Raghuram Rajan on why democracy is ‘biggest advantage’ for India’s economy

In a conversation with Newslaundry CEO Abhinandan Sekhri, former RBI governor #RaghuramRajan spoke about the role of artificial intelligence in economic development, competition in the news industry, and India’s response to environmental threats, among other issues.

In his keynote address at the Ideas for India Conference, organised by Bridge India in London last month, Rajan also examined India’s service sector and the significance of democracy for future economic growth.

“Our biggest advantage is our democracy. Would you trust 5G that is sold to you from an authoritarian country?” said the former RBI governor, reiterating the importance of decentralisation and investment in human capital development. “India has a reputation in services. Let’s build on it.”

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[seshanm]

How quietly he avoids mentioning the scorching pace of infra, highways, tunnels, bridges, ports, waterways. etc

[Sandeep-flkc]

It was same with two wheeler now we become top in that industry.being democracy it takes time for any industrial development

[narendra]

I wish these kinds of lectures are delivered at district leve in India. This would be a first step in the direction of decentralisation.

[LightInTheDark]

Aligning economics to Gandhian ideas...OMG .It just beautifies an economy. It's a difficult path but that's what India has never been afraid to take. The country that claims herself to be the largest democracy must show that much courage & I'm hopeful on that.
Great delivery by newslaundry.
Thankful to R. Rajan Sir for such enlightening insights .💯

[theindianman]

I agree with him manufacturing industry may be collapsed but the service sector has always kept the economy moving ✌️ I want you sir as p.m of india . ... 💥💥

[seekfunk]

India is really good at producing talkers. Try to make more doers next time.

[Welsh]

india has survived whuan virus which itself shows the present govt is the best

[lourdumary]

For me it was like being in a classroom, listening with concentration, and taking in as much as I could from the talk of Raghuram Rajan. The way he answered the questions is simply SUPERB.
🙏👌👍🙏

[rikshitkhandelwal]

52:42 “Allowing different voices different thoughts” is the way forward to think about education in our country!

Thanks Dr. Rajan & NL team.

[mayukhsrivastava]

An enlightening lecture in which Dr Rajan lays out his vision of what needs to be done so that India can walk the high growth path towards development. While the focus on boosting manufacturing should not be abandoned, a much more concerted effort should go into the development of services, where India is renowned and has an advantage. The manufacturing bus is already gone and moreover, the situation is very different from what was conducive to China's growth. Most of the value added is now in services and to take advantage of this, we need to invest in quality and accessible education, healthcare. Most importantly, democracy is an asset and can be of immense help in promoting India's growth as a service exporter. (consulting, telemedicine etc)

[rajx]

Democracy alone can't pull people out of poverty.
The average people keeps asking government job and some politicians keep hating businesses that create jobs. This attitude can't pull people out of poverty.
Poverty will be eradicated only when govt encourages manufacturing sector, to get people out of agriculture.
70 years of Congress rule was totally against manufacturing, and this so-called economist also opposes manufacturing in India. Then how can we call him a well-wisher of India?
China pulled it's people out of poverty through manufacturing. Should we keep importing from China forever? This economist, never understanda or doesn't want people to understand. 10 years of Congress made us dependent on Chinese imports, and labour reforms were neglected so much that, Indian textile companies shifted to Bangladesh. We need to correct these mistakes. Sorry, Raghuram Rajan, you are wrong. Your big words don't impress us. Your ideas won't create jobs. It seems even you know that but you want to deliberately mislead us, fir your selfish aims. Please stay in US. Indians are realizing what is good for them. And we are making progress. Slowly, everyone will realise this.

[VijayChakravarty-pzqv]

I think Dr Rajan missed a crucial point as to why the manufacturing route worked. It is because it provides mass employment, taking the disguisedly unemployed in agriculture to 'serf' jobs in manufacturing. Examples of 'lord' jobs like telemedicine or IT professionals/ Apple products/Cloud computing provide employment to very few and the highly skilled amongst them. To support service centric economy, you either need access to the global market or must have strong domestic demand. Low level service jobs like the kirana shop can't have access to the global market and the domestic demand isn't supported by a large population who might have need for those services. Manufacturing helps to kill both these birds with one stone. It provides export based global market access and it creates a population better equipped not to do fancy telemedicine but to bolster domestic demand of low level services. I think the argument that prioritising a sliver of high skilled engineers, doctors and consultants can offset the problems of the mass populace languishing in climate change addled fields is a deeply mistaken one. India's workforce needs the 'serf' jobs because the high end jobs simply don't have the capacity to support mass employment.

[aanakrukavi]

Suddenly newslaundry has started organising some costly conferences in and out of India
Source of income need to be investigated as 2024 elections are approaching.

[agrowintraders]

If he become FM of India…. our nation will roar.

[nirmalyabhattacharya]

The singular man to get every single prediction wrong !!! ❤❤❤❤
The Indian economy is safe as long as you are miles away from it Sir 😂
Takes special talent power to u Sir ....

[TheDonMan]

Every time he says something negative about India, I'm so happy because the exact opposite happens! This time he was soo negative and by Allah's grace, India will have even faster growth!! :D Thank you RR

[humptydumpty]

This is NL to the next levels. Congratulations to the entire NL team.

[gwasikotisachin]

Arguments with logic and rationality 👍

[Kp.edit.s]

Raghuram say India will grow 5% but India grow around 7.2%

[rakeshbishnoi]

Kudos to the NL team and one of the great thinkers of our time Dr. Rajan for this discussion. Keep up what you are doing NL team :)