An afternoon with T.N. Ninan, Chairman and former Editor of Business Standard
India’s rise has followed three to four decades behind that of the East Asian countries. As East Asia has slowed, India has gathered momentum to become the world’s fastest-growing large economy. As a latecomer to the party, India has the usual advantages of learning from others’ experiences, but the disadvantage of having to create space for itself in a crowded world with more established players. In addition, India faces three distinct disadvantages: functioning in a world being transformed by technology; dealing with a noticeably less hospitable international trading environment; and finding solutions when the standard economic policy packages have created rising inequality such that it presents new social and political challenges.
The principal challenge for latecomer India is how to deliver sustained, rapid economic growth, regardless of these circumstances, and thereby to create the millions of jobs that are needed to get people off low-productivity farms and into higher-productivity occupations. India will have to work out new solutions for itself.
