India's growth and failures were the theme of the talk by Arvind Panagariya, Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian political economy and economics at Columbia University and former chief economist at Asian Development Bank.
Considering the growth rate, India will become the third largest economy in 20 years, Panagariya said. The demographics favour India, as it is a relatively young country with more working people than anywhere else. But problems like corruption, unequal development, the Naxal menace, etc too haunt the country, he added.
"It is a delight to see a growth rate of 9 per cent. Earlier, it was only 6 per cent while authoritarian countries like China and Korea grew faster. India proved that growth is possible in a democratic system too," he said.
The challenges the country now faces, he said, were electricity and lack of other infrastructure. India also needs agricultural reforms.
"About 50 per cent of the workforce is in agriculture. But the sector produces only 17 percent of the total income. That is not desirable. Industrialisation and urbanisation are one way out," he noted.
Panagariya also spoke about the dismal higher education sector. He quoted statistics: In 2000, 10 per cent of the youth in India aged between 18 to 24 were in college, while it was only 8 per cent in China.
Seven years later, it was 13 per cent in India and 22 per cent in China. He said it was a welcome change that India's higher education sector was now open to foreign universities.
He also discussed global warming and corruption in India. On the former, he said most predictions of doom had no scientific basis and that India's role in climate change was small. The US and China should do more to prevent it, he added.
He said privatisation, the Right to Information law and technology were helping prevent corruption.
