Envisioning the India of 2047

The India of today is at an inflexion point and hereon, it can only accelerate its journey to the top

- BY T.V. NARENDRAN

When India got its freedom in 1947, it was an amalgamation of more than 550 princely states and thousands of zamindari estates covering 40 per cent of the land area and 23 per cent of the population. Today, India, after 75 years of freedom, has come a long way.

Over the past seven decades, India has seen several ups and downs. Today with a $3.17-trillion economy, India is the fifth-largest economy in the world. This has been a remarkable journey. Just about one Indian out of five was literate in 1950. Today, the literacy rate is close to 80 per cent. There are over 1,000 universities imparting quality education. Improvement in the healthcare ecosystem has resulted in the average life expectancy of males to increase from 37 years in 1951 to 68 years today. For females the improvement has been even better—from 36 years to 70 years. Infant mortality rate has dropped from 140 at the time of independence to 30 in 2019. It gives a sense of pride of what we have accomplished as a nation in the past 75 years. In technology-intensive areas like space and nuclear programmes we have made significant headway and are counted amongst the leading nations. The economy has transformed itself from a closed agrarian economy to an open economy led by services.