Announcements almost every other day compel us to believe that India is now the fifth largest economy in the world; that India will be a $5 trillion economy very soon; that India will be the third largest economy of the world in 2027, and that India will become a developed nation in 2047.
As the Indian economy is expanding, more and more jobs are being created. There is, however, a difference of opinion over the pace and number of enabling economic opportunities being created across the country.
Inflation, once thought to be tamed and controlled by the steady hand of central banks, is staging a comeback, and it is not a quiet one. The era of low inflation, marked by decades of economic stability, seems like a distant memory as we grapple with the resurgence of price pressures.
Japan's enduring economic challenges serve as both a cautionary tale and a beacon of resilience.
India finds itself at a crossroads, grappling with the dual challenge of sustaining growth momentum while addressing underlying structural constraints.
Even after the decline of the golden period of the Gupta empire, great works of art, architecture and culture continued to flourish at four corners of India from the sixth century till the thirteenth century when invaders consolidated their rule on the holy land and stopped the festival of indigenous arts and cultural activities
In post-Covid times, the Fed embarked on a most aggressive and irresponsible monetary policy of hiking interest rates, leading to predictable financial instability all over. All other countries including India have been blindly following its prescriptions even when interest rate hikes were clearly failing to arrest inflation
Indian industry saw progressive liberalisation and removal of bottlenecks after 2014, beginning with increasing the cap in the defence sector, first from 26 per cent to 49 per cent under the approval route, and then to 74 per cent under the automatic route and 100 per cent under the approval route. All brownfield projects now allow 75 per cent FDI under the automatic route and 100 per cent by the approval route
"We believe India not only is the fastest growing large economy, we will continue to be so for many decades to come," Goyal said while addressing the Asia Economic Dialogue in Pune.
With successive civilian and military governments living beyond their means, unwilling to mobilise domestic resources and averse to economic reform, that fact alone contributed to miring Pakistan in perpetual financial crisis, with virtually every government in the past five decades leaving the economy in much worse shape for its successors to manage.
