Journal Press India^®

As India moves towards being a dominant global voice with a successful completion of its G-20 Presidency, the economy has to now capitalize on new opportunities as well as strategically deal with challenges emanating from changes happening globally. This issue of PRAGATI: Journal of Indian Economy, apart from having papers dealing with conventional issues related to the Indian economy, also has papers that discuss new dimensions of change, such as the increasing role of political diplomacy for India, potential of Electric Vehicles and financial literacy among women.           

With a dominant part of India’s population engaged in agriculture, a pertinent paper by Rajib Dolai and Debasish Mondal analyse agricultural growth in India across sub-periods from 1960-61 to 2019-20. Employing the modified Bia-Perron Method to identify structural breaks, the authors find that overall, the sector has witnessed sustained growth, highlighting the importance of irrigation, cropping intensity, and efficient water management practices. The paper by Archita Nayak, Kanti Paul and Kanak Kanti Bagchi attempts to forecast milk production and per capita availability of milk in India using ARIMA and VAR Models. This paper becomes relevant in the light of the fact that milk supply forecasting is a fundamental driver for the dairy sector. Dairy companies use their forecasts to establish pricing, contracts with farms, and the production requirements for their factories. Another paper by Jeet Saha and Zafar Iqubal analyse the marketing efficiency and price spread of potato market and the determinants of marketing efficiency in Coochbehar district of West Bengal. Employing primary data, their findings indicate that in the absence of middlemen, marketing efficiency is 0.44 while in the presence of middlemen, it is 0.34. Price spreads also differ by 5 per cent if middlemen do not exist.

Two papers in this issue highlight the importance of finance in women empowerment. The paper by Therese Pereira demonstrates how microfinance through Self-Help Groups has been an effective means towards the empowerment of women on economic and social fronts. The study has been conducted for Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka State, which being the coastal hub, provides better platform for women to involve themselves in social and economic activities. Another paper by Ritika Maurya and V. Shunmugasundaram focuses on financial literacy among salaried women in India. Using the Binary Logistic Regression technique, the results indicate that financial attitude and financial behavior are influenced by place of residence but financial knowledge have no relation with place of residence. It is suggested that the financial knowledge among salaried women could be increased by developing financial products and financial literacy programmes as per their requirements.

With the renewed focus of the government on cleanliness across India, Basu Garg and Rajender Singh, in their paper, examine the awareness, perception and practices of educated segment of the society i.e. college youth, towards ‘Swatch Bharat Abhiyan’. The study finds that the target population is aware about the campaign and its usefulness, but many of the students still do not practice activities related to the campaign regularly.

As the potential use of Electric Vehicles gains momentum, an interesting paper by Morrison Dara, Saifa Ali Makandar, Avinasha Lendi and Sagar Patil analyse of factors influencing sale of Electric Vehicles in Hubballi–Dharwad. Employing a structured questionnaire, the analysis reveals that, awareness among seller, environment, range, government incentives, charging stations, battery import, battery (recycle) & battery life are the major factors influencing the sale of EVs.

With a successful G-20 summit under India’s presidency, India’s diplomatic influence and economic prospects on the global stage have significantly elevated. This dimension is examined in a ‘Perspective’ by Richa Gupta, Harshaa Kawatra and Nikita Bhardwaj which demonstrates how the G-20 Presidency has benefitted India’s diplomacy, economic prospects and global prominence. The authors observe that the Summit’s emphasis on sustainable development, renewable energy, and climate change will open up new avenues for Indian businesses and industries.

As always, we thank our authors, reviewers and readers for their kind patronage and hope that this insightful issue of PRAGATI would make for an interesting reading.

Wishing all a Happy and Prosperous 2024!

Prof. K. V. Bhanu Murthy
Editor-in-chief