Multi-Dimensional Development in Select Indian States:

The present study makes a novel attempt to analyse the issues of important aspects of development on a comparative plane across the Indian States. However, many concepts/predicates, such as poverty (or poor) and its opposite, development (or developed), used in social sciences are both vague/fuzzy and multi-dimensional and their analysis requires careful consideration of a graded membership. This study therefore employs the framework of fuzzy set theory in identifying and analysing the positions of different states of India in the development ladder, that is, their graded memberships in each development dimension and in aggregation. In particular, the objectives of the study are (i) to review the methodologies of classical set theory and fuzzy set theory; (ii) to identify the possible and empirically available dimensions of development of the Indian States; and (iii) to analyse these important dimensions of development on a comparative plane across the Indian states in the framework of fuzzy set theory.