delanceyplace.com 06/28/06 - india emerges

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In today's excerpt - the nation of India emerges as a world power on a path to quickly overtake Japan as the world's third largest economy and at 1.1 billion people eventually challenge China for its position as the world's largest nation:

"After three postindependence decades of meager progress, the country's economy grew at 6 percent a year from 1980 to 2002 and 7.5 percent from 2002 to 2006—making it one of the world's best performing economies for a quarter century. ...

"In the first decades after independence ... socialist ... Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his imperious daughter Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ... shackled the energies of the Indian people under a mixed economy that combined the worst features of capitalism and socialism. Their model was inward-looking and import-substituting, rather than outward-looking and export-promoting. ...

"In the 1980s, the government's attitude toward the private sector began to change, thanks in part to the underappreciated efforts of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Modest liberal reforms—especially lowering marginal tax rates and tariffs, and giving some leeway to manufacturers—spurred an increase in growth to 5.6 percent. ...

"More than 100 Indian companies now have a market capitalization of over a billion dollars, and some of these—including Bharat Forge, Jet Airways, Infosys Technologies, Reliance Infocomm, Tata Motors and Wipro Technologies—are likely to become competitive global brands soon. Foreigners have invested in over 1,000 Indian companies via the stock market."