What comes into our mind when we first hear the word 'India'? Diversity? More than 1000 year old monuments? A land of wisdom? Crowded places? The skyscrapers, fast highways may come as the last pictures in one's memory.
The road ahead:
India's accelerated growth has been an interesting one because we have achieved around an average of 8% growth after the economic reforms of 1991, without maximizing our complete potential out of the manufacturing and agriculture sector. For any country to become a superpower, it has to be self-sufficient in most aspects especially the manufacturing sector and specialized in some as in the case of the USA and China.
India is never short of producing talented people but due to lucrative opportunities abroad in education and jobs, India has not been able to retain some of its best talent. The current slowdown in the economy provides us a better chance to think and reflect to achieve complete growth.
Agriculture:
Let us start to think about the road ahead with India's natural blessing the Agriculture and its related fields. India's landscape is much suited for agriculture compared to other countries with the fact that there are no extreme climatic patterns in which agriculture could be disrupted, there is always abundant sunshine for 9 months. But after the 1990's agriculture and its related sectors have been left behind or considered a backward activity.
Given the complexity and the huge population of India, agriculture (including dairy) is one sector which can give self-sufficiency and peace to most households especially in places other than metro cities. Food and shelter are the needs for a human to survive which agriculture can provide if it is restructured and more innovations are carried out in it. One of the main challenges is to provide the 'Right Price to the Farmer' which is not being able to achieve due to the chains of the middlemen. Restructuring more integrated Mandis directly with the farmer and enabling more channels for farmers to sell their products to the end consumer could be possible options.
More raw agriculture products are exported to other countries and come back as finished goods, if we can innovate on the raw materials and produce innovative finished organic products out of them eg. Turmeric creams instead of artificial face lotions, India has a wider consumer base to buy, the same finished products can be exported to other countries as well.
Education and Research :
Next on the innovation and technology, India's average age of the living population is 27 this shows a fact most people are in the universities and exuberating youth. Currently, not many universities figure in the top 100 of the world, there is a need for the Indian education system to compete with the education system of the developed countries. The 1000-year-old monuments of India show the prowess our ancestors had in engineering and infrastructure back then. This would have been only with the strong education and training. We can be proud of the fact that we are able to launch space missions at a comparatively low cost and highly successful.
But maybe only 1 to 2% of the youth could have exposure to this. India needs to invest more in technology and education, it needs at least 15 IIT's and 5IIM's per each state given the population among youth to provide the deserved opportunities. The spending on education and research needs to be increased from the current level of 4.6% GDP at least doubled.
Manufacturing and Technology:
India's manufacturing has predominantly been out of automobiles and textiles, in the recent past India is losing out on the latter to the smaller Asian nations. Once high-quality technical education is imparted to the youth and if there are reforms on the labor laws, India can slowly become a manufacturing hub with investments and due to the availability of skilled labor.
On the information technology, India has been service-oriented. The start-up space is certainly improving, with a large scope for investment in the youth for the recent trends in IoT, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity.
The 21st century will belong to India only when India is able to produce its own software applications for its people.
Tourism:
Tourism is an interesting sector that can add more revenue to the country without much effort but only by proper channeling given the fact the diversity and heritage sites.
And not to forget, India always has been a place of spiritual search, which needs to be preserved. The goal should be to make India, a better India and not India like any other country.
India has always been a great place for pilgrimages wherein people come in the quest to understand the true meaning of the life that has been given to them. People of India come from the ethnicity of saving and trying to live a life with contentment. But this contentment has been slowly fading in the age of consumerism. Let us see the journey of India economy and its chances of blooming in the future.
The Journey:
Years 1947 to 1990 :
After Independence, India had adapted the socialist and protectionist principles mainly assuming that adapting capitalism would be letting something similar to East Indian Company through the back door after attaining independence. So the state was keen to keep all the powers and licenses of businesses under its control.
Meanwhile, agriculture throughout the history of India has been the backbone of India's economy given its landscape. But the end farmer wasn't compensated well during the British era due to the Zamindari system in place. During the post-independence years, agriculture was steadily growing it accounted for most of the GDP, still the opportunities in it weren't maximized innovatively.
Years 1991 to Present :
As years evolved, and when India was starring at an economic crisis in late 1991, then government willingly opened up the Indian economy to make it competitive with global trends.
Years 1947 to 1990 :
After Independence, India had adapted the socialist and protectionist principles mainly assuming that adapting capitalism would be letting something similar to East Indian Company through the back door after attaining independence. So the state was keen to keep all the powers and licenses of businesses under its control.
Meanwhile, agriculture throughout the history of India has been the backbone of India's economy given its landscape. But the end farmer wasn't compensated well during the British era due to the Zamindari system in place. During the post-independence years, agriculture was steadily growing it accounted for most of the GDP, still the opportunities in it weren't maximized innovatively.
Years 1991 to Present :
As years evolved, and when India was starring at an economic crisis in late 1991, then government willingly opened up the Indian economy to make it competitive with global trends.
Now as we stand 20 years into the 21st century and 30 years after India has adopted the market economy, the people of India are sandwiched between the emotions of the past and a consumption-driven materialistic life, but the latter leading the way.
Many sectors were opened for investments and business opportunities, mainly the services, telecom, and the automobile sector which lead to rapid urbanization. After adapting to the market economy there were two sectors that were left behind Agriculture and its allied sectors and education. Also due to the stringent labor laws formulated from the 'Industrial Disputes Act - Year 1947', which are still in place, the manufacturing sector couldn't quite kick off except for automobiles and textiles. Most of the jobs had to be generated from the services and it's allied sectors.
Many sectors were opened for investments and business opportunities, mainly the services, telecom, and the automobile sector which lead to rapid urbanization. After adapting to the market economy there were two sectors that were left behind Agriculture and its allied sectors and education. Also due to the stringent labor laws formulated from the 'Industrial Disputes Act - Year 1947', which are still in place, the manufacturing sector couldn't quite kick off except for automobiles and textiles. Most of the jobs had to be generated from the services and it's allied sectors.
The road ahead:
India's accelerated growth has been an interesting one because we have achieved around an average of 8% growth after the economic reforms of 1991, without maximizing our complete potential out of the manufacturing and agriculture sector. For any country to become a superpower, it has to be self-sufficient in most aspects especially the manufacturing sector and specialized in some as in the case of the USA and China.
India is never short of producing talented people but due to lucrative opportunities abroad in education and jobs, India has not been able to retain some of its best talent. The current slowdown in the economy provides us a better chance to think and reflect to achieve complete growth.
Agriculture:
Let us start to think about the road ahead with India's natural blessing the Agriculture and its related fields. India's landscape is much suited for agriculture compared to other countries with the fact that there are no extreme climatic patterns in which agriculture could be disrupted, there is always abundant sunshine for 9 months. But after the 1990's agriculture and its related sectors have been left behind or considered a backward activity.
Given the complexity and the huge population of India, agriculture (including dairy) is one sector which can give self-sufficiency and peace to most households especially in places other than metro cities. Food and shelter are the needs for a human to survive which agriculture can provide if it is restructured and more innovations are carried out in it. One of the main challenges is to provide the 'Right Price to the Farmer' which is not being able to achieve due to the chains of the middlemen. Restructuring more integrated Mandis directly with the farmer and enabling more channels for farmers to sell their products to the end consumer could be possible options.
More raw agriculture products are exported to other countries and come back as finished goods, if we can innovate on the raw materials and produce innovative finished organic products out of them eg. Turmeric creams instead of artificial face lotions, India has a wider consumer base to buy, the same finished products can be exported to other countries as well.
Education and Research :
Next on the innovation and technology, India's average age of the living population is 27 this shows a fact most people are in the universities and exuberating youth. Currently, not many universities figure in the top 100 of the world, there is a need for the Indian education system to compete with the education system of the developed countries. The 1000-year-old monuments of India show the prowess our ancestors had in engineering and infrastructure back then. This would have been only with the strong education and training. We can be proud of the fact that we are able to launch space missions at a comparatively low cost and highly successful.
But maybe only 1 to 2% of the youth could have exposure to this. India needs to invest more in technology and education, it needs at least 15 IIT's and 5IIM's per each state given the population among youth to provide the deserved opportunities. The spending on education and research needs to be increased from the current level of 4.6% GDP at least doubled.
Manufacturing and Technology:
India's manufacturing has predominantly been out of automobiles and textiles, in the recent past India is losing out on the latter to the smaller Asian nations. Once high-quality technical education is imparted to the youth and if there are reforms on the labor laws, India can slowly become a manufacturing hub with investments and due to the availability of skilled labor.
On the information technology, India has been service-oriented. The start-up space is certainly improving, with a large scope for investment in the youth for the recent trends in IoT, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity.
The 21st century will belong to India only when India is able to produce its own software applications for its people.
Tourism:
Tourism is an interesting sector that can add more revenue to the country without much effort but only by proper channeling given the fact the diversity and heritage sites.
And not to forget, India always has been a place of spiritual search, which needs to be preserved. The goal should be to make India, a better India and not India like any other country.
Wonderful blog... Keep going tharun.. Your vision is phenomenal.
ReplyDeleteThank you Surya
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