India: An IT Powerhouse of the South

Abstract

There is an often-held view that India undertook pro market reforms in the 1990s and this has led to a revival of the Indian economy in general and the emergence of some of the star-performing sectors like IT software and services that contributed to a change in India’s image in the rest of the world. But, for a careful observer, reforms have had their beginning in the 1980s and as a result of these reforms coupled with the sound technological, industrial and human capital base built up over the years the Indian economy began to show signs of turnaround as early as in the 1980s. As Rodrik (2004) rightly states, India, despite the folk wisdom that relates its growth acceleration to the liberalization of 1991, actually began its take off a decade earlier.