Hunger and Containment: How India Became “Important” in US Cold War Strategy
By Nick Cullather

In 1947, Harry S. Truman could scarcely imagine that “anyone thought [India] was important.” But only a decade later, Senator John F. Kennedy put forward a radically different appraisal of the value of India, and the strategic meaning of poverty. The sheer scale of India’s deprivation, he argued, made it the decisive ideological battleground, and “a world power with a world audience” in its own right. In the minds of American planners, India’s position at the center of a line of containment gradually gave way to its more crucial function as a model of economic development. The goal of representing India as an authentically Western model, distinct from China, underlay an aid relationship that created the “problem” of hunger and then made solving it an international goal.

 

Institutions in Transition: Property Rights Regime Changes and the Saga of Foreign Firms in India
By Sumit K. Majumdar

This article evaluates the extent to which the institutional changes in India within the last few decades, in particular after 1991, have made an impact on the presence of foreign firms in the economy. The data cover the period 1957-58 to 2001-02, and include the population of India’s corporate sector. In the period after reforms commenced in 1991, the number of foreign firms in India has increased substantially. The basic property rights regime changes have had significant effects on providing incentives for foreign firms to operate in India. The availability of property rights, permitting ownership of 51 percent after 1991 and 74 percent in some sectors after 1997, has been a major factor affecting the motivation of foreign firms to operate in India. In addition, the transformation of the foreign exchange regulation act (FERA) to the foreign exchange management act (FEMA) in 1999 has had a positive effect in inducing foreign firms to India.

 

Review Essay: New Perspectives on Security in the Subcontinent
by Timothy D. Hoyt

The Indian subcontinent remains a chronically under-studied area of the world in U.S. academic circles. This inattention is curious, since both Pakistan and India are emerging as critical partners in U.S. policy, both states possess nuclear weapons, and the entire region is an enormous generator of violent religious and ethno-nationalist non-state actors. T. V. Paul’s The India-Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry and Rajesh Basrur’s Minimum Deterrence and India’s Nuclear Security both make important contributions to current scholarship. Each book applies broad theoretical frameworks – enduring rivalries and deterrence theory, respectively – to the specific conditions of the subcontinent, buttressed by compelling empirical evidence and a rich dose of regional and cultural context.