Ten years after Narendra Modi was first elected prime minister, India’s economy has nearly doubled in size. That’s what happens when a nation growing at 7% a yearas India has been doing since it opened its market to international competition in 1991.
That steady growth has been cleverly restructured to promote the company’s image one person’s leadership make things happen. Along with Hindu nationalism and pride, the idea that Modi could get the economy going has been central to his appeal from the start.
And Mr. Modi has boosted the Indian economy in the ways that voters trust most: He has delivered Visible infrastructure expansion and distribution welfare welfare for the majority of Indians, who remain poor by global standards even as the country’s higher income groups are learning to flex their spending power.
Most of the rest of the world – especially the United States and other Western countries hoping to persuade India to join them in limiting the strategic ambitions of China and Russia – wants the economy to India accelerates.
Part of that story could be one production transformation, like the program Apple is running in South India. And World investment experts are eagerly awaiting India’s successes under Mr. Modi to start paying dividends they can’t find elsewhere.
But even the most eager investors can’t ignore some problems facing India as it becomes the world’s newest heavyweight. While Mr. Modi basked in the glow of a successful moon landing and the country’s innovation “digital public infrastructure,” The political opposition tried to talk him out of the frustrated masses calling more and better jobs.
The opposition has also tried to stoke public anger over Modi’s ties to the country’s biggest tycoons. That doesn’t seem to work, either politically or in the markets, in the case Gautam Adani. Last year, this billionaire’s empire was accused of stock manipulation with flash and fury. But the claims were largely unsuccessful and Adani shares soared again.
