Summary |
As you know, India’s performance in recent years has been among the best in the world. The reforms initiated since the early 1990s have unshackled the economy. The long-term trend rate of growth has steadily increased from an average of 3.5 per cent a year between the 1950s and 1970s, to above 9 per cent in 2006 and 2007. The prowess of India’s IT and IT enabled services, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and various manufacturing segments is being recognized the world over. Its macro-fundamentals are sound and foreign exchange reserves are comfortable at around $ 250 billion. Inflation rate has come down to less than 2 per cent. Importantly, high growth has led to a decline in the incidence of poverty from 36 per cent in 1993-1994 to 26 per cent in 1999-2000. The number of people in poverty came down from 320 million during this period and has undoubtedly declined further since the last official estimates became available. Despite these improvements, most poverty-related education and health indicators continue to show disturbing gender gaps, large, rural-urban differences and wide variation across states.
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