ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the continuing tension of Indian development, between the achievement of high rates of economic growth and the realization of well-being for the mass of the people. In 2015, amid much fanfare, it was declared that India's rate of economic growth had at last overtaken that of China, and that the country now was the fastest growing of all the major economies. 'Inclusive growth' was the theme of India's Eleventh Five Year Plan, for the period 2007–2012. Even though, given the declining share of agriculture in its gross domestic product (GDP), India is no longer an 'agrarian economy', agriculture remains a vitally important industry. Yet, early in the 21st century, different official bodies in India have come up with widely divergent estimates of the incidence of poverty in the country, ranging between about 25 and as much as 80 per cent of the rural population.
