Development with Justice: The Bihar Experience

Since the nation’s independence, the union and state governments of India have employed a variety of development strategies, some of which have evolved over time. The model of development implemented in Bihar in recent decades is different from its prior development strategies. Along with a number of social reform initiatives, the Bihar government implemented the “development-with-justice” model to enhance the lives and living circumstances of the most marginalized groups of the population and ensure the attainment of social justice. In light of the aforementioned context, this book offers an understanding of the various aspects of the Bihar government’s “development-with-justice” model, and the effects of its implementation on lives and quality of living conditions of the state’s underprivileged population. The book covers a wide spectrum of areas such as history of social reform measures, social justice in education, health, labour market, etc., caste- and gender-based discrimination, women’s empowerment, migrant workers, poverty, inequality, agrarian concerns, planning for development, and so on. Besides recommending policies to improve the state’s development outcomes, this book will aid researchers in identifying topics that may require additional research. Clearly researched, concise, and up-to-date, this book will be useful to the students and researchers from the fields of development economics, development studies, gender studies, sociology, political science, economic history, as well as the policy-planners in the government.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction Contributors 1. Mapping the Role of Thinkers in the Context of Ideological Trajectory of Social Justice in Bihar Sudhanshu Kumar Jha 2. Bihar’s Tryst with Social Justice Praveen Jha 3. Human Development in Bihar: Dissecting Issues and the Way Forward Santosh Mehrotra and Rakesh Ranjan Kumar 4. Education and Social Justice in Bihar: Still an Achilles’ Heel? Abhijit Ghosh and Bhaskar Majumder 5. An Empirical Case Study of Educational Experience of Musahar Children in Bihar Anju Helen Bara and Sonu Prasad 6. Beyond Teacher Quality: Understanding the Moderating Role of Infrastructure in Student Learning Outcomes in Secondary Education Amrita Singh and Sheo Rama 7. Health and Curative Health Care in Bihar: A Comparative Study Subrata Mukherjee and Ashmita Gupta 8. Choice for Modern Contraception in Bihar: Can Affirmative Action Work? Arijita Dutta and Rakhi Saha 9. Inter-District Variations in Utilisation of Maternal and Child Health Care Facilities in Bihar Sweta Sharan 10. Labour Market Discrimination in the State of Bihar Sankar Kumar Bhaumik 11. Gender and Social Discrimination in Employment and Earnings: An Empirical Analysis in Bihar Panchanan Das and Sumita Biswas 12. Caste Inequality in Child Stunting in Bihar: A Violation of Justice Neetu Choudhary 13. An Inquiry of Causes and Persistence of Poverty among Dalits in Bihar Krishna Ram 14. Multidimensional Deprivations and Social Sector Expenditure in Bihar: A Critical Look Santosh Verma and Tripti Kumari 15. Marginal Agriculture as Social Security: A Case for Facilitating Access to Land in Bihar Harshita Bhasin and Anirban Dasgupta 16. Economic Growth and Social Justice: A Study with Reference to Agricultural Households in Bihar Subhankar Mukherjee and Kranthi Nanduri 17. Access to Institutional Credit and Socio-economic Inequality: Implications for Social Justice in Rural Bihar Avanindra Nath Thakur 18. Migration, Marginality and Development: The Case of Bihar Avinash Kumar and Manish Kumar 19. COVID-19 as Social Crisis and Justice: Migrants from Bihar Surya Bhushan, Aditi Thakur, Shankar Purbey, S M U Qadri and Urvashi Kaushik 20. Economic Empowerment of Women: A Review of the Jeevika Programme Sohini Paul 21. The Path Towards Gender Mainstreaming Through Four Parameters of Development S. Siddharth and Barna Ganguli 22. Reservation for Women in Bihar Police Force: A Note Kanika Raj 23. Child Trafficking in Bihar: A Situational Analysis Juhi Singh, Alok Aditya and Suresh Kumar 24. Trends and Determinants of Child Marriage in Bihar Ashi Rooth Stuart 25. Outcome-Based Policymaking Arunish Chawla Index

About the Author :
Sankar Kumar Bhaumik is the Director of the Patliputra School of Economics. Prior to joining the Patliputra School of Economics in August 2020, he served the Departments of Economics of Calcutta University (22 years), Vidyasagar University (9 years), and the Central University of South Bihar (3 and a half years). He became Professor and Head of the Economics Department at Calcutta University and Professor and Head of the Economics Department and Dean of Social Sciences at the Central University of South Bihar. He also served as Director of the Institute of Development Studies in Jaipur. His fields of specialisation are econometrics, the economics of agriculture, Indian economic development, and research methodology. His previous book publications include Principles of Econometrics: A Modern Approach Using EViews, Reforming Indian Agriculture: Towards Employment Generation and Poverty Reduction, Enhancing Agricultural Productivity and Farmer Incomes in Bihar, and Tenancy Relations and Agrarian Development: A Study of West Bengal. He has to his credit 35 research papers published in refereed journals or edited books. He has completed 5 research projects, and supervised 14 PhD theses (all awarded) and 11 MPhil dissertations (all awarded).