Table of Contents
Introduction
India will turn 100 in 2047. It will be a new India, and there are many plausible pathways to reach there. Reimagining India’s future, 25 years hence, is as strategic an exercise as it is a social one. We believe that one of the most important pulses on the people’s definition of the potential of a future India can be measured by the imagination of leaders. The imagination of leaders today is bound by narratives, but it is also tested at the hands of the people. We also believe that the centrality of the role of the development sector—including the social, business, and government sectors—is fundamental to the prosperity and inclusivity of 2047 and that of the broad theme of sustainable development goals.
Our work is to enhance the societal capability of imagining. The imagination of a future India is as much an outcome of the narratives of history and the lessons they hold for us as it is of the myths that entwine our civic and social imagination of a country. There are many indicators and indices of maturity (Caiado et al.2021). The report on India 2047 also hopes to lead to a seed of thought. It is urgent to talk of the 2047 milestones now because the deep adaptations required from the economy, politics, and society to respond suitably to the many pressing issues around us require us to re-stage the notion of reform and strategize a lot of co-work with one another.
Background and Significance of Reimagining India 2047
As India approaches its centenary of independence in 2047, there is an important opportunity and pressing need to reconsider and reimagine the country. The Prime Minister of India shared the vision for Amrit Kaal and India @ 2047 in his Independence Day speech of 2021, aiming to make India a developed nation by 2047. The NITI Aayog is finalizing the „Vision India@2047‟ plan, which will include input from various states. The 2023-2024 Union budget outlined a vision of a technology-driven and knowledge-based economy with strong public finances and a robust financial sector. The demographic dividend, prospering middle class, expanding digital economy, and sustainability-focused economy are anticipated to be the pillars of strength in achieving the 2047 vision. To reach the goals set for 2047, India must continue to focus on the principles of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, and Sabka Prayas.” (Source-https://loksabhadocs.nic.in/)
The role of the development sector is crucial in constructing the New India and implementing innovative solutions and strategies. The aim is to foster innovation, sustainable practices, and proactive collaborations with various stakeholders to pave the way for a new India. India currently has a population of 1.4 billion, with 69% under the age of 35, making it one of the largest human resource pools in the world. The country is the fastest-growing major economy and is being recognized as a powerhouse in information technology, space technology, and renewable energy. The government’s vision is for a self-reliant, inclusive, and resilient India, and the development of skills, vocational training, entrepreneurship, and involvement in local startups are deemed critical for this vision.
In a world characterized by ongoing climate change, uncertain technological advances, and geopolitical upheavals, we offer this thought that we can no longer shape India’s policy through five- or ten-year horizons because they emerge out of a comfortable past. Instead, we need to recast India’s choices and challenges from the perspective of an eight-year-old who will be 28 when India turns 100. The world is not just changing; it is presenting entirely new challenges. We will not be successful at doing something new if we approach old problems with redundant technology and systems. Any development agenda that is not forward-looking will surely lag, as India has done over the decades. While the government and multiple stakeholders have been engaged in setting a target for 2047, our concern is to develop from the ground up what might be a reasonable picture of what India might look like in 2047 and suggest the strategic imperatives and choices in various interlinked domains of our national life.
Major Areas of Improvement
In order to become a 5 trillion dollar economy by 2047, India needs to address several challenges and focus on areas such as economic growth, infrastructure, education, and technology. Progress in these areas is interconnected and can drive advancement in others. Additionally, social and systemic issues need to be addressed to promote inclusive growth and development. Policymakers should prioritize advancements in economic growth and infrastructure, which are essential for strengthening economic activities, as well as education and technology, which play crucial roles in development. Inclusivity and sustainability should also be central to the development sector’s work, with a focus not only on class, gender, and caste, but also on geography. Keeping abreast of global trends and promoting localized solutions and innovations is crucial for success. The focus should be on creating productive consumption, rather than passive consumption.
Economic Growth and Sustainable Development
Economic growth is necessary for a healthy economy, and a high growth rate is the surest path out of poverty. However, in order to maintain a high level of growth for the coming years, we need to encourage a shift towards sustainable economic development. Sustainable development can be defined as economic development that can continue for future generations while ensuring that there are enough resources for the present generation (Al-Qudah et al.2022). An optimal form of sustainable development would be one that simultaneously meets the needs of the people, is derived from basic environmental principles, and protects the health and development of human beings, animals, plants, and microorganisms. Currently, people all over India are struggling with problems like plummeting water tables, environmentally contaminated water, climate change-induced reduction in cropland and ocean catch, and resource depletion for other species. Companies have globalized, and it is time that business and governments begin to think about the environmental and social effects of their policies instead of taking a narrow view of immediate economic gains.
At first glance, it does appear that pursuing sustainable development is a costly option over the short term. Ultimately, if it is pursued intelligently, pursuing such a policy could save us from an array of environmental implosions. The world has tried and continues to strive for apparent success in the transition. This success is based on a culture that appreciates a holistic perspective and works from the understanding that nature is the foundation upon which everything rests. On a global level, high polluters are charged extra to enter inner-city low emission zones. Through the use of a formative technology that does well to minimize undesirable side effects while retaining the valuable input characteristics of the host of goods produced in the firm, companies have been able to reduce their water usage. Recent packages allow paper manufacturers to practically recycle their deinking sludge. In order to utilize the resources reduction scheme of the manufacturer, toilet tissue and kitchen towel suppliers ask their clientele to return their packaging to their supplier for onward forwarding for recycling. Revenue gained from the recycled material is channeled back to the client in a bid to promote increased recycling.
Strategic Infrastructure and Technological Progress for Achieving Sustainable Rural Livelihood
Highlighting the advancements in rural development, the expanding technological landscape and growing digital infrastructure are creating new opportunities for markets and consumers. The focus is on effectively linking these through both physical and digital infrastructure, providing access and incentives. The development sector’s key role is to connect various projects to support nations. With India’s post-liberalization economic growth, more fast-growing market segments are opening up. To drive long-term income growth, India will require efficient social and physical infrastructure to link rural production with global demand. Innovative and aligned resources and development strategies are essential to maintain these riches and leverage technology to complement the skills and resources of rural communities. Expectations of growth are likely to draw more players into the development sector, which may require more resources to achieve the same targets.
Education and Skill Development
Quality school education should prepare graduates for the future, by creating new industries and services and developing strong social skills. The current education system falls short of these goals, and radical reform is necessary. Recommendations include reforms in education policy and governance, teacher recruitment and training, and vocational training and skill development. This reform should prioritize providing quality primary and secondary education to India’s young population, creating incentive systems to improve quality outcomes, and rethinking vocational training programs. country; integrating vocational training and building new models like polytechnics to produce high-quality technical manpower at reasonable cost; and incorporating ICT into the education system and varying integration levels suited for different stages of growth of the education system. In addition, the group also recommended measures to increase educational collaboration, while ensuring that material is legally allowed back into India. What seemed to be of the greatest concern was creating a blueprint that fit with the government scenario on the one hand, and demonstrated the stakeholders in the charitable sector to offer constructive partnerships with the government.
Educational systems have failed specifically poor communities, where a lack of schools and connectivity has led to a terrible inter-generational slowdown and a highly patronizing approach to development-related services. Educational failure is particularly obvious in the number of students falling out of the system at different times and in the number and proportion of women who study and live in the invisible but crucial world of non-formal education and unorganized labor. Many specific problems, opportunities, and potential solutions for these issues emerge. The issues of distance and informal education, non-constrained learning outcomes, the role of traditional skill and knowledge in society, and the failure of both vocational and higher education sectors to respond to demand are also worth exploring. It can be said with confidence that the commonly used solutions of using IT to link to new physical sites for virtual computer-mediated instruction are by no means side by side to the concerns for the sustainability of people and the environment.
Role of Government
Policy rhetoric on countrywide transformation often skirts the central role of the government, notably the political system and the arms of the executive, in operationalizing transformative policy. This approach doesn’t appreciably focus on how, systematically, the state impact varies over time, across sectors and different stages of the policy spectrum. Pioneering policy formulations also fail to preach on how to adapt interventionist strategies macroeconomically and sectorally, in accordance with the evolving amplitude of markets and entrepreneurial capacity. No special emphasis is laid down on enhancing the market for the upgradation of secondary sectors and the primary focus on high-value agri-exports. Policy implications to enhance trust and ethical contracts within the system are rarely taken into account in this rhetoric. No emphasis is laid on drawing lessons from the changing priorities of the nation-state, and how one can integrate the needs of the likely complementary public-choice models with those of the original development economics.
Taking forward this argument, the role of government in India’s development journey assumes great significance in the current context. The government sets the agenda and enables the architecture for reprieve and for scaling up the propositions, originating out of the groundswell, or more rarely, from the heads of a few charismatic leaders. In that sense, the government is an instrument of the guiding principles stirring the development process itself. This development can be medium-term, or shorter by the yardstick of the mega unchallengeable objective set for the nation as a whole, like the fundamental right in our constitution. In that sense, they command resources, human and material, of equitable access both for later vision and for the purposes listed above. Sometimes, governments are trapped and find it difficult to place the leader above the chair and even above the constitution. While avoiding such populist contextual difficulties, it is submitted that policy intervention of a development kind is integral to good governance and the institutions of the future – a future that can balance ecological needs with material prosperity, and access needs of less privileged along with the efficiency drives of a neo-classical world. The strategic thrust of the policy framework energizes the priority and access to education, health, Livelihood, and skill upgradation networks. Pacifism at the periphery and a rights-based approach arise and have a vision, creating and managing such economies which neither have poverty traps nor get caught in the inefficiency of one-size-fits-all models.
Policy Formulation and Implementation
The various expert committees formulated at different periods of time have ill-served the country. They have not been able to adequately foresee the needs and inequalities that have emerged and, as a result, necessary corrections and changes have not been introduced. One can hardly recall the Planning Commission designing policies for catapulting the economy onto a higher growth trajectory, accelerating growth in each and every sector, and making it more broad-based while allowing different sectors to interact freely with each other for the collective benefit of all. The policy machinery effectively responds after the need arises for a specific policy rather than analyzing data and formulating policies in anticipation. The time has come when we must break away from the practice of so-called expert advising for making policies and must lay greater emphasis on pre-policies. Data for pre-policy need to be looked at from the planned development for the next 5, 10, or 20 years.
The task of implementing a good policy initiative poses additional challenges. Many of the implementation constraints are very well known. The major implementation deficits faced by policymakers will include:
- Difficulty in effective coordination among the various ministries and also between the center and the state;
- Resistance to change from the bureaucracy and the pressure groups;
- Hidden from public scrutiny, with the design and negotiation of policy done in a closed-door manner;
- A focus on inputs towards implementation rather than achieving outcomes;
- Ignoring the critical role that both directly and indirectly affected stakeholders play in its effective implementation.
Measures must be introduced to address these above-mentioned impediments, and the public must be informed about the next course of action in implementing the idea in the objective of the policy so that they can provide the required information. A case we could add is the introduction of People’s Plans in Kerala, wherein an amount of funds is earmarked in the block grant by the State Government to implement all the country projects included in it. This process of consensus building, especially with the expenditure allocation, takes place in every village in the State. If some of the listed projects are implemented, it has to be decided. In other words, in this decentralized democratic system, the state government cannot impose a project on anybody. In other words, the state government cannot provide direct funding, and that is going to be the source of true federalism.
Resource Allocation and Management
Resource allocation and management is an aspect of public administration that deals with ensuring the maximization of the expected impact from a finite set of resources and the sustainable and accountable utilization of these resources. In India, existing resource management frameworks are not particularly strategic, but allocation takes place through a combination of recursive budgeting based on past allocations, sectoral plans, and local body funds. Focused resource allocation models like the equity-efficiency tradeoff, where resources are allocated to those who need them the most first, are used as operational tools across many different sectors.
It is ideal to have high levels of financial efficiency, but it appears as though equitable resource utilization should be higher up the value chain by prioritizing the marginalized. This way, ground-level processes can be inclusive and expedited instead of the other way around. Resource utilization within the development sector and in the governance of other public goods – like water, energy, common property resources, and so on – needs to ensure both financial efficiency and accountability, voice, empowerment, and inclusion. The state and development sector need to be efficient in not just resource management but also in upholding the mandate of delivering public goods to those most in need, who access these goods more often than the rest and get less benefit from them. Resource use becomes controversial when not addressed from an equity perspective to meet basic needs and protect the marginalized. Decentralization does not necessarily result in efficient resource management unless local bodies like Panchayats are empowered with resources, budgets, both financial and technical know-how, and unless there is collaboration with NGOs, the government, and the community.
Role of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs)
Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) as Development Partners: Not all social services can be provided by the government. This suggests the need for the government at different levels to engage non-government organizations (NGOs) in delivering development. NGOs are seen as important partners in development governance at the grassroots level as they can help in addressing issues that cannot be resolved under the prevailing system. Functioning along the lines of civil society, NGOs can independently decide the activities they will undertake, the groups of people they will help, the methodologies they will use, and the areas where services are provided. All these contribute to the reduction of the problems of equity in development. Many NGOs work with the government visiting the beneficiaries. It is also a fact that many important issues of the day were publicized or even initiated by civil society NGOs, then being converted to government departments for implementation. Social advocacy has thus become another important area of NGOs.
NGO specialization in terms of its function and area of operation could be very diverse. It could handle rural development projects, orphanages, mother and child hospitals, old-age homes, human rights, and others. It could work in the fields of education, health, and economic development, undertaking welfare works such as income generation, providing training, and educating people on economic, religious, and gender equity. Some NGOs could be welfare-oriented, meaning they are non-political organizations taking care only of the welfare of the beneficiaries and would not get involved in root cause resolution. There is almost nothing that NGOs are not doing now except for the army. Several NGOs are very effective in carrying out their development work but are not good in publicity, mostly because they work in remote areas likely to be neglected and not visible. Non-government organizations have several thematic expertise like social mobilization, rural livelihood strengthening, Integrated natural resource management, microcredit programs etc. for the poor, thereby reducing the level of poverty in many developing countries. NGO can form a network to assist each other in developing new strategies for the exchange of best practices so, from the social perspective, poverty can be reduced and the poor could be less vulnerable when they are in a position of controlling the funds.
Complementing Government Initiatives
Social development is a shared responsibility of the government and, increasingly, the non-government sector. On the one hand, we have the scale and resources the government brings to various development initiatives. On the other hand, NGOs often bring in a certain agility and innovation that the government cannot match. The challenges India faces today are not only very different from the past, but also ever-changing, and need flexible and innovative solutions. True social impact can be achieved by various interventions coming together and providing complete, dynamic, and effective solutions to very complex problems.
The fastest way to achieve scale is through partnership with the government. Various successful projects in healthcare, education, and livelihood pioneered by NGOs have been scaled up significantly after they partnered with the government to use their proven learning at a much larger scale. One of the challenges facing the non-government sector is the scale, depth, and magnitude of development problems facing us today. One major bottleneck in expanding an NGO’s program is internal capacity. While possible financial constraints can be overcome by mobilizing additional resources, weaknesses in areas such as governance, management information systems, and planning are more difficult to overcome.
Conversely, it is also possible that the implementation strategy of the government could be faulty; in which case there is a need for innovative solutions that are complementary to the government initiatives and which could catalyze real change. At a macro level, the funding of NGOs is limited in comparison to the national budget for various social development programs of the government. Therefore, the potential for non-governmental initiatives to improve the performance of government schemes far outweighs the potential gain from stand-alone programs. Government schemes and programs could, thus, be designed in a manner that permits and promotes partnerships with NGOs. Such partnerships enhance added value to the funds routed through the government budget for helping meet the national development agenda. Overall, strong complementarity exists between the government and the non-government sectors so far as the development agenda of the country is concerned.
Advocacy and Awareness
The role of NGOs and CSOs in advocacy and raising awareness about a social issue is crucial. Civil society organizations, through their long experience in delivering services, can play a unique role in bringing the voice of grassroots communities to government and development agencies and can contribute ideas on possible alternatives. Engagement with policymakers and government at national and subnational levels and community-based work are not mutually exclusive strategies for advancing social justice. One of the strengths of advocacy is that it not only engages people at the grassroots, increasing the links between civil society and target groups, but can also encourage new allies from different sectors outside the development field to get involved, increase public attention on the issues, and mobilize new funds and concerns. In the long run, the impact of advocacy for people facing HIV/AIDS or climate change can be seen more clearly at the global level: AIDS and climate change has risen on the government’s and other actors’ agendas, and this has generated more concern, resources, and research into addressing these global issues.
Advocacy covers a range of strategies and approaches that work on different levels. For example, organizations work with groups to empower people who are openly excluded and discriminated against based on caste, class and gender, as well as engaging in wider campaigns to raise the issue of these discriminations at the international level. Attempts to challenge the impacts of policies and minimize the impact at a local level involve short-term strategies of policy engagement and awareness raising at the grassroots.
Role of Community-Based Organizations (CBOs)
Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) have been managing and driving local development interventions across the country. A particular sectoral focus in their work has been agriculture, health, education, physical infrastructure, non-timber forest produce, livelihoods, women’s issues, self-help groups, microfinance, and education for the marginalized. The specificities of these localities are deeply embedded in the type of work that is done. Therefore, no one method or form can be endorsed as the best practice for such local communities. What else does a CBO bring to community development? In addition to ensuring that the above typology is introduced and is appropriate for their locality, the CBO becomes directly responsible for sharing it with their community and ensuring that all the community members engage in it. This cultivates a sense of ownership that surpasses the actions of the individuals alone, moving to the community as a whole; ensuring the longevity and sustainability of the initiative. When expanding these existing sectors and envisioning a new role for them, three models emerge that are proving effective in driving the aforementioned activities through CBO leadership and local solidarity: area-based development with a wide array of thematic focus, technical capacity building of rural communities, and skills and social entrepreneurship.
In a country like India, where the solutions to a community’s problems must arise from within that community and be contextually sound, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions, and therefore there is no ultimate typology of self-help promotion initiative that is equipped to be ultimately suitable. In India, a successful CBO-led intervention is not significant just because of the vast numbers it supports. The additional value is in their participation: this ensures that these initiatives stay relevant, beneficial, and collectively agreed upon. Most CBOs generally work in ways that encourage, even depend upon, grassroots participation to aid and extend their process. This generally means listening to people, undertaking research, and organizing them. As well as population size, the geographic spread of CBO interventions can be vast. This resonates with the large growth and importance given to self-help groups in India. A powerful and growing incentive can be harnessed to help bring about social and economic change at the grassroots level in India, which is a growing spirit of community nationhood that reinforces a more caring and cohesive society. Local entities like Cluster Level Federations (CLFs) working at the grassroots level have been able to allocate the relevant targeted population that has above-normal levels of capability and enthusiasm. Improvements in the effectiveness of CBO activity must lead to the fact that just a relatively small increment in the performance of resources propels additional beneficiaries from the productive or efficient range. More people can reduce or remove external control that communities are subject to. The community needs to direct its assets to decide its ways of development while consultation will still occur at relevant levels. Technology can enhance CBO capabilities as well as enriches support institutions, which may offer direct soul-reaching in agrarian-rural India.
Empowering Local Communities
One of the key attributes of community-based development is the ability to make local communities more empowered. This means allowing the members of a community to shape the course of their own lives and participate in decisions affecting them. In practice, community empowerment can take many different forms. Community-based organizations have used a variety of strategies for fostering empowerment, including a thorough discussion of community needs and priorities with the residents, involving residents in the project’s design, and implementing strategies taking into account the needs, priorities, and aspirations of the communities.
Many organizations focus heavily on education and capacity building, aware that residents will be better able to assert and protect their rights if they are more informed, articulate, and organized. Examples of other community-oriented initiatives include the establishment of community centers staffed and guided by volunteers from the local population; cultural initiatives to encourage the expression of marginalized views; campaigns on public health issues, human trafficking, and protection of the girl child; mediation and support for the weekly house meeting known as tola sabha, school management, and similar plural adjudication practices; and research and advocacy around issues of decentralization. By convening frequent, formal, and informal community meetings, organizations can also take part in discussions and foster dialogue among the members of communities and between communities and external actors, helping to bridge the participation gap. For instance, organizations working to provide legal support and gender-victim assistance services can display their support to better resonate with the community.
Participation of Women in the Workforce
The Women participation in the workforce need to be take up to 50 % from the recent range of 37%. (Source:-Press Release:Press Information Bureau). The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), conducted annually by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), highlights a significant rise in women’s participation in the labor force. The Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) for females aged 15 years and above increased from 23.3% in 2017-18 to 37.0% in 2022-23, while the Worker Population Ratio (WPR) improved from 22.0% to 35.9% during the same period. Despite this progress, many women face barriers to workforce participation. As per Periodic Labor force survey (PLFS) 2021-22, 44.5% cited childcare and homemaking responsibilities, while 33.6% prioritized continuing their education.
The Government of India has introduced several measures to enhance women’s workforce participation, including, Increased maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks under the Code on Social Security, 2020. Provisions for crèche facilities and night shifts with safety measures. Gender pay equity under the Code on Wages, 2019. The schemes like Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY), has benefited over 60 lakh individuals since inception. Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), which sanctioned 46.16 crore collateral-free loans for self-employment. PM SVANidhi Scheme, supporting over 83 lakh street vendors to restart businesses. The skill-building initiatives like, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) and National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) to boost employability. Dedicated Women’s Industrial Training Institutes and vocational training centers. Some other flagship Programs like Make in India, Start-up India, Stand-up India, and PM Gati Shakti are fostering job creation and entrepreneurial opportunities. Through these interventions, the government is actively working to reduce gender disparities in employment, empowering women to contribute to India’s economic growth. This needs a greater dedication and willingness to be implemented at rural India to empower more women to take charge of their Livelihood and become the workforce for the new India.
Rural Livelihood in India 2047
To those who understand rural India, there is very little ambiguity in the role economic activities in rural areas should play within the Indian economy. Wherever there is enough rain to encourage productive agriculture, villages in India should thrive. Non-agricultural commercial corridors and towns should ribbon along arterial and transverse highways that link the hinterland with growing urban centers. These arteries and towns would be the vanguards of both healthy rural growth and naturally timed urbanization. The prevalence of rural wage and employment spillovers from public good spending in developing countries is evident. From the perspective of growth theory and industrial economics, there have been some educated guesses about that.
The main independent variables were: the cost of cooperation, transaction or trading costs proxied by population size and density, and the feasibility of uncoordinated owners controlling access to rarer productive resources and private goods, proxied by the share of a country’s labor force trapped in the disequilibrium of simultaneous high underemployment and high fatalism about the unchanging identity of the rural poor. The upbeat prediction was that rural wage gains would be more widespread the lower these two transaction costs. In the framing of economic development, the beneficiaries of non-self-employment sources of rural earned income in India are more often rural residents, as opposed to mere owners of rural assets. The rural demand generators for non-agricultural commercial corridors could then be landless casual workers and smallholders with commercial non-farm businesses, a group that grows larger and higher skilled along the growth ladder.
Challenges and Opportunities
Infrastructure is often referred to as the powder room that will prepare India to be a global superpower. It continues to be one of the most critical catalysts for sustained, high growth, enabling multiplier effects across all sectors. It can cause long-term changes. India ranks 64th among 104 countries assessed on globally benchmarked infrastructure indicators, slipping from its 58th rank last year. (Soumitra et al., 2020) India’s average infrastructure gap places it in the low category, with both the quantity and quality of infrastructure needing attention as a priority. There are seven major areas of concern:
- the growing gulf between demand and supply of infrastructure services,
- large fiscal gaps needing higher investments,
- slow increases in tariffs and hidden subsidies,
- the issue of governance,
- the low internal efficiency in infrastructure utilities,
- the need for creative ways of finding resources, and
- the high transaction costs associated with resource mobilization.
However, there are also three positive dimensions:
- fiscal decentralization that allows for new reforms in transforming the states to create the investment climate for infrastructure utilities,
- the progress in key urban areas, and
- examples of central and state collaboration on some significant projects.
The infrastructure, in the rural sector poses a variety of choices, and it will be instructive to explore some of the aspects of these choices. Rural Infrastructure assets require large investments and involve long gestation. The rural infrastructure development process needs to evolve in ways that can fulfill the requirements of farmers. The earlier strategy of concentrating on basic infrastructure aspects will need to be broadened to encompass other important sectors that are significant drivers of the Indian economy.
Sustainable Agriculture and Livelihood Models
India gained independence in 1947, and the progress that has been made as a nation since then is an epic story. The year 2047 will be the centenary of Indian independence, and it is not too early to start planning for our 100th birthday. What India will be at the age of 100 will depend more on the decisions made during the intervening 100 months. India will become a great nation only if every citizen is educated and healthy; if agriculture and industry add value to the economy and not a liability to gross domestic product; if governance will only be as good or as bad as people themselves and their communities. The development and corporate sectors have a greater responsibility to participate in converting this development vision to reimagine India in 2047. Both indeed support national life in multifarious ways. They play a critical role in the entire nation’s sustainable development, the population’s food security, farmers’ livelihoods, and environmental stability. Agro-based industries are crucial components of India’s economy and its competitiveness. With agriculture being the backbone of the economy, key problems faced by the Indian agriculture sector can be attributed to the preceding factors shared. Amid rapid urbanization, progressive shrinking of arable land, and limited access to water, India appears to be setting itself up for a crisis of unprecedented proportions. Interventions aimed at salving the agrarian distress need to be broad-based and widespread. Agricultural policies call for an encompassing and coherent development intervention, embracing an altogether different set of goals and objectives. Such outcomes cannot be feasible without the unadulterated participation of all involved actors in the development domain.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Reimagining India 2047 process has allowed practitioners, development professionals, scholars, and leaders from diverse organizations to consult with each other and think through complexities and possibilities. This framing will foster modes of collaboration that connect actors, spark action, and drive sustained change. One aspiration for this process is that as the states, districts, cities, and communities make their plans, the conversation concerning how developmental decisions are made rests neither alone with the state, nor with communities and CBOs, nor with the NGOs and other organizations that sit apart from the machinery of the state. Constructing and nurturing one future for India is a shared endeavor. People talk of the importance of economic vibrancy, skilled manpower, state-level, district-level, and local action, and the importance of sustainability in practices that help people to settle in their own countries. Building India in 2047 and our action in 2024 poses to us the larger question about equality—it is not just wealth, but living fully. How do we then think about inclusion to ensure everyone is on board, has access to decision-making, and can make choices that will open doors for them and their families, especially the tribal/rural communities? It is clearer than ever that exclusion has violence, whether it be the violence of being poor, held back, or violence that brings people in labor markets into slavery. And at the center of our concerns is the movement toward equity and the practice of inclusion. A significant amount of time and effort has gone into their creation. Technology and Education Investment for Marginalized Groups. India’s enduring success depends on the success and welfare of its marginalized populations. The development sector’s dedication to ensuring that the lowest 25% of India’s populace does not fall behind must be a central focus in long-term plans. Investing in education and technology is the most tangible way for the 2047 generation to demonstrate their commitment to the vision of guaranteeing that ‘no one will be left behind’ as India progresses towards India@100. Indigenous Leaders: We should increase support for authentic, responsible, and capable indigenous leaders who have the potential to bring about local change in communities and other institutions. We must also consider ways in which those who have returned to their local communities can expand their contributions. We need to establish effective youth engagement strategies in order to leverage the significant demographic dividend that is already present.
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