Freedom came to India on 15 August 1947. The date was selected by the then Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, as it was the second anniversary of the Japanese surrender in Burma to the Allied Forces in the World War II, when Mountbatten held the office of Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Command. So, the selected date seems to have resonated with imperial pride rather than nationalist sentiment. However, as soon as the radio announced Mountbatten’s date, astrologers all over the country began to consult their charts. Those in the holy city of Benares and several others in the south immediately announced 15 August a date so inauspicious that India ‘would be better advised to tolerate the British one day longer rather than risk eternal damnation’. (Read More)
The path well-trodden by most developed countries is to provide employment to unskilled population in the course of development. But India has never been able to achieve this. In spite of decades of reforms, the share of manufacturing in the gross domestic product (GDP) has stagnated at around 15-16 per cent. The economy has been powered on the strength of the expansion of services. Services have generated employment but can never match the scales possible with mass industrial production that serves both domestic and foreign markets. What is significant is that the missing stage of manufacturing extension in India’s development has kept disproportionally high numbers of its labour forces engaged in agriculture as employment growth has been too slow. No other major economy has been expanding as fast as India lately, including both China and the US. (Read More)
Be the first to comment