Need for a Coherent Political Strategy

Jean Drèze is well known in India, but is hardly a household name elsewhere, despite having attracted two Nobel prize-winners and a British lord as co-authors. He is best known for his collaborations with Amartya Sen. He is a Belgian economist trained in England. He has lived in India since 1979, currently in Ranchi, and has been a citizen since 2002. He was a member of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council and was involved with the National Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The essays brought together here were written since the millennium.

The book consists of a substantial introduction and 54 short chapters (most of them originally op-ed pieces for the Hindu) grouped in 10 sections—seven of them mainly concerned with the welfare of the poor (drought and hunger, poverty, school meals, healthcare, child development and elementary education, employment guarantee, food security and the public distribution system); two with politics (corporate power and technocracy; war and peace); and a final miscellany.