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18Aug

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Economy | Karthik Muralidharan: From poverty line to dignity line

The best way for India to become a global power is to sustain annual economic growth rates of above 8 per cent. High growth is also the best way to eliminate poverty, improve citizens’ lives and generate the tax revenues needed to fund an effective social safety system that can support those who fall into poverty and help them bounce back. How can we achieve these high and sustained growth rates?A simple summary of the Indian economy is that the top 10 per cent of the income distribution create firms or secure well-paid jobs. The next 30-40 per cent find employment of varying quality serving the demand created by the top 10 per cent, and the bottom 50-60 per cent (mainly in rural areas) are largely excluded from India’s growth story. They rely on welfare programmes to achieve basic living ...

18Aug

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Economy | Amitabh Kant: The essential growth sutras

About 10 years ago, India was seen as one of the ‘Fragile Five’ economies, with shaky macroeconomic fundamentals. Confidence in the economy was plummeting, and inflation spiralling. Even though the economy had been liberalised in the ’90s, a web of regulations still existed, making India one of the toughest places to do business in. Over the past decade, we have seen all this change. India is now a ‘bright spot’ in the global economy, recording 8.2 per cent growth in FY24.However, to become an economic superpower, we must sustain this growth rate for the coming decades. Only then will our per capita incomes increase from $2,100 to $18,000+ in three decades’ time, making us a high-income country. If we do not sustain these rates, we risk being stuck in a middle-income trap. Investment rates...

18Aug

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Industry | Sanjiv Mehta: India as the ‘plus one’ to China

In the last several decades, many countries that transitioned from the middle-income to the high-income status benefited from either joining the large European market or being endowed with natural resources like oil and gas. There are notable exceptions, like South Korea, Taiwan and Israel, who have avoided the middle-income trap through manufacturing backed by R&D and innovations. Some countries used commodity exports or manufacturing and did well for some time, but eventually floundered. In this backdrop, India will have to create its own path to prosperity, where manufacturing will play a key role. Still, it will have to be a multi-dimensional story, with growth being inclusive and sustainable. We will have to go up the value chain based on cutting-edge innovations but will at the s...

18Aug

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Industry | Naushad Forbes: Firing India Inc’s ambition

This special issue of India Today asks: How can India become a global giant? That eventual outcome is not in doubt. If we keep growing at the 6.5 per cent we have averaged for the past 30 years, we will soon be one of the three largest economies in the world. We will go on to be a huge economy by 2047, by dint of having the world’s largest population. But we will not yet be rich—as an upper-middle income country, we will be well below today’s developed world. To do better, we must place manufacturing and the ambition of Indian firms at the heart of development.First, a word about policy: this is not an article arguing that the government must do a list of things. The state’s role, in my view, is to limit itself to only those things that only it can do. In manufacturing, the state should pr...

18Aug

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Education | Turning a new page

India boasts a storied legacy of educational excellence, harking back to the ancient institutions of Nalanda and Taxila. Even today, it has one of the largest education ecosystems in the world, encompassing nearly 1.5 million schools, more than 40,000 colleges and over 1,000 universities, which together serve nearly 300 million students.However, this quantitative advantage has not translated into qualitative success. For instance, while India boasts a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 108 per cent for primary education (check the accompanying graphic for why it exceeds 100 per cent), it plummets to around 79 per cent for secondary education. In contrast, China maintains a 100 per cent GER for primary education and 89 per cent for secondary education, reflecting better student retention. India...

18Aug

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Education | Pramath Raj Sinha: India as a global study centre

Big is not always beautiful. With over 58,000 institutions and 43 million students, India’s higher education system is one of the biggest in the world. But the overall perception of our colleges and universities is poor and, indeed, our institutions are plagued by issues of low quality. Addressing these deficiencies requires a three-pronged approach focused on systemic change. Without this, India cannot become a global hub for higher education; we need to become high-quality locally to be perceived as an attractive centre internationally.Currently, there is a huge disparity in the quality of education. While prestigious public institutions like the IITs and IIMs and private ones such as Ashoka University and ISB take pains to maintain high standards, most colleges and universities struggle...

18Aug

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Education | Rukmini Banerji: Crafting schools of the future

Sometimes in the month of August, even during heavy rains, there are days when the sky is bright blue and the sun shines brightly on the treetops. On such days, it almost feels that you can see till far, far away. Today is a day like that. Let us gaze into the distance and in our mind’s eye, imagine what a school can be like in the future.Building foundations: The school for small children has four rooms built around a big internal courtyard. Each of these rooms has doors that connect into their neighbouring rooms. Wide verandas wrap around the school building on the outside. The rooms are brightly painted; children’s work decorates the walls. Shelves with colourful books and interesting toys and materials invite one to touch, smell, see and use. Although this is a school exclusively for c...

18Aug

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Education | Manish Sabharwal: Our new tryst with destiny

India’s twin challenges of politics and economics involved two risky experiments in 1947. The political one—votes for everyone—has worked out spectacularly, with India creating the world’s largest democracy on the infertile soil of the world’s most hierarchical society. But the economic one—embodied in the Avadi resolution of 1955 where the Congress session adopted a socialist economic path—failed spectacularly because it sabotaged mass prosperity by confiscating the entrepreneurial freedom to create jobs. Consequently, our labour is handicapped without capital and our capital is handicapped without labour. Our unfinished journey from national independence to mass prosperity requires policy innovation at the intersection of jobs and skills. The recent budget has made a great start, but ref...

18Aug

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Technology | Speeding on the digital freeway

At the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, work to build India’s first quantum computer is nearing completion. When ready, this small-scale quantum computer will be a significant milestone for TIFR’s Quantum Measurement and Control (QuMaC) lab, established 12 years ago to address fundamental challenges in building quantum systems. Dr R. Vijayaraghavan, who heads QuMaC, sees the project as a crucial first step for India that will “allow us to get into this game”. The project they are working on, in collaboration with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), involves designing key components, such as the quantum processing unit, electronics and software—each of which presents multiple levels of complexity.Tata Insti...

18Aug

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Technology | Kris Gopalakrishnan: Leading the world of infotech

In my book, Against All Odds, I chronicled the remarkable story of the Indian information technology industry. From just one computer in the country in the mid-1950s, we have come a long way to become the IT capital of the world. In 2024, this industry brought in over $250 billion (Rs 21 lakh crore) of revenues and contributed 7-8 per cent to the country’s GDP. As we stride confidently into the new digital age, the prospects of expanding this digital economy are bright and immense. I will discuss five such pillars that can support this growth:1. Opportunities for revenue expansion: The first pillar focuses on leveraging and scaling up India’s existing strengths in IT services and engineering R&D. As newer technologies such as Generative AI, 6G and industrial metaverse take centre stage...