Is India still rising?
I came across this superb talk by David Mulford, former US Ambassador to India given in October 2016. Some positive highlights (I paraphrase):
India is a genuine democracy unlike China or such other countries. The data is more dependable and governance is more transparent, unlike non-democratic countries.
India has leapfrogged the fixed line telecom revolution by going to mobile directly.
India is also likely to leapfrog the credit card system.
India had the best monsoon 1954 this year.
The way to look at India is not to compare it with China, Singapore and others but to think of India as 19th Century America with robber barons.
India has a service-oriented economy but Modi is pushing for manufacturing. Many of these projects particularly in defence and technology will materialise sooner.
By the enhanced transfer of funds to State Modi is trying to create competition between States for growth. Young people are joining the state politics and the political climate is likely to see a drastic change. India constitution is explicit as to the division of powers between State and Center and that helps the political leadership in the states to set correct goals.
Religious stability is high in India. Despite having about 250 million Muslims, Indian Islam seems to be softer and therefore radicalisation is much lower.
Cooperation between US and India increased after the 26/11 attacks (hotel attacks as he calls them). FBI teams from US helped Mumbai police. Some cooperation as to how to coordinate intelligence between local-central agencies is being shared.
India's Nuclear disaster liability law is not correctly worded which has prevented capital from coming into the country for nuclear power. The liability currently is on the suppliers and not the operators.
It is a must watch.
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