India — with huge potential of demographic dividend and digital prowess — was mired by fractious politics, has undergone great political stability under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which has allowed for legal reforms, improvements to basic welfare systems, and a vast upgrading of the country’s infrastructure, Ben Wright stated in a report by United Kingdom-based The Telegraph.
As per the author, India holds potential but also some problems, but under the leadership of PM Modi, India definitely holds the bold targets, it aims to achieve.
The author has pointed out that with the success of Chandrayaan-3, India became only the fourth (and third extant) country to achieve a “soft” landing on the Moon – following the US, the Soviet Union and China.
The fact that Russia’s attempt to land in the same previously unexplored region had ended in ignominious failure a few days earlier further accentuated the achievement, which, rather deliciously, coincided with the BRICS international relations summit in Johannesburg.
India’s successful lunar mission was met by wild celebrations across the subcontinent and was hailed as “another one of the many straws in the wind” illustrating the country’s ascendancy, according to Ray Dalio, a billionaire News Sport Business Opinion Ukraine Money Royals Life Style Travel Culture Puzzles 11 1 hedge fund manager, The Telegraph reported.
Notably, India’s population recently overtook that of China’s: the International Monetary Fund’s forecast that it will be one of the fastest-growing large economies in 2023 and for the next five years; the sheer acreage of red carpet rolled out in foreign capitals around the world to welcome Narendra Modi, the prime minister; and Air India’s recent world record order of 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing.
Opening his company’s first retail outlets in Mumbai and Delhi in May, Tim Cook, the Apple boss, declared India was “at a tipping point”. Over the summer, a unit of Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics giant that makes iPhones, started drawing up plans to build a USD 1 billion factory in the southern state of Karnataka; the US-based Micron Technology announced it will start building a new semi-conductor facility in Gujarat later this year, and Goldman Sachs held its first board meeting in India in more than a decade, The Telegraph reported.
The author further points out that the country’s rising influence can be seen in other spheres, too.
Cricket’s Indian Premier League is now the second most valuable sports league in the world behind just American football’s National Football League with offshoots in an increasing number of countries.
The newly-released Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the first US blockbuster to feature an Indian superhero. In the film, which played to packed cinemas across India over the summer, Pavitr Prabhakar (whose name is a play on Peter Parker), admonishes another character when he asks for “chai tea”: “‘Chai’ means tea, bro! You’re saying ‘tea tea!’” Call it cultural reappropriation perhaps, The Telegraph reported.
According to the author, India also appears to be benefiting from the convergence of several economic mega-trends.
On current estimates, it will be the world’s third largest economy in four years’ time; its working-age population will exceed China’s by an astounding 235 million (roughly the population of Pakistan) in seven years; and its gross domestic product will more than double to USD 8.5 trillion (2.78 trillion Euros) in 10.
As globalization has seemingly gone into reverse following the Covid pandemic and as international frictions intensify, India should be well-positioned to profit from a boom in “friend-shoring”, The Telegraph reported.
US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen was in India earlier this year talking up the idea. Western companies want access to India’s burgeoning middle class, and Western politicians have a vested interest in helping boost a second center of economic gravity to compete with China in the region.
The author further pointed out that the world’s biggest democracy with over 600 parties has historically been bedevilled by fractious politics. However, under PM Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party has won consecutive parliamentary majorities and looks on course to make it a hat trick next May.
