India's technological leap that predicts it will be the third largest economy in the world within 5 years.
India is set to reach 2031 as the third largest economy in the world, behind only the US and China, according to projections by the International Monetary Fund. How did the Asian country, with most of its GDP concentrated in the service sector, jump from agriculture to a high-tech society?
For Indian journalist Shobhan Saxena, New Delhi has built an effective digital infrastructure, a foundation that has lasted for several years for a nation that wants to be recognized not only as an economic or military power, but also technologically.
The origin of this jump, according to researcher Fernando Goulart, is in the 1950s. Shortly after independence, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru established technological institutes to train engineers, mathematicians and researchers in the predominantly agricultural country.
Indian executives in Silicon Valley helped open branches in the country, in a movement that Goulart defines as "feedback". The result is what he calls the leap of the frog: India went from agriculture directly to services, without going through industry. Information technology is today the backbone of the economy, creating 47% of India's wealth.
However, the government understands that in a country of about 1.4 billion people, the technology services sector cannot reach a large number of people. Therefore, the state also turns its eyes to industrialization.
Goulart states that Made in India, a production incentive program in which the state pays only after the factory delivers the result - was a bet on the sector whose effects, he says, are already evident: India is the second largest producer of cell phones in the world and seeks to reduce dependence on China, where about 70% of its active drug inputs come from its active drug consumption.