Introduction

The Indian economy has come a long way since the days of economic crisis in the early 1990s. The reform measures pursued after the economic crisis helped India to tap into its latent potential to emerge as a global player. The GDP growth of 5.4 per cent recorded in the decade prior to the crisis accelerated to 6.3 per cent over the period from 1992–3 to 2005–6. The present euphoria of high growth is a sharp contrast to the uncertainty about India’s economic destiny just 15 years back. Though there has been a setback to growth over the period from 1996–7 to 1999–2000, the resurgence of growth to 8 per cent during the three-year period 2003–4 to 2005–6 speaks of the resilience of the Indian economy. Further, the draft approach paper for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2006) envisages an 8.5 per cent growth horizon for the Indian economy. According to the Indian Finance Minister, it took 14 years for India to transform from a ‘poor and perhaps a forgotten country’ (Chidambaram, 2006) to a thriving and increasingly prominent emerging economy. This welcome transformation is an outcome of the reform measures pursued over the last 15 years. Going beyond the actual reform measures, what is important to note is the change in the economic paradigm guiding India’s approach to economic policy-making.