ABSTRACT

On 14 August 1947, the eve of India’s independence, Jawaharlal Nehru enthusiastically said ‘The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity’ (my italics). Similar statements can be found from other leaders of South Asian countries during that period. Here begins the quest for South Asian nations to end inequality of opportunity. However, even today we continuously hear similar statements in South Asia, implying that the end of inequality of opportunity has not yet been realized. From the view point of development economics, reducing inequality is important in

enhancing the welfare of nations for two reasons:

reducing inequality has an intrinsic value; reducing inequality has an instrumental value for economic development: equal opportunity

contributes to development through overcoming market failures via a more equal distribution of assets and through efficient institutions and social arrangements (World Bank 2005; Bardhan, 2009).