3 Review(s)

India, Australia and South Africa are the three major regional powers in the Indian Ocean region. While Australia is a developed country with a very high level of economic affluence, the South African society’s problems are mainly drawn along racial lines. Blacks in South Africa have an overwhelming majority in numbers, and yet most of the black people in South Africa face serious problems of unemployment and poverty. The whites in South Africa have, on the other hand, always enjoyed comfortable standards of living. India provides the classic example of a developing country that is burdened with overpopulation, communal divisions, gender inequalities, rural poverty, illiteracy and yet it is a country that has the potential to emerge as a great global power in the course of the 21st century. The essays included in this Volume examine the case of India from various perspectives to demonstrate how the process of economic change in India might have a bearing on the Indian Ocean region as a whole. About Author: R.N. Ghosh is Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Prior to his voluntary early retirement (1995), he was Head of the Department of Economics and Director of the Centre for Migration and Development Studies at UWA. Before migrating to Australia he taught at the University of Delhi and at Visva-Bharati at Santiniketan in India. Professor Ghosh’s two main research interests are the History of Economic Thought and Development Economics. A prolific writer, he has published a number of books and written many articles for learned journals. M.A.B. Siddique is at present Director of the Centre for Migration and Development Studies which is located within the Department of Economics at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia. Prior to this he used to teach at the University of Rajshahi in Bangladesh where he obtained his early degrees in Economics (B.A. Honours, M.A. and M.Phil.). He also obtained a post-graduate diploma in Development Economics from the University of Hawaii in 1975 before working for his Ph.D. at the University of Western Australia. A frequent contributor to learned journals, Dr. Siddique’s principal research interests relate to consumption economics, development economics and economic history with special focus on South-East Asia, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. R. Gabbay is Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Economics, the University of Western Australia and is a Visiting Professor at the Notre Dame University of Australia. He has published extensively in the fields of marketing, banking and finance, and socio-economic issues relating to the Middle East and the Indian Ocean region. He has also acted as consultant to the Economic Commission of Europe, the Iranian Government, the Seychelles Marketing Board, the UNICO International Group, the Swiss Banking Corporation and others.