India: colour, chaos, and contradictions

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

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Indian Railways Minister Laloo Yadav.

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Kingfisher chairman Vijay Mallya with Airbus’ John Leahy.

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Where is India headed?

Before the current crop of millionaire businessmen started acquiring foreign companies in various industry segments, India found its niche in the world as an IT superpower. The latter half of the 1990s saw the government set up Indian institutes that encouraged Indians to pursue their calling in the IT sector.

The rise of well-educated and articulate Indians in addition to a favourable exchange rate spawned a new generation of outsource professionals.

While regularly caricatured in movies and comic strips, the profitability of India's outsource industry is nothing to laugh at. According to a 2007 report by Credit Suisse, India's GDP has topped US$1 trillion, making it only the 12th country to achieve this milestone. This economic growth has given rise to a new breed of consumer; young, affluent, a large disposable income and a taste for the good life.

During this era of prosperity, India is helmed by none other than the man who initiated a country-wide economic revival in 1991: Manmohan Singh.

In Singh, India did not gain a politician. Instead this chaotic, and often controversial Democratic Republic got a man who has unimpeachable integrity, is immensely intelligent, and is a qualified economist.

With a PhD from Oxford, a track record for running the country's central bank as well as the Planning and Finance Ministry, the breadth and depth of Manmohan Singh's tenure has undoubtedly helped spur the country toward its economic superpower status in recent years.

In the last three years India's main stock index, the Sensex, has more than tripled. Based on current growth, a study by Goldman Sachs predicts that over the next 50 years, India will be the fastest growing economy in the world. The report states that in 15 years India's will overtake Britain's economy, and by 2040 will boast the world's third largest GDP.

India also has a population that is younger than any other major country with 125 million Indians set to join the workforce in about 10 years. Due to this Indian professionals will be in high demand, giving rise to a population segment with a significantly higher per capita income and quicker access to investing in stylish homes, clothes and luxury goods.

All the signs point to an India with a booming economy built on its multi-faceted and diverse human resources - a clear indication that the founding fathers realised the key to economic greatness was unshackling the Indian spirit.

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READERS' COMMENTS

INDIAN AMBANI: RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD!!
Posted by RAJENDRA ANEJA, DUBAI, UAE on Tuesday 30 October 2007 at 17:00 UAE time

It is wonderful to read that Mr. Mukesh Ambani, the Indian industrialist has become the richest man in the world, surpassing Mr. Bill Gates and Mexican Mr. Carlos Helu. Mr. Ambani’s net worth has risen to USD 63.2 billion, after the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex closed at around 20000 i.e. 19,977.67 points. It is fantastic that a country which was always perceived as being poor, and which lived ion grants of wheat under PL 480, from the USA just 4 decades ago, has today enabled the richest man in the world. Well done, India! Let us hope that Mr. Ambani will also use his wealth for the public good. In Kenya some years ago, I had seen the father of Mr. Bill Gates and President Carter, the former President of the USA, tour all the slums and poverty stricken areas, to evolve ideas to fight AIDS. Mr. Gates was funding the entire Project.

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