Thursday, January 19, 2023
Today’s Paper
Today’s Paper
The economy of India has transitioned from a mixed planned economy to a mixed middle-income developing social market economy with notable state participation in strategic sectors.
It is the world’s fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on a per capita income basis, India ranked 139th by GDP (nominal) and 127th by GDP (PPP).
From independence in 1947 until 1991, successive governments followed Soviet style planned economy and promoted protectionist economic policies, with extensive state intervention and economic regulation. This is characterised as dirigism, in the form of the Licence Raj. The end of the Cold War and an acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 led to the adoption of a broad economic liberalisation in India. Since the start of the 21st century, annual average GDP growth has been 6% to 7%.The economy of the Indian subcontinent was the largest in the world for most of recorded history up until the onset of colonialism in early 19th century. India account for 7.2% of global economy in 2022 in PPP terms, and around 3.4% in nominal terms in 2022.
India still has informal domestic economies; COVID-19 reversed both economic growth and poverty reduction; credit access weaknesses contributed to lower private consumption and inflation; and new social and infrastructure equity efforts. Economic growth slowed down in 2017 due to the shocks of “demonetisation” in 2016 and the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax in 2017. Nearly 70% of India’s GDP is driven by domestic consumption. The country remains the world’s sixth-largest consumer market. Apart from private consumption, India’s GDP is also fueled by government spending, investments, and exports. In 2022, India was the world’s 6th-largest importer and the 9th-largest exporter. India has been a member of the World Trade Organization since 1 January 1995. It ranks 63rd on the Ease of doing business index and 68th on the Global Competitiveness Report. Due to extreme rupee/dollar rate fluctuations India’s nominal GDP too fluctuates significantly. With 476 million workers, the Indian labour force is the world’s second-largest. India has one of the world’s highest number of billionaires and extreme income inequality. Because of several exemptions, barely 2% of Indians pay income taxes.
During the 2008 global financial crisis, the economy faced a mild slowdown. India endorsed Keynesian policy and initiated stimulus measures (both fiscal and monetary) to boost growth and generate demand. In subsequent years, economic growth revived. According to the World Bank, to achieve sustainable economic development, India must focus on public sector reform, infrastructure, agricultural and rural development, removal of land and labour regulations, financial inclusion, spur private investment and exports, education, and public health. Over 66 million Indians are categorised as middle class, and just 16 million are upper middle class, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey.
In 2022, India’s ten largest trading partners were United States, China, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Russia, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, and Malaysia. In 2021–22, the foreign direct investment (FDI) in India was $82 billion. The leading sectors for FDI inflows were the service sector, the computer industry, and the telecom industry. India has free trade agreements with several nations, including ASEAN, SAFTA, Mercosur, South Korea, Japan, Australia, UAE, and several others which are in effect or under negotiating stage.
The service sector makes up more than 50% of GDP and remains the fastest growing sector, while the industrial sector and the agricultural sector employs a majority of the labor force. The Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange are some of the world’s largest stock exchanges by market capitalisation. India is the world’s sixth-largest manufacturer, representing 2.6% of global manufacturing output. Nearly 65% of India’s population is rural, and contributes about 50% of India’s GDP. It has the world’s fifth-largest foreign-exchange reserves worth $561 billion. India has a high public debt with 83% of GDP, while its fiscal deficit stood at 6.4% of GDP. India faces high unemployment, rising income inequality, and a drop in aggregate demand. India’s gross domestic savings rate stood at 29.3% of GDP in 2022. In recent years, independent economists and financial institutions have accused the government of manipulating various economic data, especially GDP growth. India’s overall social spending as a share of GDP in 2021–22 will be 8.6%, which is much lower than the average for OECD nations.
Indian economic policy after independence was influenced by the colonial experience, which was seen as exploitative by Indian leaders exposed to British social democracy and the planned economy of the Soviet Union. Domestic policy tended towards protectionism, with a strong emphasis on import substitution industrialisation, economic interventionism, a large government-run public sector, business regulation, and central planning, while trade and foreign investment policies were relatively liberal. Five-Year Plans of India resembled central planning in the Soviet Union. Steel, mining, machine tools, telecommunications, insurance, and power plants, among other industries, were effectively nationalised in the mid-1950s. The Indian economy of this period is characterised as Dirigism.
Never talk to me about profit, Jeh, it is a dirty word.
— Nehru, India’s Fabian Socialism-inspired first prime minister to industrialist J. R. D. Tata, when Tata suggested state- owned companies should be profitable
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, along with the statistician Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, formulated and oversaw economic policy during the initial years of the country’s independence. They expected favourable outcomes from their strategy, involving the rapid development of heavy industry by both public and private sectors, and based on direct and indirect state intervention, rather than the more extreme Soviet-style central command system. The policy of concentrating simultaneously on capital- and technology-intensive heavy industry and subsidising manual, low-skill cottage industries was criticised by economist Milton Friedman, who thought it would waste capital and labour, and retard the development of small manufacturers.
I cannot decide how much to borrow, what shares to issue, at what price, what wages and bonus to pay, and what dividend to give. I even need the government’s permission for the salary I pay to a senior executive.
— J. R. D. Tata, on the Indian regulatory system, 1969
Since 1965, the use of high-yielding varieties of seeds, increased fertilisers and improved irrigation facilities collectively contributed to the Green Revolution in India, which improved the condition of agriculture by increasing crop productivity, improving crop patterns and strengthening forward and backward linkages between agriculture and industry. However, it has also been criticised as an unsustainable effort, resulting in the growth of capitalistic farming, ignoring institutional reforms and widening income disparities.
In 1984, Rajiv Gandhi promised economic liberalization, he made V. P. Singh the finance minister, who tried to reduce tax evasion and tax receipts rose due to this crackdown although taxes were lowered. This process lost its momentum during the later tenure of Mr. Gandhi as his government was marred by scandals.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, which was India’s major trading partner, and the Gulf War, which caused a spike in oil prices, resulted in a major balance-of-payments crisis for India, which found itself facing the prospect of defaulting on its loans. India asked for a $1.8 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which in return demanded de-regulation.
In response, the Narasimha Rao government, including Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, initiated economic reforms in 1991. The reforms did away with the Licence Raj, reduced tariffs and interest rates and ended many public monopolies, allowing automatic approval of foreign direct investment in many sectors. Since then, the overall thrust of liberalisation has remained the same, although no government has tried to take on powerful lobbies such as trade unions and farmers, on contentious issues such as reforming labour laws and reducing agricultural subsidies. By the turn of the 21st century, India had progressed towards a free-market economy, with a substantial reduction in state control of the economy and increased financial liberalisation. This has been accompanied by increases in life expectancy, literacy rates, and food security, although urban residents have benefited more than rural residents.
From 2010, India has risen from ninth-largest to the fifth-largest economies in the world by nominal GDP in 2019 by surpassing UK, France, Italy and Brazil.
India started recovery in 2013–14 when the GDP growth rate accelerated to 6.4% from the previous year’s 5.5%. The acceleration continued through 2014–15 and 2015–16 with growth rates of 7.5% and 8.0% respectively. For the first time since 1990, India grew faster than China which registered 6.9% growth in 2015. However the growth rate subsequently decelerated, to 7.1% and 6.6% in 2016–17 and 2017– 18 respectively, partly because of the disruptive effects of 2016 Indian banknote demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (India).
India is ranked 63rd out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s 2020 ease of doing business index, up 14 points from the last year’s 100 and up 37 points in just two years. In terms of dealing with construction permits and enforcing contracts, it is ranked among the 10 worst in the world, while it has a relatively favourable ranking when it comes to protecting minority investors or getting credit. The strong efforts taken by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to boost ease of doing business rankings at the state level is said to impact the overall rankings of India.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous rating agencies downgraded India’s GDP predictions for FY21 to negative figures, signalling a recession in India, the most severe since 1979. The Indian Economy contracted by 6.6 percent which was lower than the estimated 7.3 percent decline. In 2022, the ratings agency Fitch Ratings upgraded India’s outlook to stable similar to S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service’s outlooks. In the first quarter of financial year 2022–2023, the Indian economy grew by 13.5%.
Historically, India has classified and tracked its economy and GDP in three sectors: agriculture, industry, and services. Agriculture includes crops, horticulture, milk and animal husbandry, aquaculture, fishing, sericulture, aviculture, forestry, and related activities. Industry includes various manufacturing sub-sectors. India’s definition of services sector includes its construction, retail, software, IT, communications, hospitality, infrastructure operations, education, healthcare, banking and insurance, and many other economic activities.
Until the liberalisation of 1991, India was largely and intentionally isolated from world markets, to protect its economy and to achieve self-reliance. Foreign trade was subject to import tariffs, export taxes and quantitative restrictions, while foreign direct investment (FDI) was restricted by upper- limit equity participation, restrictions on technology transfer, export obligations and government approvals; these approvals were needed for nearly 60% of new FDI in the industrial sector. The restrictions ensured that FDI averaged only around $200 million annually between 1985 and 1991; a large percentage of the capital flows consisted of foreign aid, commercial borrowing and deposits of non- resident Indians. India’s exports were stagnant for the first 15 years after independence, due to general neglect of trade policy by the government of that period; imports in the same period, with early industrialisation, consisted predominantly of machinery, raw materials and consumer goods. Since liberalisation, the value of India’s international trade has increased sharply, with the contribution of total trade in goods and services to the GDP rising from 16% in 1990– 91 to 47% in 2009–10. Foreign trade accounted for 48.8% of India’s GDP in 2015. Globally, India accounts for 1.44% of exports and 2.12% of imports for merchandise trade and 3.34% of exports and 3.31% of imports for commercial services trade. India’s major trading partners are the European Union, China, United States and United Arab Emirates. In 2006–07, major export commodities included engineering goods, petroleum products, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, gems and jewellery, textiles and garments, agricultural products, iron ore and other minerals. Major import commodities included crude oil and related products, machinery, electronic goods, gold and silver. In November 2010, exports increased 22.3% year-on-year to ₹85,100 crore (equivalent to ₹1.6 trillion or US$20 billion in 2020), while imports were up 7.5% at ₹125,100 crore (equivalent to ₹2.4 trillion or US$30 billion in 2020). The trade deficit for the same month dropped from ₹46,900 crore (equivalent to ₹1.0 trillion or US$13 billion in 2020) in 2009 to ₹40,100 crore (equivalent to A proportional representation of India exports, 2019 ₹760 billion or US$9.6 billion in 2020) in 2010.
India is a founding-member of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the WTO. While participating actively in its general council meetings, India has been crucial in voicing the concerns of the developing world. For instance, India has continued its opposition to the inclusion of labour, environmental issues and other non-tariff barriers to trade in WTO policies.
Since independence, India’s balance of payments on its current account has been negative. Since economic liberalisation in the 1990s, precipitated by a balance-of-payment crisis, India’s exports rose consistently, covering 80.3% of its imports in 2002–03, up from 66.2% in 1990–91. However, the global economic slump followed by a general deceleration in world trade saw the exports as a percentage of imports drop to 61.4% in 2008–09. India’s growing oil import bill is seen as the main driver behind the large current account deficit, which rose to $118.7 billion, or 11.11% of GDP, in 2008–09. Between January and October 2010, India imported $82.1 billion worth of crude oil. The Indian economy has run a trade deficit every year from 2002 to 2012, with a merchandise trade deficit of US$189 billion in 2011–12. Its trade with China has the largest deficit, about $31 billion in 2013.
India’s reliance on external assistance and concessional debt has decreased since liberalisation of the economy, and the debt service ratio decreased from 35.3% in 1990–91 to 4.4% in 2008–09. In India, external commercial borrowings (ECBs), or commercial loans from non-resident lenders, are being permitted by the government for providing an additional source of funds to Indian corporates. The Ministry of Finance monitors and regulates them through ECB policy guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under the Foreign Exchange Management Act of 1999. India’s foreign exchange reserves have steadily risen from $5.8 billion in March 1991 to ₹38,832.21 billion (US$540 billion) in July 2020. In 2012, United Kingdom announced an end to all financial aid to India, citing the growth and robustness of Indian economy.
India’s current account deficit reached an all-time high in 2013. India has historically funded its current account deficit through borrowings by companies in the overseas markets or remittances by non-resident Indians and portfolio inflows. From April 2016 to January 2017, RBI data showed that, for the first time since 1991, India was funding its deficit through foreign direct investment inflows.
As the third-largest economy in the world in PPP terms, India has attracted foreign direct investment (FDI). During the year 2011, FDI inflow into India stood at $36.5 billion, 51.1% higher than the 2010 figure of $24.15 billion. India has strengths in telecommunication, information technology and other significant areas such as auto components, chemicals, apparels, pharmaceuticals, and jewellery. Despite a surge in foreign investments, rigid FDI policies were a significant hindrance. Over time, India has adopted a number of FDI reforms. India has a large pool of skilled managerial and technical expertise. The size of the middle-class population stands at 30 crore (300 million) and represents a growing consumer market.
India liberalised its FDI policy in 2005, allowing up to a 100% FDI stake in ventures. Industrial policy reforms have substantially reduced industrial licensing requirements, removed restrictions on expansion and facilitated easy access to foreign technology and investment. The upward growth curve of the real-estate sector owes some credit to a booming economy and liberalised FDI regime. In March 2005, the government amended the rules to allow 100% FDI in the construction sector, including built-up infrastructure and construction development projects comprising housing, commercial premises, hospitals, educational institutions, recreational facilities, and city- and regional-level infrastructure. Between 2012 and 2014, India extended these reforms to defence, telecom, oil, retail, aviation, and other sectors.
From 2000 to 2010, the country attracted $178 billion as FDI. The inordinately high investment from Mauritius is due to routing of international funds through the country given significant tax advantages – double taxation is avoided due to a tax treaty between India and Mauritius, and Mauritius is a capital gains tax haven, effectively creating a zero-taxation FDI channel. FDI accounted for 2.1% of India’s GDP in 2015.
As the government has eased 87 foreign investment direct rules across 21 sectors in the last three years, FDI inflows hit $60.1 billion between 2016 and 2017 in India.
The Indian rupee (₹) is the only legal tender in India, and is also accepted as legal tender in neighbouring Nepal and Bhutan, both of which peg their currency to that of the Indian rupee. The rupee is divided into 100 paise. The highest-denomination banknote is the ₹2,000 note; the lowest-denomination coin in circulation is the 50 paise coin. Since 30 June 2011, all denominations below 50 paise have ceased to be legal currency. India’s monetary system is managed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank. Established on 1 April 1935 and nationalised in 1949, the RBI serves as the nation’s monetary authority, regulator and supervisor of the monetary system, banker to the government, custodian of foreign exchange reserves, and as an issuer of currency. It is governed by a central board of directors, headed by a governor who is appointed by the Government of India. The benchmark interest rates are set by the Monetary Policy Committee.
The rupee was linked to the British pound from 1927 to 1946, and then to US dollar until 1975 through a fixed exchange rate. It was devalued in September 1975 and the system of fixed par rate was replaced with a basket of four major international currencies: the British pound, US dollar, the Japanese yen and the Deutsche Mark. In 1991, after the collapse of its largest trading partner, the Soviet Union, India faced the major foreign exchange crisis and the rupee was devalued by around 19% in two stages on 1 and 2 July. In 1992, a Liberalized Exchange Rate Mechanism (LERMS) was introduced. Under LERMS, exporters had to surrender 40 percent of their foreign exchange earnings to the RBI at the RBI- determined exchange rate; the remaining 60% could be converted at the market- determined exchange rate. In 1994, the rupee was convertible on the current account, with some capital controls.
After the sharp devaluation in 1991 and transition to current account convertibility in 1994, the value of the rupee has been largely determined by market forces. The rupee has been fairly stable during the decade 2000– 2010. In 24th February 2023, rupee touched an all-time low 82.933 to US dollar.
India’s gross national income per capita had experienced high growth rates since 2002. It tripled from ₹19,040 in 2002–03 to ₹53,331 in 2010–11, averaging 13.7% growth each of these eight years, with peak growth of 15.6% in 2010–11 and, growth in the inflation-adjusted per-capita income of the nation slowed to 5.6% in 2010–11, down from 6.4% in the previous year. These consumption levels are on an individual basis. The average family income in India was $6,671 per household in 2011.
According to 2011 census data, India has about 33 crore (330 million) houses and 24.7 crore (247 million) households. The household size in India has dropped in recent years, the 2011 census reporting 50% of households have four or fewer members, with an average of 4.8 members per household including surviving grandparents. These households produced a GDP of about $1.7 trillion. Consumption patterns note: approximately 67% of households use firewood, crop residue, or cow-dung cakes for cooking purposes; 53% do not have sanitation or drainage facilities on premises; 83% have water supply within their premises or 100 metres (330 ft) from their house in urban areas and 500 metres (1,600 ft) from the house in rural areas; 67% of the households have access to electricity; 63% of households have landline or mobile telephone service; 43% have a television; 26% have either a two- or four-wheel motor vehicle. Compared to 2001, these income and consumption trends represent moderate to significant improvements. One report in 2010 claimed that high-income households outnumber low-income households.
New World Wealth publishes reports tracking the total wealth of countries, which is measured as the private wealth held by all residents of a country. According to New World Wealth, India’s total wealth increased from $3,165 billion in 2007 to $8,230 billion in 2017, a growth rate of 160%. India’s total wealth decreased by 1% from $8.23 trillion in 2017 to $8.148 trillion in 2018, making it the sixth wealthiest nation in the world. There are 20,730 multimillionaires (7th largest in the world) and 118 billionaires in India (3rd largest in the world). With 327,100 high net-worth individuals (HNWI), India is home to the 9th highest number of HNWIs in the world. Mumbai is the wealthiest Indian city and the 12th wealthiest in the world, with a total net worth of $941 billion in 2018. Twenty-eight billionaires reside in the city, ranked ninth worldwide. As of December 2016, the next wealthiest cities in India were Delhi ($450 billion), Bengaluru ($320 billion), Hyderabad ($310 billion), Kolkata ($290 billion), Chennai ($200 billion), and Gurugram ($110 billion).
The Global Wealth Migration Review 2019 report, published by New World Wealth, found that 5,000 HNWI’s emigrated from India in 2018, or about 2% of all HNWIs in the country. Australia, Canada, and United States were among the top destination countries. The report also projected that private wealth in India would grow by around 180% to reach $22,814 billion by 2028.
In May 2014, the World Bank reviewed and proposed revisions to its poverty calculation methodology of 2005 and purchasing-power-parity basis for measuring poverty. According to the revised methodology, the world had 87.23 crore (872.3 million) people below the new poverty line, of which 17.96 crore (179.6 million) lived in India. With 17.5% of the total world’s population, India had a 20.6% share of the world’s poorest in 2013. According to a 2005–2006 survey, India had about 6.1 crore (61 million) children under the age of 5 who were chronically malnourished. A 2011 UNICEF report stated that between 1990 and 2010, India achieved a 45 percent reduction in mortality rates under the age of 5, and now ranks 46th of 188 countries on this metric.
Since the early 1960s, successive governments have implemented various schemes to alleviate poverty, under central planning, that have met with partial success. In 2005, the government enacted the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), guaranteeing 100 days of minimum wage employment to every rural household in all the districts of India. In 2011, it was widely criticised and beset with controversy for corrupt officials, deficit financing as the source of funds, poor quality of infrastructure built under the programme, and unintended destructive effects. Other studies suggest that the programme has helped reduce rural poverty in some cases. Yet other studies report that India’s economic growth has been the driver of sustainable employment and poverty reduction, though a sizeable population remains in poverty. India lifted 27.1 crore (271 million) people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, recording the fastest reductions in the multidimensional poverty index values during the period with strong improvements in areas such as assets, cooking fuel, sanitation, and nutrition.
In the 2022 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 107th out of the 121 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2022 GHI scores. With a score of 29.1, India has a level of hunger that is serious.
Agricultural and allied sectors accounted for about 52% of the total workforce in 2009–10. While agriculture employment has fallen over time in percentage of labour employed, services which include construction and infrastructure have seen a steady growth accounting for 20.3% of employment in 2012–13. Of the total workforce, 7% is in the organised sector, two-thirds of which are in the government- controlled public sector. About 51.2% of the workforce in India is self-employed. According to a 2005–06 survey, there is a gender gap in employment and salaries. In rural areas, both men and women are primarily self-employed, mostly in agriculture. In urban areas, salaried work was the largest source of employment for both men and women in 2006.
Unemployment in India is characterised by chronic (disguised) unemployment. Government schemes that target eradication of both poverty and unemployment – which in recent decades has sent crores of poor and unskilled people into urban areas in search of livelihoods – attempt to solve the problem by providing financial assistance for starting businesses, honing skills, setting up public sector enterprises, reservations in governments, etc. The decline in organised employment, due to the decreased role of the public sector after liberalisation, has further underlined the need for focusing on better education and created political pressure for further reforms. India’s labour regulations are heavy, even by developing country standards, and analysts have urged the government to abolish or modify them to make the environment more conducive for employment generation. The 11th five-year plan has also identified the need for a congenial environment to be created for employment generation, by reducing the number of permissions and other bureaucratic clearances required. Inequalities and inadequacies in the education system have been identified as an obstacle, which prevents the benefits of increased employment opportunities from reaching all sectors of society.
Corruption has been a pervasive problem in India. A 2005 study by Transparency International (TI) found that more than half of those surveyed had first-hand experience of paying a bribe or peddling influence to get a job done in a public office in the previous year. A follow-up study in 2008 found this rate to be 40 percent. In 2011, TI ranked India at 95th place amongst 183 countries in perceived levels of public sector corruption. By 2016, India saw a reduction in corruption, and its ranking improved to 79th place.
In 1996, red tape, bureaucracy, and the Licence Raj were suggested as a cause for the institutionalised corruption and inefficiency. More recent reports suggest the causes of corruption include excessive regulations and approval requirements, mandated spending programs, monopoly of certain goods and service providers by government-controlled institutions, bureaucracy with discretionary powers, and lack of transparent laws and processes.
Computerisation of services, various central and state vigilance commissions, and the 2005 Right to Information Act – which requires government officials to furnish information requested by citizens or face punitive action – have considerably reduced corruption and opened avenues to redress grievances.
In 2011, the Indian government concluded that most spending fails to reach its intended recipients, as the large and inefficient bureaucracy consumes budgets. India’s absence rates are among the worst in the world; one study found that 25% of public sector teachers and 40% of government-owned public-sector medical workers could not be found at the workplace. Similarly, many issues are facing Indian scientists, with demands for transparency, a meritocratic system, and an overhaul of the bureaucratic agencies that oversee science and technology.
India has an underground economy, with a 2006 report alleging that India topped the worldwide list for black money with almost $1,456 billion stashed in Swiss banks. This would amount to 13 times the country’s total external debt. These allegations have been denied by the Swiss Banking Association. James Nason, the Head of International Communications for the Swiss Banking Association, suggested “The (black money) figures were rapidly picked up in the Indian media and in Indian opposition circles, and circulated as gospel truth. However, this story was a complete fabrication. The Swiss Bankers Association never published such a report. Anyone claiming to have such figures (for India) should be forced to identify their source and explain the methodology used to produce them.” A Step was taken by Prime Minister Modi, on 8 November 2016, involved the demonetization of all 500 and 1000 rupee bank notes (replaced by new 500 and 2000 rupee notes) to return black money into the economy followed by criticism that the measure was deemed ineffective by economists and negatively affected the poorest people of India. This demonetisation together with the introduction of The goods and services tax(GST) is believed to be responsible for the slowdown in growth.
India has made progress in increasing the primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately three-fourths of the population. India’s literacy rate had grown from 52.2% in 1991 to 74.04% in 2011. The right to education at the elementary level has been made one of the fundamental rights under the Eighty-Sixth Amendment of 2002, and legislation has been enacted to further the objective of providing free education to all children. However, the literacy rate of 74% is lower than the worldwide average, and the country suffers from a high drop-out rate. Literacy rates and educational opportunities vary by region, gender, urban and rural areas, and among different social groups.
Resources are classified as either biotic or abiotic on the basis of their origin. The Indian landmass contains a multitude of both types of resource and its economy.
The effects of climate change impact the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies.
Refers to the series of policy changes aimed at opening up the country's economy to the world, with the objective of making it more market-oriented and service-driven.
