Eight per cent solution [Rare Books]

IT IS A WONDERFUL STORY, but time after time in the decades since Independence, it stops short midway. India is poised for growth, the GDP is rising-at last the lumbering elephant is turning into a tiger. But the leap doesn't quite happen. There has been enormous change, but alongside, the problems have also been rising. And for a large mass of people, it remains a future of brutal poverty. If India is to meet the needs of its people, it has to generate enough jobs for the millions of youth who enter the job market every year, and build up infrastructure in which there is enough to go round for the education, health and security of its population.

Nikhil Gupta, chief economist with a leading brokerage, has been a close observer of the policies and factors t…