India’s Political Economy in a Global Context

Abstract

This chapter provides a descriptive and historical overview of some of the elements of India's political economy in the post-independence period. It examines a number of political, economic and social themes in India beginning in the early 1980s, and the national and international economic policies and forms of state intervention that typified this era. It then considers the economic policy changes that were introduced in the 1980s and the early 1990s. These changes were related to and set the context for the policy changes for trade in services, telecommunications, computer software and audiovisual services, sectors that are examined in more detail in subsequent chapters.