Much to gain from a successful India

India’s economy is more balanced than that of other fast-growing Asian economies, observes Raghuram G. Rajan in ‘Fault Lines: How hidden fractures still threaten the world economy’ (Collins). “Partly as a result of democratic pressures, it has not been as biased towards producers or exporters, and therefore does not require a major change in strategic direction. However, there are a number of areas where it needs to act far more decisively and rapidly than it currently is doing,” he adds.

Foremost in the section on ‘impediments’ the author rues that India has the people but the jobs are not where the people are, and that not all the people are necessarily capable of undertaking the jobs that are being created.

Many of the new jobs are in the fast-growing, better-educated western and southern coastal states that are connected through rail, roads, and ports to the big cities and to the global economy, but much of the population growth in India is taking place in states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, he reminds. With incomes in these states lagging behind owing to the level and penetration of education and infrastructure, ‘many of the people have voted with their feet, migrating to work in the overcrowded cities of the richer states.’

Full report here Hindu