Indian administrative service and crony capitalism

Abstract

In 1947, independent India embarked upon the long and arduous journey of planned socio-economic development and nation-building for establishing a welfare state and an egalitarian social order with social, economic, and political justice, equality, liberty, and fraternity for every citizen. The developmental experience of India during the last half a century has been a mixture of successes and failures. While India is now considered to be one of fastest developing and rapidly growing economies of the world, it is still home to the largest number of poor worldwide. With the $2-per-day poverty line as a point of reference, in 2010 some 68.7% of the Indian population could be considered poor (Bertelsmann Stiftung, BTI, 2014). With a Human Development Index score of 0.586 in 2014, India ranks 135 of 187 countries worldwide in human development (UNDP, 2014).