Ideas for the Next 25 Years

It is conventional for most publications to devote the new year's first issue at either looking back at the year gone by, or making predictions about what the new year will bring. At Business Today though, we like to take a slightly longer view. This is why we decided not to look at what India needs to do in a range of economic and other policy areas in the next one year, but what it needs to do in the long term to take its rightful place at the high table of the global economy.

The Year 2016 is significant because it marks the 25th anniversary of the new direction the country's economic planners decided to take in 1991, and which has resulted in India becoming the seventh largest economy in the world. Over the next 25 years, India will become the third most important economy in the world, after China and the US, and will probably continue adding more growth momentum.

It is therefore a good time to think about what the country should do to become a genuine economic and political superpower. We asked some of the sharpest economic, political, military and foreign policy experts in India and abroad to look into the future and prescribe steps that the country needs to take to achieve its true potential. The 33 essays in this issue contain insights and ideas on subjects as diverse as budgeting, taxation, financial inclusion, social security, waterways, solar power, military strategy, foreign policy and administrative reforms.