Can India achieve its 2024 GDP target of $5 trillion? Writing in The New Indian Express, Visiting Senior Fellow Shankkar Aiyar argues that such a quantum leap requires states to step up and enact reform.

"The ‘India Story’ is caught between questions and answers. Perception is challenged by the perils of slowdown. The ‘long-term’ promise of 7-plus per cent growth potential exists amidst the parade of forecasts in the past weeks lowering 2019-20 GDP to sub 7 per cent. The political leadership is articulating everything aspiring India wants to hear. But is the policy apparatus doing everything that needs to be done? 

The fact is the economy is at an intersection of necessary and sufficient conditions. The opportunity for growth embedded in demography—and fortune cookies such as lower crude oil costs or the return of easier money thanks to the policy stance by the US Federal Reserve—need the leverage of sufficient conditions."

Read the full article here.