The Indian IT industry and neoliberalism: The irony of a mythology

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 29, Issue 6, 2008, Pages 1139-1152

  Saraswati, Jyoti ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HIGH TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY; INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT; INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY; LIBERALIZATION; NEOLIBERALISM; SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; STATE ROLE; TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT;

ASIA; EURASIA; INDIA; SOUTH ASIA;

EID: 48049123874     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590802201105     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. P Evans, 'Indian informatics in the 1980s: The changing character of state involvement', World Development, 20 (1), 1992, pp 1-18.
2. M Patibandla & B Peterson, 'Role of transnational corporations in the evolution of a high-technology industry: The case of India's software industry', World Development, 32 (1), 2002, pp 561-566.
3. and A D'Costa, 'Uneven and combined development: Understanding India's software exports', World Development, 31 (1), 2003, pp 211-226.
4. See S Agarwal, 'Electronics in India: Past strategies and future possibilities', World Development, 13 (3), 1985, pp 273-292.
5. and J Grieco, 'Between dependence and autonomy: India's experience with the international computer industry', PhD thesis, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1982, for seminal but seemingly forgotten works.
6. P Ghemawat & M Patibandla, 'India's exports since reforms: Three analytic industry studies', in J Sachs, A Varshney & N Bajpai (eds), India in the Era of Economic Reforms, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000 posit liberalisation as the driving force
7. while R Miller, Leapfrogging? India's Information Technology Industry and the Internet, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001 notes the importance of US FDI.
8. The article derives much information from the following Indian government documents: Department of Electronics, Annual Reports, New Delhi: Government of India, various years.
9. Department of Electronics, Software Export Scheme, New Delhi: Government of India, 1972.
10. Department of Electronics, Software Policy 1974, New Delhi: Government of India, 1974.
11. Department of Electronics, The Minicomputer Policy, New Delhi: Government of India, 1978.
12. Department of Electronics, The New Computer Policy, New Delhi: Government of India, 1984.
13. Department of Electronics, Computer Software Export, Software Development and Training, New Delhi: Government of India, 1986.
14. Electronics and Planning Analysis, New Delhi: Department of Electronics, various years.
15. and Government of India, Report of the Electronics Committee, New Delhi: Government of India, 1966.
16. Even now the DAE has maintained a strong allegiance to self-sufficiency, as seen by discontent within it over the India-US nuclear deal, which will dismantle India's nuclear technology independence while generating huge revenues for US company General Electric.
17. Grieco, 'Between dependence and autonomy', p 107.
18. CR Subramanian, India and the Computer: A Study of Planned Development, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992, p 185.
19. Cited in Ibid, p 76.
20. V Pingle, Rethinking the Developmental State: India's Industry in Comparative Perspective, New York: St Martin's Press, 1999, p 121.
21. Subramanian, India and the Computer, p 24.
22. Pingle, Rethinking the Developmental State, p 121.
23. R Heeks, India's Software Industry: State Policy, Liberalisation and Industrial Development, Oxford/New Delhi: Sage, 1996, p 276.
24. Ibid, p 291.
25. Information from www.STPI.in, 2006.
26. See P Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; and Pingle, Rethinking the Developmental State.
27. Bhagwati was a neoliberal critic of state planning and agrees with a pro-statist Herring regarding the complete failure of India's attempt at development via state-planning. See J Bhagwati, India in Transition: Freeing the Economy, Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
28. and R Herring, 'Embedded particularism: India's failed developmental state', in M Woo-Cummings (ed), The Developmental State, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.