Why India’s Economy Is at the Head of the Pack (Sebastian Mallaby, CFR)

Not long ago, India was the laggard among the big emerging economies. In 2012, a giant electricity failure across the north of the country plunged millions into darkness, demonstrating the decrepitude of Indian infrastructure and the incompetence of public-sector management. The government had failed to create the basic props of a functioning economy: Kolkata’s main railway station, built in 1905 with fifteen platforms, had just twenty-three platforms—even though the number of passengers had multiplied one-hundred-fold.* Indian truck drivers spent less than 40 percent of their time actually driving; the rest was spent at tax checkpoints at state borders and in endless lines at toll booths. Small wonder that India’s growth lagged China’s—and Brazil’s and Russia’s. In 2013 Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs economist who coined the BRIC acronym, demanded of India: “What is the matter with you guys?”

http://www.cfr.org/economics/why-indias-economy-head-pack/p37526