India should be booming. It has an enormous and youthful workforce and it is predicted to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation by 2030.
There are about 240 million people between the ages of 15 and 24. The youth of the population should translate into a demographic dividend, calculated by the IMF’s Asia Pacific Regional Economic Outlook for 2012 to be worth about two per cent on the annual rate of economic growth, provided it is coupled with the right economic policies.
Instead, the Indian economy has dipped, with growth slipping below the 8 per cent the country needs and running at between 6 and 7 per cent.
