Being a trillion dollar economy...

My beloved country has achieved another milestone....India has become a trillion dollar economy ! It took some time for my typical middle class economics to assimilate this news...to understand the impact and the implication of such an achievement. And I did observe that most of the nation ( by that I mean, most of the media ) did not bother to focus any more attention on this bit of news than it would give to a story about an elephant being transported from Maharastra to Kerala in search of a mate ! Ah...so much for being an elephant ...;-)

India's GDP at current market prices is estimated to be Rs. 41,00,000 crores and with the US dollar slipping below Rs. 41, this translates into a little more than $ 1 trillion dollars ! The other countries who have accomplished this are the US, Japan, Germany, China, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Russia. And to think that India had not even touched $ 500 million dollars in 2000-01 !

For all of those who want to pooh-pooh this as mere statistics, consider this :

• India has been the fourth largest economy in PPP ( purchasing power parity) terms ( which converts rupee to dollar on the basis of what the respective currencies can buy in their countries rather than the nominal exchange rate , for more on PPP, refer wiki), just behind the US, China and Japan and its size is about $4 trillion
• India is the second fastest growing major economy, with a GDP growth rate of 9.2% during the second quarter of 2006-07.
• Total Foreign Investment increased to $ 15.7 billion during April - Dec of FY 2006-07, according to FICCI data. India has become the fourth largest recipient of FDI in South & South-East Asian region, according to UNCTAD reports
• A Goldman Sachs report predicts that India's productivity growth will help in sustaining a growth above 8% until 2020 and by 2050 we would be the second largest economy in the world, ahead of the US
• Doing business in India has become easier, according to the World Bank, which ranks India as one of the top reformers in a recent report “ Doing Business in South Asia 2007”.
• Total telephone subscription crossed 200 million in February 2007, according to TRAI reports.

Well, I know that there are more statistics that we can showcase to demonstrate the other face of development. I myself, do believe that ensuring equitable development and reaching the fruits of this immense growth to the grassroots is the biggest challenge before India.

But, that should not stop us from celebrating what is still an achievement. Because unless we learn to take pride in our achievements and in our development, we will not take the responsibilities that come along with it.

So, here is to my country and all of my country people who are building a dream called India ! Congratulations and lets welcome the good times ahead :-)