(Abstract: We suggest a three-pronged approach to an enhanced growth strategy for India. The first prong is export-led growth. Here the lessons of China are particularly instructive, since China achieved in the past fifteen years the kind of export-led growth that India could have achieved, but failed to do so, because of poor public policies. The second prong is rural improvement, especially in the vast population of the Gangetic valley. India needs a specific strategy to bring modern economic growth to rural India, through a concerted campaign of infrastructure upgrading and appropriate re-design of state policy. The third prong is the maintenance of macroeconomic stability, to avoid the kind of crisis that pushed East Asia into economic collapse. The macroeconomic stakes have obviously been raised in the past year. India=s macroeconomic policies will be under scrutiny as perhaps never before following the onset of the East Asian financial crisis.)
(India has been experiencing sustained high economic growth in the recent years. However, there still exists substantial amount of unacceptable poverty among the people in the country. The expressions of symptoms of such poverty include among others inadequate educational and health attainment of the people and lack of access to basic amenities like modern clean energy, safe water and sanitation, which are crucial determinants of human capability development. The eleventh five-year plan of India, which has recently been initiated, has taken the approach of inclusive faster growth for the development of the Indian economy. The basic paper on which the seminar will be based analyses the implications of this high inclusive growth for removing poverty and inequity, in respect of the twin challenges of environmental sustainability of the required energy growth and energy security in India. The energy security is discussed both in the sense of removal of energy poverty and that of reducing the level of vulnerability of the economy in the face of oil price rise as experienced in the recent years. It addresses particularly the question of linkage between income poverty and energy poverty and the implication of energy poverty alleviation in India in respect of global environmental sustainability. It further discusses in this context the instrumental role of choice of fuel and technology (like bio-fuel among others) and institutional changes like economic reforms in determining the energy efficiency as well as energy security of India. It finally addresses certain selected policy issues from macroeconomic perspective including that of policy linkage between energy security and food security in the context of bio-liquids development in India.)
(Calestous Juma teaches at Harvard Kennedy School and was a major contributor to the World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change)
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