Socio Economic and Regional Disparities: Some Implications for India

Abstract

India is often characterized as an emerging economic super power. The huge demographic dividend, the high quality engineering and management talent, the powerful Indian diaspora and the emerging Indian transnational - is knelling the optimism. In contrast, there is another profile of India which is rather gloomy. This is the country with the largest number of the poor, illiterates and unemployed in the world. High infant mortality, morbidity and widespread anaemia among women and children continue. India suffers from acute economic and social disparities. This article addresses four dimensions of such disparities, viz. regional, social, and gender. There is empirical evidence to indicate that during the last two decades all these disparities have been increasing.