Over the last two years, India has been attracting increasing global attention as a ‘‘nation on the move’’. Its high growth rate and its evident sustainability, its global prominence and potential in the knowledge-based industries, its pool of skilled manpower and its low-cost manufacturing base, coupled, very importantly, with confidence in its political leadership, have all gone towards giving India a new position in the global economic scene.Having received this level of recognition and acceptance, it is essential that India should leverage this momentum and enhance its position in the region. The greatest mistake that could be made would be for us to become complacent and to allow our economic momentum to slow down.The present government’s ‘‘Common Minimum Programme’’ spells out the broad agenda agreed upon between the coalition partners but, as the name suggests, it is a ‘‘minimum programme’’ and perhaps this needs to be supplemented if India is to be empowered to fulfill the hopes and aspirations of its people.As a great believer in India’s potential, I believe strongly that our country could make even greater progress if:• Only the highest standards are set and demanded on all initiatives. Most projects or initiatives are conceived and executed with several compromises, often resulting in substandard results. We should demand the highest international standards in whatever we undertake.• All policies be framed and strictly implemented for the national good, rather than being modified to appease powerful vested interest or political ideologies.• Investment in infrastructure is given the highest priority. Our ports, airports, road networks and power systems are outdated and inadequate to meet the needs of the country. They are also far behind the infrastructure of several countries in the region. There is a desperate need to update, upgrade and build capacity for the future.• Knowledge-based industries are identified by the Government as India’s future strength and dominance. This would call for the creation of many more vocational schools and good institutes of learning in IT, biotechnology, the sciences, medicine, as also substantial incentives for home-grown research and development in the corporate sector.India has one of the world’s youngest populations today and will by 2030 have the largest working age population in the world. We should leverage this advantage by enlarging the skill and knowledge base of this enormously valuable resource.• A 10-year Economic Vision is announced with measurable goals, and which has the ‘‘buy-in’’ of all political parties. This ‘‘vision’’ would need to be executed without bending to vested interest groups or ideologies. Its execution should reflect concern for the environment and for depletion of the country’s non-renewable resources.Such a plan could have major goals for tourism (which would create tens of thousands of jobs, justifying investment in national infrastructure and being a large earner of foreign exchange), ferrous and non-ferrous metal capacity goals (leveraging India’s mineral resources) and some major national projects, such as, possibly, a gas pipeline from the Middle East, a limited access national highway system, national water harvesting, drinking water projects and the like.This is the time for India to shift gears and for our leaders to view India in the global context—competing and excelling in the global arena. We can no longer compare ourselves with our own past history nor be satisfied with growth and improvement in small increments. This is the time when India must set major goals and mobilise all its resources o achieve these goals through bold and sustained initiatives. We need to empower our people and subordinate individual vested interests in favour of initiatives for the good of the nation. It will be such actions and such actions alone which will enhance prosperity in our country and raise the quality of life for our people.All of us should be proud of what India has become and the manner in which it has emerged from over 40 years of protection. We now need to put our shoulders together to enable India to take its place amongst the successful economies of the region.
