Best of BS Opinion: India must heed the warning signs from without

Business Standard

02-06-2025

Hello and welcome to BS Views, our daily wrap of the newspaper's opinion page. India's economy and technological prowess are on a steady path, but it faces external challenges in the form of both policies and nations, something that needs serious consideration.
The final quarter of the financial year ended March 2025 saw a burst of economic activity, pushing GDP growth to 7.4 per cent for the quarter, and 6.5 per cent for the full fiscal. Private consumption also saw an uptick, and the central bank is expected to cut rates this cycle by 50-100 basis points, given a good monsoon and already-benign inflation. However, our lead editorial cautions, the main risk to the India story lies in the external environment, given global trade and economic uncertainties unleashed by US President Donald Trump. How the country navigates this and implements reforms to improve the business climate will shape its medium-term growth arc.
India's indigenous Bharat Forecast System is a step forward in modernizing its capabilities, notes our second editorial. Given the country's diverse geography, such a system will help governments handle multiple challenges in the face of changing weather patterns and the rise of extreme weather events. More than that, accurate
forecasts can radically improve the country's disaster preparedness and agricultural planning, helping farmers to make better planting and harvesting decisions. But first, the government must ensure timely dissemination of forecasts, community awareness, and last-mile connectivity, besides strengthening local institutions to act on them.
Our lead columnist Ajit Balakrishnan looks back at the evolution of revolutions, and wonders if this is the time to think about a new model of technological or industrial change, one that puts the human condition front and centre, instead of pushing humans into poverty and starvation for the sake or profit. He invokes Mahatma Gandhi's exhortation at the time of the second industrial revolution, and recalls that the technological part of it was minor compared to the dehumanization of vast swathes of people, both in India, and the black slaves in north America. In short, he calls for revisiting history so that the next industrial revolution is more humane and equitable.
Our columnist Debashis Basu writes on the rise and rise of China as a global power in its own right. In fact, it is no longer a prediction but a reality, thanks to sustained state ambition, disciplined execution, and a vast mobilisation of resources. In many sectors, in fact, it is already a global leader, but its technological and economic might poses challenges for India. Online, too, China is winning a propaganda war, projecting itself as a beacon of social order and techno-competence. India has the ingredients to grow like China, but lacks serious intent and goal-orientation. Perhaps India could take a page out of Xi's book, and start with a crackdown on corruption.
Sanjeev Ahluwalia reviews David C. Engerman's book 'Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made', a close look at six eminent South Asian economists, all of whom graduated from Cambridge University, and shaped the region as per their own academic and political proclivities. The term 'apostles' is a riff on a 19th century secret society - the Cambridge Apostles. Lal Jayawardene of Sri Lanka, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati and Manmohan Singh from India, Mahbub Ul Haq of Pakistan, and Sobhan Rehman of Bangladesh all find a place in the book, and how they helped shape outlooks towards economics and finance in their home countries.