By Professor Satya Narayan Misra in Bhubaneswar, May 25, 2026: Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s five-nation tour this month included two Scandinavian countries, Sweden & Norway, which rank very highly both in terms of Human Development Indices (1& 6) and Press Freedom Index (1&3) as against India’s modest ranking of 130 and 151 respectively.

Mr Modi is very well aware that despite India’s significant improvement in overall GDP ranking globally to 4, the human development parameters need to be substantially ramped up for India to be considered ‘developed’. In a marathon meeting held with his entire council of ministers his main refrain was to treat his marquee mission of Viksit Bharat as a ‘firm commitment rather than a slogan’. It would be necessary to understand the arithmetic of this ambition and the basic pillars which seem to be sclerotic and poorly perched.

The Arithmetic of Ambition

The World Bank defines a high income country as one with a nominal per capita gross national income of around $14000. India currently stands at $2813 with a global rank of 149. To reach per capita income of a high income country in about 20 years, the required growth rate would be around 9% a year as against 6.5% presently. As per the Harrod-Domar growth model, economic growth requires coming together of two variables, the volume of investment and efficiency of that investment, metric of which is called Incremental Output Ratio (ICOR). For India to achieve 9% growth on a sustained basis, the total investment as % GDP has to be around 36% and ICOR 4.

As against this, our sticky real growth rate of around 6% is marked by investment of 30% and ICOR of 5. It may be recalled that India achieved around 9% in the years of 2007-08, when investment was around 36% and ICOR 4. This was high noon of India’s growth story, when private investment was 30%, displaying Keynesian animal spirit. This has since plummeted to 23% for quite some time. The three factors that will critically determine ICOR are universal access to quality of education, availability of adequate protein when a child is growing up and investment in research and technology.

Education as Basic Foundation

The RTE Act 2009 making access to basic education in public schools from the age of 6-14 a fundamental right has a paradigm shift in public policy. The ASER reports brought out by Pratham, a well-respected NGO, has been bringing out since 2010 , the dismal learning outcomes in terms of reading , writing and quantitative in our public schools in rural India. What is even more disturbing is that the levels have dropped compared to 2018 in terms of reading, English and arithmetic in respect of class V students?

Vocational training at secondary level is also pathetic. Despite slew of initiatives like NIPUN and pious promises of NEP 2020, neither allocation to education to 6% of GDP anywhere in sight, nor the quality of teachers who have to translate the vision of foundation learning by end of Grade 3 by 2026-27 is forthcoming The sane voice of Prof Kothari and Prof Sen seem to falls on the deaf ears of India’s powers that be, be it Nehru, Manmohan or Modi.

Nutrition As a Critical Pillar

Prof Partha Dasgupta in a seminal book “An Enquiry in to Well Being & Destitution (1993) brought out how protein is important for brain development in the first three years of a child’s life. Brain damage due to protein deficiency is irreversible. This is clearly in evidence in India as per the findings of successive NFHS reports.

India is home to the largest number of stunted (32.9%) and wasted Children (18.7%) and close 64% children in the age group of 6 months -36 months eat a protein deficient diet. To compound this problem, anaemia among women has been increasing year after year from 1998-99 to 57% in 2019-2021(NFHS V). This has a cascading impact on infant mortality, which is at an acceptably high level (25 per 1000 live births). The Indian Constitution enjoins upon the state ‘to raise the level of nutrition’. Beginning with Indira’s ICDS program in 1975, to Modi’s Anaemia Mukt Bharat promise (2018) and Poshan 2.0 program (2022) have been pathetically low in terms of delivery and promise.

Research & Technology As Force Multiplier

Prof Robert Solow, the Nobel laureate in Economics, had brought out how high investment in R& D has contributed significantly to the rise of USA as the major economic and military power in the world. The edge that Europe and Japan have in this area has been due to the significantly higher investment in R&D. As against 3.4%, 4.9% by South Korea, 2.5% by France, 5.5% by Israel and 2.4% by China of GDP, India spends a measly .8% of GDP on R& D. The private sector spends handsomely on R&D in USA & France as against a poor 30% in India. Critical technology like AI, Bio technology and semi-conductor play a pivotal role, with USA leading the pack with a score of 84.3% as against Europe (41%), China closing the gap at 65.6%, and India lagging far behind at 15.2%.

The Road Ahead

The thrust on high growth is not misplaced. Barro & Martin in their seminal research have shown how high economic growth has led to substantial reduction in world poverty, from 20% in 1970 to 7% in 2000. India by embracing free market principle have also achieved substantial reduction in poverty, from 36% in 1993-94 to 21.9% in 2011-12 (Tendulkar to around 5% by 2023 as per the World Bank. 378 Million have escaped the clutches of extreme poverty between 1993-2023. This edifying achievement has happened, largely due to growth doubling during this period compared to the Hinu rate of growth of 3.5% during 1950-90.

Be it Congress or the BJP, they have a common thread; welfarism and dishing out doles, particularly women. Where this script has been queered is due to the scant priority accorded to the social sector, particularly quality education, basic nutrition and health for ordinary Indians. Doles can not be a substitute for capability development and ‘elimination of inequality of opportunity’ which the Constitution guarantees to all its citizens. Bereft of that promise, the vision of a Viksit Bharat will remain as an aspiration sans substance.