President of the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Dr Samir Saran believes that India can become a development superpower in ten years time.
Dr Saran, who delivered a lecture, “The Third Way: India and the Global South” at the International Centre Goa (ICG) on Monday, is confident that India will become the third country in the world to become a 10 trillion dollar economy by 2034.
“India has the unique opportunity to become the leader of the Global South,” he said. According to the international affairs expert, the Global South was responsible for 60 per cent of all economic growth in the world today, of which India alone contributed a significant 15 percent.
According to Dr Saran, India had the unique advantage of being a green economy, a young economy armed with technology for the common man like the UPI payment system and mobile connectivity.
Dr Saran said that India had to grapple with multiple challenges in its growth journey. “Even as India tries to grow, there are several centuries colliding with each other in our country. We still celebrate the opening of a new airport or a railway station, when this a commonplace occurrence in developed nations. We are also still grappling with problems of hunger, poverty and health care,” Dr Saran said.
Dr Saran admitted that our tax collection was still very sluggish, but he was hopeful that recent government initiatives would help increase the tax collections significantly in the coming years.
Dr Saran also felt that the country’s education system must get revamped. “We need to invest more in skill based education as opposed to the conventional degree based education which is dominant now.”
Dr Saran also was of the opinion that the Indian government must offer dual citizenship to the growing Indian diaspora across the world to reap the rewards of their success to fuel India’s own growth story.
