India will complete 2024 general elections with 57 seats voting on Saturday. Voters verdict is in EVMs, the biggest question to all our minds is who is winning 2024?, whether it’s NDA or INDIA alliance. People of India are smart enough to elect strong leadership. The global circumstances are volatile due to various ongoing issues like the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel-Gaza-Iran, China- Taiwan and on India borders too. These ongoing issues in the world likely will not end quickly, strong leadership with networking, standing, respect and stable government in India can try to address these issues in the world. Not only world issues, strong leadership can also help in building Viksit Bharat-2047, making the third largest economy in the next couple of years and to build a powerful economy in the world.
One of the recent ongoing issues started when newly elected president of Taiwan William Lai was buzzing China over its independence last week. In his inaugural speech he urged China to stop threatening Taiwan and asked them to recognise the existing democracy in his country. In a response to his statement, a rude China stated that Taiwan independence is dead and holds military drills around Taiwan as strong punishment. On another hand some lawmakers of the USA visited Taiwan and showed their solidarity to the newly elected president against China. As the West concentrated on the Middle East, China-Russia were working closely and China was aiding russia. China and Russia’s close relations are not a good sign for India and the West also. In a triangular dynamics between China, Russia and India, China must accept India-Russia deeper ties or it should risk by pushing India to USA closely. Many experts in China are criticizing Russia’s support of S400 missiles to India and its close association. Some experts went ahead and stated that Russia is back stabbing China on S400 missiles. A strong leadership and close friend of Moscow is able to maintain good deals with Russia and also a strong leadership can check China using Taiwan as a tool.
The Middle East is on fire with Israel’s war with Gaza, death of Iran president, US-Saudi arabia mega deal etc.The US and Saudis are closer in finalizing the mega deal including mutual defense pact, cooperation on emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning, and civilian nuclear deal. Experts fear that Saudi Arabia is not trustful and reliable in their human rights records. Saudi Arabia may use civilian nuclear deals to make nuclear bombs for military usage. Initially this deal was planned to normalize the ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. However, both the countries are insistent on palestine statehood and have different opinions on palestine statehood. After Israel’s attack on rafah, some of the European countries such as Spain, Norway, and Ireland took the decision to recognize the Palestine state. Of the 27 members of the European Union, Sweden, Cyprus, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria are already recognised palestinian states. These EU countries are pressuring Israel to stop the attacks on Gaza.
These ongoing issues in the middle east may hamper India’s ambition to build India- Middle East- Europe corridor, International North South Corridor. After the long discussions, India and Iran signed a bilateral agreement on Chabahar port in the second week of this month. Only a strong and stable leadership can take forward these agreements effectively to improve the trade relations between India and the region.
A stable and strong leadership needs not only to address world issues.It also needs to realize India’s ambition to reach USD 5 trillion economy by 2025-26 surpassing Japan and Germany. Strong and stable government can only give confidence and trust in the investors to attract the investments and FDIs. To become a developed nation by 2047, GDP does not grow automatically in progressive manner, the government has to take many measurements at micro, macro level and on the ground without any corruption. The perception of the government over the world is also important to attract the investors along with the rankings in ease of doing business etc.
To enhance the ease of living for the middle class, below poverty line people many policy decisions need to be made whether digitalization of manufacturing sector, jobs generation, building the expressways, enabling the modern infrastructure etc. The world is gearing up for the fourth Industrial re volution in various prominent sectors such as human machine interaction, technological revolution etc. Stable government can encash the digital revolution, new age digital technology and technological transformation over the world to attract new investments. Digital economy has grown 2.5 times faster than the normal economy in the last five years. It needs to be scaled up to the next level using AI and ML.
Roads, highways, houses, dams, tunnels and infrastructure facilities can be enhanced in the next five years. This infrastructure enhancement and investments in this sector will have a larger impact on GDP growth and employment generation.
Author is Dr. K. Venkatakrishna Rao, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Kurnool and Visiting Fellow, India Foundation.