25 years of economic liberalisation: Is India better off?

A quarter of a century ago, India took a momentous turn and decided to open its economy to the world. With a looming balance of payment crisis on one hand and a teetering economy on the other, India was on the brink of an economic crisis. It was at that precise moment that Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, mustered political courage and gave a go ahead to the then Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to 'open up' the economy. Twenty five years later we ask, are we better off? Has India benefitted from liberalisation? Has the pace of reforms slowed down? Why can't politicians cut across their ideological divide and arrive at a consensus on reforms? Would it be true to say that the benefits of liberalisation failed to percolate down to the have nots?

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