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The prologue emphasizes why the early 1990s to late 2000s growth acceleration matters, citing sustained GDP expansion and poverty reduction. 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Ltd 2020  \n7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj  \nNew Delhi 110002  \nCopyright © Montek Singh Ahluwalia 2020  \nThe views and opinions expressed in this book are the author ’s own and the facts are as reported by him which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for  \nthe same.  \nAll rights reserved.  \nNo part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the  \nprior permission of the publisher.  \nISBN: 978–93–5333-821-3  \nFirst impression 2020  \n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1  \nThe moral right of the author has been asserted.  \nThis book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher ’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.  \nThis book is dedicated to Isher, my life partner and companion over the past fifty years, without whose encouragement and intellectual support  \nthis book would never have been written. And to our five grandchildren—Veer, Angad, Arjun, Meher and Mahira. Theirs is the generation that has the greatest stake in the India story continuing to move forward.  \nCONTENTS  \nPrologue  \nPart One  \n1. My Formative Years  \n2. Development in Practice  \n3. Coming Home  \nPart Two  \n4. Indira Gandhi Returns to Power  \n5. Reaching for the 21st Century  \n6. The Crisis of 1990  \nPart Three  \n7. 1991: Seizing the Opportunity  \n8. The Road to Reforms  \n9. United Policies, Divided Politics  \n10. Continuity with Change  \n11. The IMF Interlude  \nPart Four  \n12. The UPA: An Unusual Coalition  \n13. India Hits Peak Growth under UPA  \n14. The End of Nuclear Apartheid  \n15. Inclusive Growth  \n16. Building Infrastructure through PPPs  \n17. Winter of Discontent: Allegations of Corruption 18. The Planning Commission: An Inside View  \nEpilogue  \nAcknowledgements  \nPROLOGUE  \nThis book is not a memoir. I was turned off the idea of writing a memoir after I heard someone refer to them as ‘selfies in book form’. I present this book to the reader as a travelogue of India’s journey of economic reforms, in which I had the privilege of being an insider for 30 long years. My own story is interwoven with the narrative, but the personal experiences are not the principal focus; they are offered to the reader as an additional insight into what influenced my decisions and, quite possibly, my biases, as I saw India’s growth and development story unfold.  \nIn a country with a history of over 3,000 years, there is always a danger of overestimating the importance of individual events. Nevertheless, I believe the acceleration of economic growth that occurred in India between the early 1990s and the late 2000s was of crucial importance. India’s GDP grew at over 7 per cent per annum in real terms from 1993–94 to 2011–12 and poverty declined from 37 per cent in 2004–05 to 22 per cent in 2011– 12. Only a handful of developing countries have achieved rapid growth of this order over a prolonged period and none of them were large democracies. In this sense, India’s accomplishment during this period is unique in the economic history of developing countries.  \nPart I of this book is largely personal. It is about my years growing up in Secunderabad and Delhi in the 1950s and early ’60s, my time at Oxford in the mid-60s, and the eleven years I spent at the World Bank in Washington DC as a young development economist. It is during this period that I met my wife Isher when she was a summer intern at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1970, studying the impact of the 1966 devaluation of the rupee on the Indian economy. This is the period when I took the two most important decisions in my life: to marry Isher in 1971 and, a few years later, to return home and take up a position as economic","cbCairoLbEyWWxGY","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairoLbEyWWxGY","pdf",3710987,398,"English","# Prologue\n# Part One\n## 1. My Formative Years\n## 2. Development in Practice\n## 3. Coming Home\n# Part Two\n## 4. Indira Gandhi Returns to Power\n## 5. Reaching for the 21st Century\n## 6. The Crisis of 1990\n# Part Three\n## 7. 1991: Seizing the Opportunity\n## 8. The Road to Reforms\n## 9. United Policies, Divided Politics\n## 10. Continuity with Change\n## 11. The IMF Interlude\n# Part Four\n## 12. The UPA: An Unusual Coalition\n## 13. India Hits Peak Growth under UPA\n## 14. The End of Nuclear Apartheid\n## 15. Inclusive Growth\n## 16. Building Infrastructure through PPPs\n## 17. Winter of Discontent: Allegations of Corruption\n## 18. The Planning Commission: An Inside View\n# Epilogue\n# Acknowledgements","[{\"question\":\"Why does the author say the book is not a memoir?\",\"answer\":\"The author rejects the idea of memoir writing after hearing memoirs described as “selfies in book form.” The narrative is offered as a travelogue of India’s economic reforms, with personal experiences only serving as additional context.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the prologue identify as crucial to India’s reform-era period?\",\"answer\":\"It highlights the acceleration of economic growth from the early 1990s to the late 2000s and notes sustained GDP growth and a significant decline in poverty. The author argues this achievement is unique among large democracies and developing countries.\"},{\"question\":\"What formative background does Part I cover according to the prologue?\",\"answer\":\"Part I focuses on the author’s upbringing in Secunderabad and Delhi during the 1950s and early ’60s, his time at Oxford in the mid-60s, and eleven years at the World Bank in Washington DC as a young development economist.\"}]","BACKSTAGE - Prologue - India’s economic reforms journey | PDF",1789939991,613]