The past century experienced a change in global order through the efforts of some of the world's great powers: the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and northwestern Europe. However, with the turn of the century, the world witnesses a new global order driven less by the world's great powers of the past century and more by the new colossal powersIndia and China. Economists even say that the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) economies, in the latter half of the century, will have a combined national income higher than that of the erstwhile world's great powers. Looking closer, China and India are now emerging as economic superpowers. China may hold over a trillion dollars in hard currency reserves and may be seen as the global production base, but many multilateral agencies and global banks see India growing from a more stable platform. India's high-technology sector (information technology and biotechnology) is not only growing fast but also is moving up the value chain; India's services sector has a healthy growth rate, and so do many other sectors, translating into the new phenomenon of Indian companies acquiring foreign companies. There are numerous research papers and articles on India's `high growth sector' achievements. However, this issue focuses on some `not-so-high-growth sectors' that are equally important in making what India presently is. The first paper is an argument on the primary commodities market covering the food and agriculture sectors in India. The second and third papers cover important aspects of leisure, environment and infrastructure development for Orissa. The fourth paper is an effort to assess India's film industry`Bollywood', which in itself is idiosyncratic, yet enigmatic for the world over. Idiosyncrasies and imperfections will define India, differentiating itself from other emerging economies.

`Price Imperfection' seems to be an inherent structure of the primary commodities market in India. The first paper in this issue, "Volatility and Price Integration in Primary Commodities Market: A Strategic Direction in India", outlines the major issue in one of the major segments that contributes to the gross national produce. The author asserts that price volatility remains a feature of the Indian primary commodities market, irrespective of futures trading and ban periods in India, or the fragmentation of the markets. The uncertainty over the price and volume of sales from large Government of India's held food/grain stocks often makes it difficult for private traders to play their role in the market in a significant way. Some also argue that the Food Corporation of India's operational inefficiencies provide a basis for price inefficiency. The absence of commodity futures market for primary commodities will mean high inflation in real terms that will eat into the gross domestic product growth rate of the country. The paper also argues that futures trading may drive up prices and thus shoot up inflation. Yet, an efficient and well-organized commodities futures market will be helpful in price discovery for sellers and consequently planning at the farming level. The paper concludes with the suggestion that control and monitoring the intermediaries of the primary commodities market by the Government of India could be a wise step towards price parity.

In order to have sustainable development, it is pertinent to have controlled development of natural areas with the focus on environmental issues. The second paper "Strategic Development of Wetlands: An Eco-Tourism Perspective", can be seen as a plausible effort in this regard. The paper narrows down the eco-tourism necessity in the development of wetlands and describes the initiatives taken up by the state of Orissa towards development of Eco-Tourism at the areasBhitarkanika and Chilika. The paper addresses the necessity of local civic aesthetics for tourist destinations, market potential study, resource mobilization, ecology and environment conservation, infrastructure needs, development strategy for implementation and a marketing strategy for the destination to provide a basis for project conception and attracting investments for the project, with the overall objective to facilitate sustainable eco-tourism. This paper goes beyond to propose a concept plan to strategically develop tourism infrastructure.

Tourism, although a service, requires a concerted effort from different field of activities. The third paper, "On-Sea Tourism: Strategic Integrated Infrastructure Development in Orissa", is in line with the popular belief that tourism invariably warrants a need to create required tourism infrastructure in rendering the necessary services to tourists. Tourism has the potential to generate huge revenue (including foreign exchange) in return of minimum investment, considering the whole life cycle of the project. Further, the government gives top priority to this sector, as it not only generates the desired revenue but also creates numerous job opportunities across the upstream and downstream activities. This paper is an effort to propose a concept plan (proposed master plan) to the government of Orissa for developing on-sea tourism infrastructure at three selected beaches of OrissaChandipur, Puri and Gopalpur.

The fourth paper, "Marketing Strategies of Bollywood Movies in India and Overseas: An Empirical Study", strives to empirically prove that pre-release marketing has a definite impact on the box-office returns of `Bollywood' movies made by the Hindi film industry. The paper establishes that different marketing channels are used not just to create awareness but also to increase the saleability of the finished product (movie). This paper goes on to establish and classify films based on content, and link them with promotional channels considered for various movies.

-- Rajnandan Patnaik
Consulting Editor