Five Focus Areas for the Next Five Years

What India needs to do to realise its full potential in the next five years

- JANMEJAYA SINHA

WHAT IMAGERY of India would someone looking at it from afar in 1947 have conjured up for life in the country 77 years later? On many dimensions, much of what has been achieved would have appeared unrealistic, if not outright delusionary. That India survives as a working democracy, is the fifth-largest economy in the world, and has landed a spaceship on the south side of the moon would have seemed fanciful. That life expectancy had doubled to 70 years from the 32 years it was in 1947 would seem unbelievable. In fact, even drawing a Test match against England would have seemed like a dream and a movie like Gully Boy might have been listed under the fiction category about future Indian society on Netflix (if the platform had existed). We escaped becoming a Myanmar, Afghanistan, or Pakistan and today is the cynosure of the world with both business and political leaders having to incorporate India in their strategic calculus. So, I wish by 2029 Indians living in what I have called (I have described India as three nations of-50 million Europeans, 425 million Indonesians and nearly a billion who are still living in sub-Saharan Africa) sub-Saharan Africa, start visualising the possibility of a better life for themselves in their lifetime.

My top five focus areas for the next five years in India would be: