Showing posts with label Economic growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economic growth. Show all posts

Friday, November 30, 2012

Mirror Mirror on the wall, why’re we the worst amongst them all?

Why discrete development of just a few sectors will prove futile. And why collective is the way to go...

After analysing every sector, we decide to write about one that is really pulling India down. And after hours of heated discussion and analysis of myriad reports, the editorial board came to a very interesting conclusion – we found that each sector had an impact on the other, something which is more grave than it sounds... ‘negative synergy’ for India is what we called it. In spite of such growth and development, the country is yet to initiate some basic transformations or changes.

A nation is generally considered successful when it achieves three significant milestones – free politics (which implies freedom of peoples’ choices), economic freedom (bringing prosperity and equality coupled-with social freedom) and finally, achieving peace and social cohesiveness. The world, during the last sixty years has fought to achieve these three ingredients of a healthy nation. Even when we speak about the Western countries, they have all achieved democracy and prosperity, but whether they’ve successfully been able to bring about ‘social cohesiveness and integration’ is really a question. Though India scored high in both political freedom and social integration, it is yet to witness that dream economic growth (that of 10%). Fortunately, with the initiation of economic liberalisation during the 1990s, India has brought revolution which Gurcharan Das in his book, The Elephant Paradigm, has explained vividly. The world can easily remember 1789 for French revolution and/or 1917 for the Russian revolution because of their pro-active nature. But the revolution in India has been like silent water flowing peacefully downhill... it’s happening but the rate of flow and change cannot be imagined or justified, or even quantified!

While expressing his view Parag Khanna, Director, Global Governance Initiative, New America Foundation comments, “I am impressed with the sustained growth in the economy and taken by surprise at how quickly and broadly manufacturing has boomed. This will be the secret to employment-generating-growth which can tackle one of the largest social deficiencies of the economy to date. There are still worrying signs at the top level like slow investment in infrastructure, and also deregulation. Many investors from America complain ceaselessly of the still opaque business environment in India...”


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Dr. Raj Aggarwal, University of Akron, Akron (Ohio)

A more even distribution of income and living standards is very important for continuing economic growth – for a number of reasons. First, a more even distribution can lead to a more stable rise of the consuming middle classes, a critical driver of demand and economic growth. Second, a more even distribution is important for maintaining the social contract and political stability, both of which undergirds our high rates of economic growth. Third, a more even distribution is important for better nutrition and education among the least advantaged and, thus, for the future development of Indian manpower and human capital, another very important base for economic growth.

Indeed, Indian growth needs to be balanced between a number of competing objectives, e.g., between incomes and living standards of urban and rural residents (recognizing that people in urban areas will always tend to earn more); between the output growths of agriculture and industry (growth in agricultural incomes is especially important for the two-thirds of Indians that live in rural areas); between domestic consumption and exports (we need to fund our imports and overseas investments); and between resource exploitation and responsible stewardship of resources keeping in mind environmental degradation and climate change (e.g., India must deal with growing air pollution and faces major shortages of potable water).

It is time to refocus on a very important part of our country and economy – the rural areas of India. Most Indians live there and rural entrepreneurship will reduce the unsustainable pressures on urbanization. India not like fast urbanizing China, it is more like America which is truly found in its small rural towns. While the focus in this essay has been on rural areas, similar approaches and programs can and should be developed for urban dwellers that are among the most disadvantaged.

India needs to recognize that opportunities to create production surpluses at the household, state, and national levels are very important in the continuation of our high rates of growth. More importantly, human capital is the most important resource for any nation and is too precious to waste in India. This short essay notes that frugal, perhaps, Gandhian living combined with the widespread availability of entrepreneurial opportunities can be the way to go forward.