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What's Happened to the Rich Farmers?: Political Economy of Indian Agriculture Revisited

What's Happened to the Rich Farmers?: Political Economy of Indian Agriculture Revisited

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What's Happened to the Rich Farmers?: Political Economy of Indian Agriculture Revisited
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<strong>Centre for the Study of Social Systems School of Social Sciences </strong> <strong>CSSS Colloquium</strong> <strong>Prof. John Harris </strong> (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver) Will be giving a talk on <strong>What's Happened to the Rich Farmers?: Political Economy of Indian Agriculture Revisited</strong> Date &amp; Time:<strong> March 26, 2015</strong> <strong>Abstract:</strong> The Prime Minister was moved to defend the policy of the BJP government in regard to land acquisition in his recent radio broadcast to the nation. The possibility that farmers are threatened with loss of land is one piece of evidence that rich farmers in different parts of the country are not doing well, in different ways - economically, politically and socially. Yet explicit and implicit subsidies of benefit to farmers that make up a large share of the total subsidy bill continue to be paid out by government. Exploring this puzzle frames a reconsideration of the political economy of Indian agriculture. <strong>Bio: </strong>John Harriss is a sociologist/anthropologist with long-standing interests in the political economy of development, and experience of field research on rural society and agrarian change, especially in India. He is currently Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.