The New Boom

Better Off Than Dad

Services Sector: Growth Engine

Faces: Adventure Capitalists

Adapters: Tradition Meets Technology

Industry: Being Indian

Careers: Techies Line Up For Jobs Online

The Scindias: Will Power
The contentious will of Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia virtually disinherits her only son Madhavrao Scindia. This controversy threatens to mar the reputation and respectability of one of India's best- known and highly regarded royal families.

Gujarat: Shaky Regime
Confronted with a monumental disaster, the Gujarat Government is at the centre of relief operations. Was its reaction timely and efficient? Could more lives have been saved?

And Greed Hits Home
More than anything, it was corruption that killed people in Gujarat as buildings constructed by getting around norms came crashing down.

Public Sector: Shotgun Exit
First large PSU where workers agreed to leave the company.

THE NEW ECONOMY: GUEST COLUMN

A Vision For 2010

India could be a superpower in a decade-if it wants to

By Arvind Panagariya

The author is a professor of economics at University of Maryland, College Park

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 than three personal computers.

"Though trade liberalisation and delicensing of investment had led to a healthy growth of 6 per cent per annum during the 1990s, the economy was still performing well below its true potential. For example, at 12 per cent of gdp, exports of goods and services remained low when compared to countries such as China. The New Economy had rapidly risen from nothing to account for almost 10 per cent of total exports but many sectors of the Old Industry performed miserably. The financial sector, specially banking, suffered from proverbial inefficiencies.

"Aware of the true potential of the economy, at the advent of the 21st century, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee set the ambitious target of doubling his country's per-capita income in the following 10 years. With the population growing 2 per cent annually, this required a GDP growth rate of 9 per cent per annum. In view of China's experience during the decade just ended, and of many east Asian tigers prior to that, this was an achievable goal.

"Vajpayee knew that there was no alternative to speeding up economic reforms if he was to achieve his objective. He rapidly reformed labour laws, giving all workers uniform rights that conformed to the international practice. He also restored employers the right to retrench workers upon payment of a reasonable compensation.

IF TOMORROW COMES
	Year 2000	Year 2001
Per capita income	$450	$1,000
Population below poverty line	25%	15%
Infant morality*	70	50
Percapita power consumption**	450 kw/h	900 kw/h
Telephone ownership+	22	150
Computer ownership +	3	30
Projections for 2010 are based on the assumption that reforms suggested by the author will be implemented
* Per 1,000 births ** per annum + per 1,000 people

"Vajpayee then proceeded to put an end to the reservation of products for small-scale enterprises thereby permitting the dynamic and successful entrepreneurs to grow big irrespective of what they produced. Simultaneously, he liberalised trade, privatised public-sector units (PSUs) engaged in manufacturing and commercial banks, built wider and better roads, modernised and expanded ports and railways, undertook massive power-sector reforms to ensure adequate power supply, put an end to subsidies to fertiliser companies, opened higher education to the private-sector, encouraged the states to expand primary and secondary education, and gave foreign investors the same rights as domestic investors.

"Thanks to the acceleration of growth, combined with a slowdown in population growth, India's annual per capita income today stands at $1,000. The proportion of those living below the poverty line has come down to 15 per cent, with their absolute number declining by 70 million. Only one out of five Indians aged 15 years or more is now illiterate and the infant mortality rate is down to 50 per 1,000 people. The number of phone lines has risen to 150 and computers to 30 per 1,000. Electricity consumption has doubled.

"Exports have grown to 20 per cent of GDP, with information technology and pharmaceuticals accounting for 35 per cent of total exports. Annually, India receives approximately $25 billion in direct foreign investment and sends out 1,00,000 information technology personnel around the world. On the trade policy front, all tariff rates are down to 10 per cent or less. In a nutshell, India is well on its way to becoming a developed country."

MetroScape
Random Readings
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra would rather be "accurate" in his latest undertaking, a book of Kabir's poetry in English, even if he says "Kabir's greatest hits may not have been written by him at all".
more...

Looking Glass

Kolkata: Restaurant

Bangalore:
Art Exhibition

New Delhi: Play

Who says Indian theatre is dying? Playwrights--both veteran and budding--in the country had a chance to interact with those from the Royal Court Theatre, London, at its first residency workshop in Bangalore recently.
It was a fortnight
of enrichment, concludes Principal Correspondent Stephen David in Despatches.

"I was very much against the idea of India," says William Dalrymple, author, The City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. In conversation with INDIA TODAY's Sonia Faleiro, he talks about his old girlfriend, Delhi and his "enormously exciting" next book, The White Moghuls in Interviews.