Some aspects of external dimensions of the Indian economy in the age of globalization

This chapter is dedicated to Professor Sunanda Sen, who worked on the issue of external dimensions of the Indian economy throughout her academic life. Her works include various aspects of external trade, balance of payments, foreign capital flows and external finance with regard to the Indian economy. ¹ With respect to India’s external payments crisis which surfaced in the early 1990s, she maintained her position ‘that the developmental dimensions of the crisis are distinct from the short-term liquidity aspects which are paramount to the international lenders’. ² In this age of neoliberal globalisation, an economy’s external dimensions are not only restricted to trade flows; they also include different types of foreign-capital flows, exchange-rate management and the country’s foreign exchange reserve accumulation, along with its external debt positions.