India @60

Today’s ET has so much to read and write from on our Independence Day. One should at least take a glance at some of the excellent content that is posted on India Empowered – Young at 60.

I found that some thoughts expressed by beloved our PM need excerpting in our blog. So, here we go:

• The idea of India, of unity in diversity, of openness and inclusiveness has withstood the test of time and history and is our great contribution to humankind these past 60 years.
• In the first three decades of Independence, we grew at 3.5% per annum. In the second three decades, our annual growth rate went up to nearly 6%. In the past few years, the growth rate has been close to 9% per annum. This has been made possible by a rising rate of investment, now at around 35% of national income, and rising productivity of labour and capital. If we can sustain these rates, and step up the productivity of land labour, we should be able to attain double-digit rates of growth in the near future. India is on the move.
• In the past 60 years, people moved to where work was available; in the next 60 years, work must move where people live.
• While our democracy is our great strength and a unifying force, we must not allow it to become an excuse for not working together in the larger national interest.
• Indians have proved that individually they can excel and compete with the best in the world. We must be able to do so collectively too.
• To overcome the many challenges we face – developmental as well as social, domestic and external – we require at least a minimal consensus on a national agenda.