commercial banks remains a distant goal as women receive less than 20 per cent of the total credit. Another significant finding of the study is that the income and non-income factors are strongly correlated, for instance, the strong negative relationship between income and the Human Poverty Index. The study, therefore, underlines the need for increased economic growth to achieve better economic and human development outcomes.

This thesis undertakes a study of the modern state in India in the context of counterinsurgency. Through a combination of ethnographic and historical methods, it explores the processes and practices of state formation and legitimacy-building in an erstwhile Maoist guerrilla zone of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. The colonial and postcolonial histories of this forested region, known popularly as the Jungle Mahals, are punctuated by moments of violent conflict and regime-change. These moments of rupture have tended to periodically reorder the relationships between the modern state and its ordinary subjects. Accordingly, the thesis reconstructs a trajectory of state-society relations in the Jungle Mahals from the early colonial era, when East India Company officials created a modern state apparatus to deal with rural rebellions, to the present, when the Indian government has pursued a 'development' agenda to wean ordinary people away from Maoist rebels. I show that periods of insurgency and counterinsurgency ought to be recognised as critical junctures in the history of the modern state in frontier regions such as the Jungle Mahals. The modern state is made and remade in the course of counterinsurgency as both state and rural society are reordered in tandem from above and below. Hence, I make a case for studying the state, understood as both an idea and a set of material practices, from 'within', that is, as emerging through the mediation of actors who represent the state and ordinary villagers in my fieldsites. Furthermore, through an exploration of ordinary villagers' responses to counterinsurgency in the Jungle Mahals, this thesis argues that popular responses to counterinsurgency cannot be explained through the binaries of resistance and complicity. In other words, it is necessary to examine the complex textures of people's lives and subjectivities vis-à-vis the state during and after counterinsurgencies in order to appreciate how statemaking in such circumstances, far from being a top-down imposition on hapless subjects, emerges from below as well.

This thesis analyzes the development and current state of the Indian economy, its strengths but also weaknesses that prevent further development. Included is the development of the economy since independence in 1947 till present, current development of the most important macroeconomic indicators and the structure of the economy. The second part analyzes involvement of India in foreign trade and FDI inflows into the country. Next chapter analyzes the trade relations of India and the Czech Republic. Evaluates the importance of mutual business partnership and defines additional opportunities and promising sectors for Czech exporters and entrepreneurs in order to expand trade relations. The last chapter describes specific cultural traits that influence doing business in India. Defines the basis of culture, which should lead to its better understanding and gives specific advices for successful trading in the country.

Anti-corruption movements play a vital role in democratic development. From the American Gilded Age to global demonstrations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, these movements seek to combat malfeasance in government and improve accountability. While this collective action remains a constant, how government elites perceive and respond to such agitation, varies. My dissertation tackles this puzzle head-on: Why do some democratic governments respond more tolerantly than others to anti-corruption movements? To answer this research question, I examine variation across time in two cases within the world’s largest democracy: India. I compare the Congress Party government's suppressive response to the Jayaprakash Narayan movement in 1975, and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government’s tolerant response to the India Against Corruption movement in 2012. For developing democracies such as India, comparativist scholarship gives primacy to external, material interests – such as votes and rents – as proximately shaping government behavior. Although these logics explain elite decision-making around elections and the predictability of pork barrel politics, they fall short in explaining government conduct during credibility crises, such as when facing nationwide anti-corruption movements. In such instances of high political uncertainty, I argue, it is the absence or presence of an ideological checks and balance mechanism among decision-making elites in government that shapes suppression or tolerance respectively. This mechanism is produced from the interaction between structure (multi-party coalition) and agency (divergent cognitive frames in positions of authority). In this dissertation, elites analyze the anti-corruption movement and form policy prescriptions based on their frames around social and economic development as well as their concepts of the nation. My research consists of over 110 individual interviews with state elites, including the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, party leaders, and senior bureaucrats among other officials for the contemporary case; and a broad compilation of private letters, diplomatic cables and reports, and speeches collected from three national archives for the historical study. To my knowledge this is the first data-driven study of Indian politics that precisely demonstrates how ideology acts as a constraint on government behavior in a credibility crisis. On a broader level, my findings contribute to the recently renewed debate in political science as to why democracies sometimes behave illiberally.