عيناتنا المعطوبة وثرواتنا المنهوبة

Quote: The time is very opportune for India to make its transition to the knowledge economy—an economy that creates, disseminates, and uses knowledge to enhance its growth and development. The knowledge economy is often taken to mean only high-technology industries or information and communication technologies (ICTs). It would be more appropriate, however, to use the concept more broadly to cover how any economy harnesses and uses new and existing knowledge to improve the productivity of agriculture, industry, and services and increase overall welfare. In India, great potential exists for increasing productivity by shifting labor from low productivity and subsistence activities in agriculture, informal industry, and informal service activities to more productive modern sectors, as well as to new knowledge-based activities—and in so doing, to reduce poverty and touch every member of society. India should continue to leverage its strengths to become a leader in knowledge creation and use. To get the greatest benefits from the knowledge revolution, the country needs to press on with the economic reform agenda that it put into motion more than a decade ago and continue to implement the various policy and institutional changes needed to accelerate growth. Advantage India. India has many of the key ingredients for making this transition. It has aIt has a critical mass of skilled, English-speaking knowledge workers, especially in the sciences. It has a well-functioning democracy. Its domestic market is one of the world’s largest. It has a large and impressive Diaspora, creating valuable knowledge linkages and networks. The list goes on: macroeconomic stability, a dynamic private sector, institutions of a free market economy, a well-developed financial sector, and a broad and diversified science and technology (S&T) infrastructure. In addition, the development of the ICT sector in recent years has been remarkable. India has created profitable niches in information technology (IT) and is becoming a global provider of software services. Building on these strengths, India can harness the benefits of the knowledge revolution to improve its economic performance and boost the welfare of its people.