STWR - Share The World's Resources

Despite phenomenal rates of economic growth, India is failing to improve in terms of social indicators. Only by treating growth as a means to development, rather than an end in itself, will broad-based changes in living standards be achieved, argue Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen.

The past 20 years have seen substantial progress in many aspects of human development, but these years have also seen increasing inequality as well as unsustainable trends in production and consumption patterns, according to the Human Development Report 2010.

The present economic crises do not call for a "new capitalism," but they do demand a new understanding of older ideas, such as those of Adam Smith and Arthur Pigou - many of which have been sadly neglected, argues Amartya Sen.