Unitedworld School of Business

Semester I

Evolution of Indian Business

1. With examples of business enterprises, show the difference between development of Calcutta
and Bombay as business hubs in the pre-Independence period,

2. Explain, with examples, why and how the large private business groups in India diversified in
related or unrelated areas in the 1950s and 1960s.

3. Critically examine with examples the performance of Public Sector in India from 1950 to date.
Discuss their contribution to the Indian economy and their shortcomings.

4. Why do you think India had no choice but to have a “mixed economy” strategy of development
in the 1950s?

5. Why did the planners institute the licensing policy in the 1950s? How did the policy become self-
defeating?

6. Why was import-substitution policy needed for Indian industries in the 1950s? Explain with
examples of some business houses that benefitted from this policy.

7. What was the logic of reservation for Small Scale Industries in the 1960s? How did it affect
productivity of the manufacturing sector? How is the SSI sector different today from what it was
in the 1960s?

8. How were Indian companies protected from foreign investment in the 1970s and 1980s? What
were the effects?

9. What were the shortcomings of the Nehru-Mahalanobis development model?

10. How was the Indian economy partially liberalized in the 1980s? What were the effects of the
changed policies on the structure of the economy?

11. Describe some new companies that emerged in the 1980s and their contribution to Indian
industrial sector.

12. What factors led to the economic crisis in India in 1990-91? What steps did the government take
to tackle the crisis?

13. How did the Indian industrial sector adjust to policy liberalization in the 1990s? Discuss with
respect to scales of production, entry of foreign companies, changes in consumer demand and
technological changes.
14. How did global technological revolution change the Indian business scenario in the 1990s and
2000s? Discuss the new avenues of businesses that came up.

15. Describe the emergence of technocrat-driven Indian companies since 2000. How has
globalization helped these companies?

16. How is the composition of the Indian service sector at present essentially different from that of
the 1960s?

17. How has disinvestment affected Indian public sector enterprises since the mid-1990s?

18. How has the banking sector changed since the 1970s?

19. How has the Indian manufacturing sector become part of the global production chain since
2000?

20. Describe the emergence of Indian multinational companies that are increasingly investing
abroad. Discuss the motives of outward FDI of Indian companies.

21. Describe how consumerism in the Indian society affected the Indian economy since the 1980s.
Explain with examples of some consumer products.

22. What has been the contribution of MNCs on the Indian manufacturing sector since the 1990s?