Articles by Debdas Banerjee

Development in India Analysis of Divergence in Historical Perspective Debdas Banerjee India is one of the most prominent developing countries where modern science from Europe came to dominate education as early as in the 19th century. Yet her economic development trail behind many of the developing countries, The colonial rule provides clues to the processes of disjunctions between pure and applied science and, between research and development. The weakness of the post-colonial state to politically resolve crucial economic issues and undertake strategic development policies gave way to the 'technocratic' solutions that entrench the earlier trend, The weakness of harnessing science to commercially viable and competitive technology is better explained by the 'receiving system' than the human capital formation as postulated in the 'New Growth Theory'.

Interaction between Trading Capital and Productive Capital in Agriculture An Unexplained Reciprocity Debdas Banerjee Pabitra Giri AJIT K Chowdhury and Kalyan K Sanyal in a paper ("Interaction between Trading Capital and Productive Capital in Agriculture: A Theoretical Approach", EPW, Review of Political Economy, July 28) have made an attempt to explain agricultural stagnation in the Third World in terms of existence of relatively profitable trading activity in advanced, capitalist islands surrounded by a large, precapitalist sector.

Tidbits on Regional Disparities THE book, a collection of 22 papers presented at the All-India Conference on Regional Disparities in India, held at New Delhi in April 1979, has come out at a time when many economists are already engaged in studying the problem. There are many earlier studies, such as those by A K Bagchi, Yoginder K Alagh, S K Rao, to name only a few. Thus the editor's allegation that "most analysis of the national economies has been almost totally devoid of the spatial dimension" (p ix) has lost much of its relevance. What is important now is to form an analytical framework in the specific context of India. But that awareness is largely missing in this book. Nevertheless, the book at least brings out many important issues relating to regional disparities.