STOCKHOLM- Progress or Poverty in South Asia

October 25, 1969 SHARP disagreement as to whether India's economy is moving forward or backward enlivened the South Asia symposium held in the last week of September under the auspices of the Institute for International Economic Studies of Stockholm University. "Asian Drama" by Gunnar Myrdal, the founder of the Institute, provided the take-off point for the discussions. Myrdal also made available a chapter on corruption (in his own vivid expression, the "soft state") from a new book on world-wide problems which he is now finishing. Additional papers dealing with rural social structure, utilisation of labour for development, and land reforms were prepared by Ungku Aziz (Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malaya at Kuala Lumpur), Thomas Balogh of Oxford, S G Madiman of FAO (formerly Reserve Bank of India). V S Vyas (Director of the Agro- Economic Research Centre at Vallabh Vidyanagar), and W F Wertheim (head of the South-East Asian Institute of the University of Amsterdam), all of whom also participated. E H Jacoby of the Stockholm Institute who served for many years as chief of the Land Tenure section in FAO had the primary responsibility for organising the symposium, acted as Secretary. The dozen and a half participants, representing amongst them six countries of Europe and three of Asia, also included Ronald Dore (London School of Economics, author of several outstanding studies on modem and pre-modern Japan), Tarlok Singh (formerly Member of the Planning Commission) and Daniel Thorner (of the Ecole Pratique des Kautes Etudes, in Paris).