3 must-haves for India to chart its own transformational growth journey

 As my first in post in year 2022, I decided to lay my idea on the fundamentals that India need to revisit in order to have a strong growth trajectory. However, this post does not try to slice and dice the economic data. Instead, it attempts to revisit the foundation that needs to be addressed to make growth an inherent process, more than an objective.

So, here are my 3 must-haves for India to chart a transformational journey

1)     Address the ‘Brain-Drain’ issue:

 One of the key issues that needs resolution is the brain-drain problem. Graduates from leading institutes settle abroad, looking for better education, good employment opportunities and high salaries. As per Global Wealth Migration Review, 2% of high-net worth individuals settled abroad in 2020. This dynamic creates worrying levels of vacuum of quality talent in India. There are few advantages as well as India observes strong flow of remittances (USD 87 billion) in 2021. However, the cons clearly outweigh the pros in this scenario

As a solution to this issue, India needs to explore options to create equal and strong educational frameworks that create nationwide skilling movement. It is imperative to focus on bridging gaps between academia and corporates by identifying relevant skills for today. With good opportunities opening up, we can see a decline in the brain drain activity in subsequent years.

2)     Foster Innovation:

India jumped two positions in Global Innovation Index prepared by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2020. Currently, India stands at 46^th position on this index. However, there are still significant degrees of freedom to build up on India’s innovation capabilities. Currently, the total patents filed in 2020 stood at 37,880 which is up from 15,914 back in 2011. This showcases strong push by Indian government and companies to bring new ideas to the growth story. However, breakthrough innovations at grassroot level sometimes go unnoticed with this patent filing mechanism. It is up to the government to tap into this so as to explore newer possibilities to its fullest depth. In this regard, the corporate and academia should be empowered to support India’s rural core by providing funding, technical know-how, marketing, branding and patent filing avenues to ensure that these innovations appear on radar going forward.

3)     Imbibing principles from India’s ancient heritage:  

This point may seem a little off-track given the fact that we are discussing on ways to grow economically. Believe it or not, India’s spiritual heritage is replete with principles on how to manifest abundance, growth, peace and harmony. In the age of dynamic change, it is important for us to imbibe principles which can give us required clarity and strength to work towards our growth. The new way of life can help us to navigate the complexities with fluidity and work to achieve the larger purpose.

 

With this, I will conclude by saying that India’s economic goals cannot be achieved without strong and focused individual contributors and thus it is necessary to nurture and develop talent across all levels.