India Today ⁽¹⁰⁾

Shinzo Abe turned around Japan's flagging economy with bold reforms. India must do the same. Read full article Despite the growth debacle in the last two years, growth has averaged 8 per cent per annum in real rupees during the past decade. Thanks to the steady appreciation of the rupee against the dollar in real terms, annual growth in real dollars has exceeded 11 per cent during the decade. At this pace, India would become the third largest economy in the world with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 8.8 trillion dollars (in 2012 dollar terms) in 15 years. Japan, currently the third largest economy, is predicted to grow to no more than 7.5 trillion dollars by 2027. But such a vast change can't come about automatically. The assumption that India could keep growing at 8 per cent or more without the government doing its bit was the mistake the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government made. Just as the reforms by prime ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee produced a miracle, their neglect by the UPA has produced…

Ten years ago, only three in hundred Indians had a phone. That number's up to 45 now. The next step is going from plain communications to applications. Read full article The spread of mobile telephones across the breadth and length of the nation is without doubt the biggest success story of the Indian economic reforms. No single event since Independence has transformed the lives of Indians as mobile phones have. Remarkably, the transformation has come about almost entirely within the last decade. Just 10 years ago, the total number of mobile and fixed-line phones was less than three per 100 individuals. Mobile phones had been introduced in the mid-1990s and accounted for barely 6 per cent of all telephones. Today, the number of phones per 100 individuals has risen to an impressive 45. Much of this growth has been in mobile phones, which now account for a staggering 92 per cent of all phones. Fixed-line phones are now an endangered species. While the growth in phones has been concentrated in cities, rural areas have been fast catching up. There are…

The Indian economy performed better between 2003-04 and 2005-06 than during any other three-year period since Independence. Read full article The Indian economy performed better between 2003-04 and 2005-06 than during any other three-year period since Independence. During these three years, India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP)-a measure of the country's total income-has grown 45 per cent in dollar terms. Merchandise exports have doubled and services exports have trebled. The total number of vehicles produced during these three years exceeds the entire stock of registered vehicles in 1990-91. In telecommunications, India has gone from a total of five million telephone lines in 1991 to five million additional telephones every month. These developments have placed India among a handful of future economic powers. Discussions of success stories are now centred not on the East Asian tigers of yesteryear, but on India and China. And given the uncertainty surrounding the longrun stability of China's authoritarian regime, many place greater faith in the future of a democratic India. Will India overtake the Chinese dragon? Therefore, a burning question these days is whether India can…

Guest column for a special issue of India Today, February 19, 2001. Where are we likely to be in 2010? Our growth rate during the next 10 years is likely to average 6 to 7 per cent. This is the same rate I had predicted in 1994 for the decade of the 1990s. With growth rate in 1993-94 at a measly 3.8 percent, the prediction was viewed as hugely optimistic at the time; today, with the economy already growing at 6 per cent, it is likely to be viewed as pessimistic. Read full article Let me begin with an excerpt from the special issue of INDIA TODAY dated February 4, 2010: "At the turn of the millennium, the country had an annual per-capita income of $450. A quarter of the country's population lived below the poverty line. Infant mortality rate was 70 per 1,000 live births. Two out of every five individuals aged 15 or more were illiterate. Annual per capita electric power consumption was 450 kw/h. For every 1,000 people, there were 22 phone lines, two cell-phone subscribers and less…

Review in India Today of Eight Lectures on India’s Economic Reforms by T. N. Srinivasan. These eight gems, cut and shaped to perfection by a master craftsman, offer the reader a panoramic view of the economic reforms undertaken by India since 1991 and those that still await it. Read full article These eight gems, cut and shaped to perfection by a master craftsman, offer the reader a panoramic view of the economic reforms undertaken by India since 1991 and those that still await it. Do not be deceived by their small size - eight of them together span less than 100 pages - they hold the potential to illuminate the layman and the connoisseur alike. Anyone undertaking a short journey and wishing to give himself a crash course on the Indian economy will be well advised to take this book along. The book brings together eight lectures that T.N. Srinivasan delivered in July 1998, as the first Visiting V.K.R.V. Rao Professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. The lecture format imposes a certain discipline, especially on length,…