Ashwini Deshpande

Ashwini Deshpande is an Indian economist best known for her papers concerning various topics such as poverty, inequality, regional disparities, and gender discrimination. She is currently working as a professor at Ashoka University; she has taught at the Delhi School of Economics in the past as well. She has won many awards for her papers and publications, one of which is called Grammar of Caste: Economic Discrimination in Contemporary India. After graduating she was a lecturer at different colleges and universities in the Delhi area. From 1998-2000 Ashwini Deshpande Post-doctoral research fellow, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.

She also has a lot of major research and organisational experience, which includes being a chairperson at the annual conference for development and change from 2005-2007 and 2010. She was also appointed to some official positions including being a member of the Ministry of Minority Affairs in 2007, the consultative group of external sector in 2004, and in planning commission all for the Government of India.

Notable works Ashwini Deshpande has written several works, including books, journal articles, and papers. The overall theme of her work is the effects of Indian culture on its own society. She has also written some articles about music.

Books Ashwini Deshpande has currently published several books of her own, including The Grammar of Caste: Economic Discrimination in Contemporary India, published in 2011, Globalization and Development: A Handbook of New Perspectives, published in 2010, and The Global Economic Crisis and the Developing World.

The Grammar of Caste: Economic Discrimination in Contemporary India is about the discrimination there is within Indian society because of the caste system in India and how it has changed in recent years. Data from the Indian Railways for 23 years was examined. Research from various other writers suggests that there are patterns in the labour market which show that in many jobs people are discriminated against just because of their caste. The study took these height differences and compared them to the socioeconomic status of each child, as it would be assumed that a child with higher socioeconomic status would have a higher chance of being healthier and therefore taller. The study identifies an "identifiable victim effect" One uncertainty from this study is that some aspects of earning may be unexplained, if one company earns more than the other it may not be case the answer is because their caste is different, it may just be that their product is poor. In the results around 55% of the gap was unexplained, There was no conclusion for this particular study as the data was not able to be compared due to differences in years in which the data was presented. A survey was given to university students, where they were asking questions regarding the admission process regarding non-reserved or open seats, which are seen as beneficiary programs that the university implements to give a fair chance to everyone applying, especially because in India there is sometimes corruption involved for admissions. In the results it was clear that students from a higher-caste did not take the beneficiary programs as well as the lower-caste students. Meaning higher-caste students were more judging and were looking at the programs prejudicially, which stems from the caste-system in India. The results point out that anti-discriminatory rules and policies should be put in action by educational institutions in India to decrease the amount of stigma revolving around low-caste individuals.

Awards and grants