India: een keizer zonder kleren

Kristoffel Lieten concentrates on India, which since the 1990s has been referred to as the rising giant in Asia, together with China. The GNP growth indeed has accelerated and ICT-related exports have risen sharply. At the same time, however, many of the problems which have disturbed the Indian economy in the past, continue to restrain a broad-based development: a galloping population growth, a poor educational structure, massive graft, hunger and impoverishment among the mass of the population and agricultural slackness. Purchasing power at the bottom of society has not increased and the consumer-induced growth remains limited to a rather small segment of the population. The comparison of overall growth and of separate indicators thus puts India far behind China. If structural constraints remain unattended to, India may remain refrained within a straightjacket of lopsided development.