The year 2020 is almost here. Will India become a superpower one year from now? Can India become a superpower by 2020? What do you think?
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...erpower-by-2012-kalam/articleshow/3005067.cms
India to become superpower by 2012: Kalam
UDHAGAMANDALAM: Former President A P J Abdul Kalam today lauded ISRO's scientists for successfully launching the PSLV-C9 to put 10 satellites in orbit.
Besides, the Chandrayaan-I unmanned moon mission by the year end would add another feather in the country's space programme, Kalam, here to participate in a school function, said.
India has become very advanced in space technology, he said, adding the country would become a superpower by 2012.
"Though I have envisioned India to become a superpower by 2020, the attitude and the confidence of the youth, to conquer everything in the right spirit, would make the country a global leader and super power within five years," Kalam told reporters.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/Dreaming-Of-A-New-India/articleshow/1363612.cms
Dreaming Of A New India
Talk about an "Indian century" and "resurgent India" no longer expresses dreams or hopes, but expectations. But what do these mean? What do we want India to be? One dream, shared by many, is of Superpower India.
Our history during the last millennium, when invaders dominated India, makes this an understandable aspiration. Investments in armaments and in sustaining a large military force have already made us a major power in the region.
Our strong technological capabilities have added an altogether new dimension in the last few years, certain to propel us into the global power league in a few years.
Becoming a superpower in the next two or three decades is, therefore, well within the realm of possibility. Another dream, probably a reaction to centuries of poverty, is of being an economic power.
This is further fuelled by the prevailing climate of consumerism and materialism, promoted by media, advertising and retailers. Even conservative projections of likely growth rates point to India's emergence as a major economic force within the next two decades.
The question is only whether it will meet or beat the Goldman Sachs projections. Therefore, barring some major catastrophe, India is well on course to achieving economic superstardom.
These desires of military might and economic clout are probably reactions to our history of powerlessness and poverty. Yet, looking ahead not at this year or even this decade, but beyond, is this our vision for India?
Is our goal limited to getting where others are already, to play "catching up", or do we have different and more ambitious dreams? President Kalam has often proclaimed the goal of becoming a developed country by 2020.
This is itself an ambitious and laudatory goal, but we may want to look even beyond this. India carries a historical baggage of caste discrimination, exploitation, gender discrimination and illiteracy, and more recent ills like communal problems, crime and corruption.
For such a society, mere economic development at a macro-level will not be adequate; if anything, it may intensify some of its woes, particularly crime.
http://creative.sulekha.com/vision-2020-india-a-developed-nation_102092_blog
Vision 2020 - India A Developed Nation
Hindsight is 20/20. Can the vision 2020 of India as a developed nation by the year 2020 be called Foresight 20/20? Probably yes. More so if the policy initiatives of the kind taken in 1991 economic liberalization continue to be taken. Only a few years back, a mood of pessimism prevailed in the country and the informed scribes hesitated to hazard a guess about the nation's economic future. All that changed with the economic liberalization of 1991, which unleashed forces of dynamism that launched the Indian economy on a healthy growth curve. Spectacular growth in some areas surprised the nay sayers and converted the prevailing pessimism into an infectious optimism, thus raising the Vision 2020 to the level of a near certainty.
The economic liberalization of the last decade was part of the global phenomenon from which the former socialistic economies of the East reaped the most benefits. These benefits materialized relatively slowly in the Eastern Europe; faster in India; and fastest in China. The difference in the speed and strength of the upsurge was a phenomenon of the local policies and practices. It is now certain that India is on a visible path to progress towards the status of a developed nation. Whether the nation crawls, walks or runs towards it depends upon the way the future progress is fuelled. Timely policy initiatives can work as synchronized pushes to the swing ensuring a speedy progress toward the cherished goal.
Government policies in post-independence India were influenced by the perceived fear of economic strangulation of the poor by the rich. The enthusiasm to safeguard against these fears resulted in the implementation of policies which, in many cases, became roadblocks in the path of a smooth progress. This is not to minimize the spectacular achievements in agriculture, health and education fields, which were made despite these policies, sometimes even as a direct result of them. The results of the bold changes in policy made during and after 1991, however, prove that the economy is capable of propelling itself at a much faster rate if the unnecessary barriers are removed.
The most potent outcome of liberalization was the opening of a sheltered economy to global competition. It had a magical effect on the assimilation of new technologies without their feared harmful effects. This, in the process, disproved many widely held myths. Introduction of computers was feared to trigger a massive job loss, but it did not happen. Allowing easy conversion of the currency was feared to trigger a flight of capital leading to a foreign exchange crisis, which did not happen either. What actually happened was just the opposite. Instead of feared loss of jobs, the introduction of computers and information technology brought a ground swell of well paying IT jobs; instead of drying up the foreign exchange kitty, the economic liberalization triggered an unparalleled growth in foreign exchange reserves. To top it all, the astute handling of country's finances by the Reserve Bank officials disproved another myth that India is short in management skills.
There is, thus, a clear case for the identification and dismantling of the remaining road blocks, one by one. A look at the current structure of the Indian economy is enough to identify the next frontier(s). Latest available statistics show that currently the agricultural sector contributes 25%, the industrial sector 26% and the service sector 49% to the national GDP. In popular parlance, however, Indian economy is still called an agricultural economy despite the fact that this sector contributes the least to the GDP, percentage wise. This notion prevails because 65% of the population has a rural base with agriculture as its only vocation. This majority 65% agriculture-oriented portion of the population contributes only 25% to the national income while 75% of the national income comes from the minority 35% of the population engaged in the industrial and the service sectors. In other words, the extra 40% of the manpower engaged in agriculture is underemployed due to the great rural-urban divide. The prevailing government policies are designed to maintain a status quo due to the mythical fear that the economy may not be able to create enough jobs for this underemployed section of the society.
In the developed world, specifically in the USA, the agricultural sector contributes only 2% to the GDP with less than 3% of the work force engaged in that sector. Rest of the US national income, to the tune of 98%, is accounted for by the industrial and the service sectors. Even at 2% of the tremendously large US economy, agricultural production in the USA is so large that it leaves a huge exportable surplus after satisfying the needs for local consumption. It is worth noting here that the annual per capita food consumption in the USA approaches 1200 kilograms of grain equivalent, as against 200 kilograms in India. The large difference in consumption is attributed to the predominantly vegetarian dietary habits prevailing in India to its advantage. After all, on the average, it takes six kilograms of feed grains to produce one kilogram of meat. It will be most beneficial to adopt the agricultural production techniques of the developed world while preserving the Indian consumption patterns.
High productivity of the farm sector in the USA is a direct result of the large mechanized farming which came into vogue with the advent of the industrial revolution in the 1860s. Farm machinery from the industrial sector succeeded in moving the surplus agriculture labor, even the freed former slaves, to blue collar jobs in the industry to the benefit of both the sectors. In India, the post-independence land ceiling legislations restricted the farm size to small, family-owned farms. The creation of owner-tiller pattern of agriculture by the land ceiling laws did make a considerable contribution to the success of the `Green Revolution'. These laws have, however, outlived their utility. Their only effect now is the creation of undesirable barriers in the path of future development. It is high time that more pragmatic land ceiling and related agricultural policies are designed to change the structure of the economy by promoting mechanized farming and moving the surplus agriculture labor to other sectors of the economy.
Let us turn the searchlights on to uncover the hidden job banks around. The first Prime Minister of independent India made a candid statement in the 1950s that the policies of the then government were designed to transform the country from the bullock cart age to the bicycle age. Automobile age for India was then considered unthinkable, at least in the immediate future. The annual production of passenger cars could barely reach 24,000. Globalization driven economic liberalization of the 1990s triggered a welcome change, causing the passenger cars production to top half a million units per year. At this rate, it may reach a couple of million units in the year 2020. This is only one indicator of the current economic dynamics unleashed by the liberalization of the 90s. Combined with other indicators like those from the tremendous expansion in the information technology sector, it leads to an inevitable conclusion that an industrial cum service sector revolution of sorts is underway, creating well paying jobs.
These changes notwithstanding, the agrarian Indian society continues to live in 500,000 or so bullock cart age villages. There are fewer than 3000 towns and cities constituting the urban section of the society, which is currently in the thick of transformation from the bicycle age to the automobile age. The existing cities are already getting choked with automobiles while lacking in basic amenities. Historically, most of the urban centers developed around the seats of government in the past. Advent of the rail road in late 19th and early 20th centuries triggered the development of newer cities as important rail heads. While in post-independence India, the population of the country increased almost three fold, from 360 million to over one billion, there was hardly any construction of new cities, save a few like Chandigarh and Gandhi Nagar. If the manpower has to be moved from agriculture to other more productive sectors of the economy, a massive construction of new and modern cities is a must. Clean cities with efficient traffic movement patterns, adequate parking spaces, leisure and entertainment areas with parks and greenery are the very symbols of progress. There is a crying need for modernizing the existing cities while, at the same time, building new automobile age cities to accommodate the inevitable urbanization.
Construction industry has its own dynamics for creating new jobs at all levels in the industrial and service sectors. A planned building and construction activity at a massive scale has the potential of creating a huge job bank. This new job bank has the potential of providing gainful employment to the surplus agriculture labor. What is more, the process of building these facilities will add considerably to the economic progress by promoting consumerism. These activities create a positive economic feedback leading to exponential economic growth. It is, therefore, the most desirable activity to be undertaken. With imaginative policy initiatives towards involving the private sector, these activities can be promoted with little expense to the government. In fact, it will help increase the government revenues by expanding the tax base, which can be used for infrastructure development, fuelling further growth.
A bold policy initiative is required in the field of agriculture for transforming the small farms into economically sized mechanized farms. This will need the removal of constraints on the farm size. A parallel and equally bold plan is required towards the modernization of old cities and building of new ones. The resulting construction boom can be fuelled by the development of liberal construction lending institutions and related lending infrastructure. Both agriculture and construction must take the full benefits of the latest building technology and construction materials production techniques. A development on these lines will contribute greatly to the industrial and service sectors of economy while maintaining a desirable employment scenario. In fact, the creation of better paying jobs will fuel the consumer sector also and is sure to raise the rate of economic growth so much that a sustained economic growth of above 10 to 15% is in the realm of possibility.
Macro economic changes are always dynamic in nature. A change in one sector influences changes in all other sectors. Successful implementation of the proposed policy initiatives will have all round effect on different sectors of the economy. Even if the target of reduction of agriculture labor is restricted to a more achievable figure of say 15% of the population by 2020, instead of the three to five percent prevailing in the developed world, a dramatic change is likely to take place in the Indian economy.
By implementing these changes, a heuristically projected structure of the greatly expanded Indian GDP in the year 2020 may consist of 10% share from the agricultural sector, 33% from the industrial sector and 57% from the service sector. Assuming this to be the case, it will necessitate the trimming of the agricultural sector employment from 65 to 15%, a change in the employment pattern to the extent of 50% of the population freed from the agricultural sector. This scenario may appear scary to the policy makers. It is, however, achievable by implementing bold policy initiatives, especially in the building and construction sector.
A 12% sustained annual growth rate translates into doubling of economy in six years. At this rate, the economy in 2020 should increase to six to seven times of its current level. Even a reduction in the share of the agricultural sector from 25% to 10% in the expanded economy may mean two to three fold increase in value of agricultural production in addition to a tremendous increase in the industrial and service sector output. This is a welcome scenario. This may raise some fears of high rates of inflation due to expansion in money supply. But with sound money management, it is possible to keep inflation within sustainable single figure levels. It will be a challenge to technical institutions and universities in the country to work overtime for training the money managers, town planners and engineers to ensure the reality of Vision 2020.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...erpower-by-2012-kalam/articleshow/3005067.cms
India to become superpower by 2012: Kalam
UDHAGAMANDALAM: Former President A P J Abdul Kalam today lauded ISRO's scientists for successfully launching the PSLV-C9 to put 10 satellites in orbit.
Besides, the Chandrayaan-I unmanned moon mission by the year end would add another feather in the country's space programme, Kalam, here to participate in a school function, said.
India has become very advanced in space technology, he said, adding the country would become a superpower by 2012.
"Though I have envisioned India to become a superpower by 2020, the attitude and the confidence of the youth, to conquer everything in the right spirit, would make the country a global leader and super power within five years," Kalam told reporters.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/Dreaming-Of-A-New-India/articleshow/1363612.cms
Dreaming Of A New India
Talk about an "Indian century" and "resurgent India" no longer expresses dreams or hopes, but expectations. But what do these mean? What do we want India to be? One dream, shared by many, is of Superpower India.
Our history during the last millennium, when invaders dominated India, makes this an understandable aspiration. Investments in armaments and in sustaining a large military force have already made us a major power in the region.
Our strong technological capabilities have added an altogether new dimension in the last few years, certain to propel us into the global power league in a few years.
Becoming a superpower in the next two or three decades is, therefore, well within the realm of possibility. Another dream, probably a reaction to centuries of poverty, is of being an economic power.
This is further fuelled by the prevailing climate of consumerism and materialism, promoted by media, advertising and retailers. Even conservative projections of likely growth rates point to India's emergence as a major economic force within the next two decades.
The question is only whether it will meet or beat the Goldman Sachs projections. Therefore, barring some major catastrophe, India is well on course to achieving economic superstardom.
These desires of military might and economic clout are probably reactions to our history of powerlessness and poverty. Yet, looking ahead not at this year or even this decade, but beyond, is this our vision for India?
Is our goal limited to getting where others are already, to play "catching up", or do we have different and more ambitious dreams? President Kalam has often proclaimed the goal of becoming a developed country by 2020.
This is itself an ambitious and laudatory goal, but we may want to look even beyond this. India carries a historical baggage of caste discrimination, exploitation, gender discrimination and illiteracy, and more recent ills like communal problems, crime and corruption.
For such a society, mere economic development at a macro-level will not be adequate; if anything, it may intensify some of its woes, particularly crime.
http://creative.sulekha.com/vision-2020-india-a-developed-nation_102092_blog
Vision 2020 - India A Developed Nation
Hindsight is 20/20. Can the vision 2020 of India as a developed nation by the year 2020 be called Foresight 20/20? Probably yes. More so if the policy initiatives of the kind taken in 1991 economic liberalization continue to be taken. Only a few years back, a mood of pessimism prevailed in the country and the informed scribes hesitated to hazard a guess about the nation's economic future. All that changed with the economic liberalization of 1991, which unleashed forces of dynamism that launched the Indian economy on a healthy growth curve. Spectacular growth in some areas surprised the nay sayers and converted the prevailing pessimism into an infectious optimism, thus raising the Vision 2020 to the level of a near certainty.
The economic liberalization of the last decade was part of the global phenomenon from which the former socialistic economies of the East reaped the most benefits. These benefits materialized relatively slowly in the Eastern Europe; faster in India; and fastest in China. The difference in the speed and strength of the upsurge was a phenomenon of the local policies and practices. It is now certain that India is on a visible path to progress towards the status of a developed nation. Whether the nation crawls, walks or runs towards it depends upon the way the future progress is fuelled. Timely policy initiatives can work as synchronized pushes to the swing ensuring a speedy progress toward the cherished goal.
Government policies in post-independence India were influenced by the perceived fear of economic strangulation of the poor by the rich. The enthusiasm to safeguard against these fears resulted in the implementation of policies which, in many cases, became roadblocks in the path of a smooth progress. This is not to minimize the spectacular achievements in agriculture, health and education fields, which were made despite these policies, sometimes even as a direct result of them. The results of the bold changes in policy made during and after 1991, however, prove that the economy is capable of propelling itself at a much faster rate if the unnecessary barriers are removed.
The most potent outcome of liberalization was the opening of a sheltered economy to global competition. It had a magical effect on the assimilation of new technologies without their feared harmful effects. This, in the process, disproved many widely held myths. Introduction of computers was feared to trigger a massive job loss, but it did not happen. Allowing easy conversion of the currency was feared to trigger a flight of capital leading to a foreign exchange crisis, which did not happen either. What actually happened was just the opposite. Instead of feared loss of jobs, the introduction of computers and information technology brought a ground swell of well paying IT jobs; instead of drying up the foreign exchange kitty, the economic liberalization triggered an unparalleled growth in foreign exchange reserves. To top it all, the astute handling of country's finances by the Reserve Bank officials disproved another myth that India is short in management skills.
There is, thus, a clear case for the identification and dismantling of the remaining road blocks, one by one. A look at the current structure of the Indian economy is enough to identify the next frontier(s). Latest available statistics show that currently the agricultural sector contributes 25%, the industrial sector 26% and the service sector 49% to the national GDP. In popular parlance, however, Indian economy is still called an agricultural economy despite the fact that this sector contributes the least to the GDP, percentage wise. This notion prevails because 65% of the population has a rural base with agriculture as its only vocation. This majority 65% agriculture-oriented portion of the population contributes only 25% to the national income while 75% of the national income comes from the minority 35% of the population engaged in the industrial and the service sectors. In other words, the extra 40% of the manpower engaged in agriculture is underemployed due to the great rural-urban divide. The prevailing government policies are designed to maintain a status quo due to the mythical fear that the economy may not be able to create enough jobs for this underemployed section of the society.
In the developed world, specifically in the USA, the agricultural sector contributes only 2% to the GDP with less than 3% of the work force engaged in that sector. Rest of the US national income, to the tune of 98%, is accounted for by the industrial and the service sectors. Even at 2% of the tremendously large US economy, agricultural production in the USA is so large that it leaves a huge exportable surplus after satisfying the needs for local consumption. It is worth noting here that the annual per capita food consumption in the USA approaches 1200 kilograms of grain equivalent, as against 200 kilograms in India. The large difference in consumption is attributed to the predominantly vegetarian dietary habits prevailing in India to its advantage. After all, on the average, it takes six kilograms of feed grains to produce one kilogram of meat. It will be most beneficial to adopt the agricultural production techniques of the developed world while preserving the Indian consumption patterns.
High productivity of the farm sector in the USA is a direct result of the large mechanized farming which came into vogue with the advent of the industrial revolution in the 1860s. Farm machinery from the industrial sector succeeded in moving the surplus agriculture labor, even the freed former slaves, to blue collar jobs in the industry to the benefit of both the sectors. In India, the post-independence land ceiling legislations restricted the farm size to small, family-owned farms. The creation of owner-tiller pattern of agriculture by the land ceiling laws did make a considerable contribution to the success of the `Green Revolution'. These laws have, however, outlived their utility. Their only effect now is the creation of undesirable barriers in the path of future development. It is high time that more pragmatic land ceiling and related agricultural policies are designed to change the structure of the economy by promoting mechanized farming and moving the surplus agriculture labor to other sectors of the economy.
Let us turn the searchlights on to uncover the hidden job banks around. The first Prime Minister of independent India made a candid statement in the 1950s that the policies of the then government were designed to transform the country from the bullock cart age to the bicycle age. Automobile age for India was then considered unthinkable, at least in the immediate future. The annual production of passenger cars could barely reach 24,000. Globalization driven economic liberalization of the 1990s triggered a welcome change, causing the passenger cars production to top half a million units per year. At this rate, it may reach a couple of million units in the year 2020. This is only one indicator of the current economic dynamics unleashed by the liberalization of the 90s. Combined with other indicators like those from the tremendous expansion in the information technology sector, it leads to an inevitable conclusion that an industrial cum service sector revolution of sorts is underway, creating well paying jobs.
These changes notwithstanding, the agrarian Indian society continues to live in 500,000 or so bullock cart age villages. There are fewer than 3000 towns and cities constituting the urban section of the society, which is currently in the thick of transformation from the bicycle age to the automobile age. The existing cities are already getting choked with automobiles while lacking in basic amenities. Historically, most of the urban centers developed around the seats of government in the past. Advent of the rail road in late 19th and early 20th centuries triggered the development of newer cities as important rail heads. While in post-independence India, the population of the country increased almost three fold, from 360 million to over one billion, there was hardly any construction of new cities, save a few like Chandigarh and Gandhi Nagar. If the manpower has to be moved from agriculture to other more productive sectors of the economy, a massive construction of new and modern cities is a must. Clean cities with efficient traffic movement patterns, adequate parking spaces, leisure and entertainment areas with parks and greenery are the very symbols of progress. There is a crying need for modernizing the existing cities while, at the same time, building new automobile age cities to accommodate the inevitable urbanization.
Construction industry has its own dynamics for creating new jobs at all levels in the industrial and service sectors. A planned building and construction activity at a massive scale has the potential of creating a huge job bank. This new job bank has the potential of providing gainful employment to the surplus agriculture labor. What is more, the process of building these facilities will add considerably to the economic progress by promoting consumerism. These activities create a positive economic feedback leading to exponential economic growth. It is, therefore, the most desirable activity to be undertaken. With imaginative policy initiatives towards involving the private sector, these activities can be promoted with little expense to the government. In fact, it will help increase the government revenues by expanding the tax base, which can be used for infrastructure development, fuelling further growth.
A bold policy initiative is required in the field of agriculture for transforming the small farms into economically sized mechanized farms. This will need the removal of constraints on the farm size. A parallel and equally bold plan is required towards the modernization of old cities and building of new ones. The resulting construction boom can be fuelled by the development of liberal construction lending institutions and related lending infrastructure. Both agriculture and construction must take the full benefits of the latest building technology and construction materials production techniques. A development on these lines will contribute greatly to the industrial and service sectors of economy while maintaining a desirable employment scenario. In fact, the creation of better paying jobs will fuel the consumer sector also and is sure to raise the rate of economic growth so much that a sustained economic growth of above 10 to 15% is in the realm of possibility.
Macro economic changes are always dynamic in nature. A change in one sector influences changes in all other sectors. Successful implementation of the proposed policy initiatives will have all round effect on different sectors of the economy. Even if the target of reduction of agriculture labor is restricted to a more achievable figure of say 15% of the population by 2020, instead of the three to five percent prevailing in the developed world, a dramatic change is likely to take place in the Indian economy.
By implementing these changes, a heuristically projected structure of the greatly expanded Indian GDP in the year 2020 may consist of 10% share from the agricultural sector, 33% from the industrial sector and 57% from the service sector. Assuming this to be the case, it will necessitate the trimming of the agricultural sector employment from 65 to 15%, a change in the employment pattern to the extent of 50% of the population freed from the agricultural sector. This scenario may appear scary to the policy makers. It is, however, achievable by implementing bold policy initiatives, especially in the building and construction sector.
A 12% sustained annual growth rate translates into doubling of economy in six years. At this rate, the economy in 2020 should increase to six to seven times of its current level. Even a reduction in the share of the agricultural sector from 25% to 10% in the expanded economy may mean two to three fold increase in value of agricultural production in addition to a tremendous increase in the industrial and service sector output. This is a welcome scenario. This may raise some fears of high rates of inflation due to expansion in money supply. But with sound money management, it is possible to keep inflation within sustainable single figure levels. It will be a challenge to technical institutions and universities in the country to work overtime for training the money managers, town planners and engineers to ensure the reality of Vision 2020.
