India Economic Summit 2010

The challenge put before participants in this year’s India Economic Summit was to find ways in which India can spread its rapid economic growth more evenly so that it reaches the hundreds of millions of Indians still living in rural poverty. It is a tall order. While India’s fast-growing, dynamic economy has become the envy of the world, its growth has been lopsided. Opportunities and wealth have flowed largely to educated urbanites. Those in India’s heartland are still waiting for the tide to lift them up. Their impatience and frustration have become evident in election results, in rural protests, in simmering insurrections and, most dramatically, in the steady march of migrants into India’s bulging cities. India may have rapid growth, but it needs inclusive growth.