India

An India, that the major world powers are vying to woo, be if the US, the UK, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Australia or China. An India that is finding a place virtually at all forums be it the P-5 or G-8 summits, the World Economic Forum, G-20 or WTO. Its voice is heard, a voice that the developed world can no longer ignore. This is not a spontaneous phenomenon. The country’s rulers have actively promoted this notion ever since India conducted nuclear tests in May 1998 making it a de facto ‘nuclear weapon State’.
The dream of making India a ‘great power’, even a ‘superpower’, a developed nation by 2020 is now looking a reality. As the US shifted its stance, the real turn around came with President Clinton’s visit to India in April 2000 and new Bush Administration which assumed office in January 2001. A December 2004 report of the National Intelligence Council of the USA, “Mapping the Global Future”, predicts that India will emerge, like China, as a “new major global player” in the next 15 years.
a rising global power
It was in tune with this outlook that when Prime Minister visited the US in July 2005. The strategic dialogue initiated then has now culminated in a historic agreement during President Bush’s visit to India in March 2006 on civil nuclear energy, economic and strategic cooperation. If India, indeed, is being seen as a rising globalpower, it is because its economy has grown from strength to strength ever since it began globalizing and liberalizing its economy in the 1990s.
Now considered as the second fastest growing economy of the world, its fundamentals have become strong and stable. The macro-economic indicators are at present the best in the history of independent India with high growth, healthy foreign exchange reserves, and foreign investment and robust increase in exports and low inflation and interest rates. India ranks as one of the three largest emerging markets in terms of its size and stock market capitalization, with both breadth and...