Mark Twain remarked once that “……This is India, the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and raga, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence… the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues… cradle of the human race, birth place of human speech, mother of history… the only sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest (for all)… The one land that men desire to seeâ€. This wonderland of ours became independent in 1947 and it became a major example amongst the developing countries which have engaged themselves in the experimentation of State sponsored economic planning under the framework of democracy. Further, it started to practice, to begin with, the ‘mixed economy’ framework. Besides this converting the predominantly agricultural economy of feudalistic design into a socialistic pattern of society was its prime goal. Until 1991, Indian did not witness any major change in its development policy. Although the policies of privatization and globalization- the hallmarks of ‘reform’ were introduced by Shri Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, these were accelerated by the Union Government only in 1991. Moreover, the 1990’s and onwards has been the decade/s of globalisation and privatization. It is a universal truth that ultimate objective of the economic development is to promote the well-being of all people of the society. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, it is an effort to wipe out tears from the eyes of everyone’. In other words, any policy or reform aiming at economic development should have a ‘human face’ which makes all people happy both materially and socially. As we now entered into the new millennium, it is opportune time to have a critical look at ‘reforms’ introduced in 1991.
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