Nation firsts
India has had wins, milestones and achievements in practically every field since 1947. We’ve pulled together as one, for it all. See how far we’ve come since the Tricolour first unfurled
ALL AS ONE 1. The Constitution
India’s Constitution is a remarkable statement of an independent country committing itself to democracy, equality, justice and liberty. Remarkably, it’s stood the test of time, provided systemic stability and been flexible enough to accommodate changing circumstances. It’s what defines India as a democracy and a union of states, with secure territorial integrity.
2. Everyone votes
India resolved a big political dilemma early. Irrespective of gender, class, education, caste and religion, all Indian adults would have the same political right to choose their representatives. For a formerly feudal country overcoming centuries of colonialism and grappling with poor socio-economic indicators, this principle of one person-one vote, a part of universal adult franchise, was revolutionary.
3. Peaceful elections
India has seen its share of electoral violence and malpractice. But seven decades after the first elections in 1951, the big picture remains of a healthy democracy. Polls are conducted every five years. The smooth transfer of power between political parties both at the state and central levels is a huge achievement when compared with other post-colonial democracies.
4. Votes are electronic
While electronic voting machines have been controversial in recent years (the losing party often ends up attributing the loss to sophisticated EVM hacking), there is little evidence to substantiate this allegation. Instead, EVMs are an asset. They have made the Indian electoral process cleaner (no more booth-capturing) and more efficient (the results are tabulated faster).
5. A seat at the table
India’s reservation programmes have been vital in allowing historically oppressed groups a better chance at education, employment, power. Reservations for citizens from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Castes have been included and revised since Independence. Those for women have taken longer. Now, there are seats reserved for women on boards of corporations, and in panchayat elections. There is also a plan in the works for a 33% reservation for women in Parliament.
6. Stable states
After Partition, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s instinct was to stay away from identity-based states. India eventually recognised the power of linguistic-based mobilisation with the States Reorganisation Act of 1956. It changed our internal boundaries, but it let the Union offer a sense of accommodation. The unity in diversity model found its way into India’s federal structure.
7. A centre that holds
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka have all had actual or attempted military coups. India, early on, set up policies to prevent such a takeover. The Indian army is ethnically diverse, there are strict command structures, officers do not interfere in State matters. The huge paramilitary force is a good counterbalance, keeping India stable.
STRONG BASE 8. Enough to eat
1966 to about 1978, under geneticist MS Swaminathan, a young India introduced high-yielding varieties of cereal. It was a necessary risk for a nation plagued by poverty, malnutrition, famine and chronic food shortages. Alongside, agriculture was industrialised, tractors, irrigation systems, pesticides and fertilisers introduced as part of the Green Revolution. It worked, making India first self-sufficient, and eventually exporters of produce.
9. Bypassing the Blocs
Non-alignment, a much-misunderstood term, reflected India’s decision to adopt an independent position in world affairs. This was as much a realpolitik calculation as an ethical choice. It let India extract concessions from the US and USSR during the Cold War, while retaining a degree of autonomy. The spirit of non-alignment continued even after the Cold War.
10. Got milk?
Operation Flood seemed ambitious in 1970. Could we increase milk production and quality, and boost rural incomes, without out-pricing milk for Indians? The threephase programme set up the national milk grid, linking India’s producers with consumers in over 700 towns and cities. Fair market prices were set and regulated. It transformed India from a milk-deficient nation into world’s largest milk producer.
11. Calm in the North-East
Signed between the Rajiv Gandhi government and Mizo leader Laldenga in 1986, the Mizo Accord ended a longstanding secessionist struggle through a unique peace process. It displayed India’s ability to resolve conflicts peacefully, and Indian democracy’s ability to open itself to former insurgents who gave up violence. The Accord has held for 35 years, a triumph.
12. Power to the people
Two constitutional amendments in 1992 altered India’s entire governance structure by empowering institutions of self-government: panchayati raj at the village level and municipalities in the cities. With regular elections, and reservations for Dalits, tribals and women, India began to witness a democratic upsurge from the bottom-up. It brought the government closer to citizens and nurtured leaders who since have risen to positions in state and national politics.
13. Fair welfare
In force since 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is a collaborative effort of civil society and the government. It recognises the need for rural employment in times of distress, when growth benefits do not percolate. It received a bigger budgetary allocation in the pandemic, and its high demand proves it’s a safety net for India’s poorest.
14. Lunch and lessons
The mid-day meal scheme, a centrally sponsored school meals programme running since 1995, supplies lunches on working days for children in primary and upper-primary classes in government and government-aided schools. It was introduced to encourage parents to send children to school, and to improve nutrition levels. Some 115.9 million students are now fed under this scheme daily.
Children line up for their school meal in Chandigarh, in 2016.
MINT ARCHIVES
15. The law for everyone
Public Interest Litigation often makes news these days because someone’s filed a frivolous case as a means of harassment. But the PIL, introduced in 1979, gave teeth to India’s constitutional right to equality. Cases filed by ordinary citizens have helped close factories polluting the Ganga, given prisoners fairer trials, and pushed for laws against sexual harassment in the workplace.
16. Transparent dealing
Former Vice-President Hamid Ansari has called the Right to Information Act “one of the most empowering and progreslegislations sive passed in Independent India”. It lets citizens hold public authorities accountable, empowers them to ask questions, and demands administrative transparency. It adds good governance to democracy.
17. Getting a breather
In 1980, The Forest Conservation Act replaced the Indian Forest Act of 1927. This changed the focus from regulating and levying taxes on forest produce to actually protecting India’s green cover, controlling deforestation, and saving the water bodies that run through it. The Act is not without its flaws. And it faces its biggest challenge yet, with rapid urban and industrial development. But it’s the first line of protection for our piece of the planet.
18. The wild card
The Wildlife Protection Act implemented in 1972 was a game-changer. India had lost the Indian cheetah in the 1960s. Other wild populations and habitats were disappearing. This Act offers legal protection to animals, though unfortunately not to plant species. India’s lions, elephants, leopards, rhinos and many other endangered species are still here in large part because of this Act.
19. Earning our stripes
In 1972, India had fewer than 2,000 tigers, down from 58,000 two centuries earlier. So in 1973, the tiger was declared the national animal and Project Tiger was launched. The objective: save the tiger, protect its habitat. In the most recent 2018 tiger census, 2,461 tigers (excluding cubs) were identified. The project is one of the country’s greatest successes, spawning similar conservation programmes, like Project Elephant.
20. Water works
According to data from the National Register of Large Dams, India has 5,264 large dams and 437 more under construction. Our longest one, Odisha’s Hirakud Dam across the Mahanadi, has been in use since 1957. The dams have transformed farming and urban growth, keeping famine at bay.
21. Bridging the gaps
India’s bridges are more than engineering feats. They’ve linked India into one nation. Our longest, Assam’s Dhola-Sadiya, opened in 2017 and connects districts serviced only by rickety ferries. Our new rail bridge over the Chenab, the world’s highest, will allow trains to run from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Mumbai’s sea link trims commute time in busy Mumbai. Swanky eight-lane flyovers in big cities show that life, business, dreams are moving along.
22. Wiping out a disease
How do you eradicate polio when tap water is contaminated, families don’t understand germ transmission, and rural healthcare is meagre? You do it the hard way: decadeslong sustained drives, consistent messaging, free doses, door-todoor follow-ups, and patience. India’s national immunisation programme, launched in 1978 is a triumph against odds. The last polio case was in 2011. The country was declared poliofree in 2014.
SHINING ARTS 23. The good word
Formally inaugurated in 1954, the Sahitya Akademi’s mandate was to promote cultural unity through literary dialogue and publications. It has since brought out over 6,000 books, held thousands of gatherings, promoted translated works, and awarded the country’s best writers, poets and translators. It has also helped writers and poets working in languages as diverse as Bodo, Dogri and Konkani to gain national prominence, a real test of national integration.
24. Screen sharing
Nothing to watch on streaming channels? Remember, we started with just one. Doordarshan aired its first broadcast in 1959. A revolution followed. TV shows, news bulletins, Chayageet, cricket matches, live broadcasts of the Republic Day Parade. Doordarshan operates 21 channels today. It has the advantage in rural pockets. It’s still free.
25. Tunes and tales
India’s Grammy winners include tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, TH Vinayakram and slide guitar exponent Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Ricky Kej won one in 2014 for his New Age album Winds of Samsara. AR Rahman won two Grammys and two Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire. Ravi Shankar has four, plus a lifetime achievement Grammy. Bhanu Athaiya won India’s first Oscar, for costume design, for the 1982 film Gandhi. Satyajit Ray received an honorary Oscar in 1992.
26. Writers of note
The world has lauded Indians telling the story of India. In 1971, A Free State by VS Naipaul, an Indian-origin writer from Trinidad, won the Booker. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie’s tale of newly independent India, won the Booker in 1981, and the Booker of Bookers in 1993. Since then, the Booker has gone to Arundhati Roy for The God of Small Things, in 1997, to Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss in 2006, and to Aravind Adiga for The White Tiger in 2008.
27. Art gets its due
At Christie’s first auction of modern Indian art in 1987, sales totalled a paltry Rs 16 lakh. Two years later, a Sotheby’s auction raked in Rs 38.9 lakh. By 2002, Tyeb Mehta’s Celebration had become the first work by an Indian artist to command over Rs 1 crore.
This year, Indian auction house Saffronart sold the most expensive and second-most-expensive pieces of Indian art: a 1961 VS Gaitonde (Rs 39.9 crore), and an Amrita Sher-Gil (Rs 37.8 crore).
28. Pomp and pageantry
In 1966, Reita Faria became the first Miss World title-holder from India. Our crowning year, 1994, saw Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai win Miss Universe and Miss World respectively. 2000 was a landmark year too. Lara Dutta was Miss Universe, Priyanka Chopra was Miss World and Dia Mirza was Miss Asia Pacific. Most recently, Manushi Chillar won Miss World in 2017.
29. India’s own biennale
Before the Kochi Biennale there was Triennale-India in Delhi. The 11th edition, held in 2005, featured artists from 40 countries. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale, held since 2012, sees participation from international artists such as Ai Weiwei alongside renowned Indian ones like Nalini Malani, Atul Dodiya, and artist group CAMP.
30. Laureates to laud
Indian-American economist Abhijit Banerjee is only the most recent of India’s Nobel laureates. Amartya Sen was awarded an Economics Nobel in 1998. Other notable Indian (or Indian-origin) laureates include CV Raman, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar and Har Gobind Khorana. Mother Teresa won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for her charitable work, while child-rights activist Kailash Satyarthi shared his with Pakistani educationist Malala Yousafzai in 2014.
31. Our antiques returned
Last year alone, the UK returned three 15thcentury idols stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu; Australia returned a pair of sculptures from the same period, and a 6th to 8th-century sculpture; and the US returned a marble sculpture and a limestone relief. A recent display at Purana Qila in Delhi had over 190 returned artefacts. What the country really wants returned, meanwhile, is the 105-carat Kohinoor diamond in London.
SPORT STARS 32. Cricket’s boundaries
India has had two World Cup wins – in 1983 against the West Indies and in 2011 against Sri Lanka. But it’s telling that we now mention them as victories by the men’s team. India’s women’s cricket team has entered the World Cup 11 times, making it to the finals in 2005 and 2017.
33. Queen’s gambits
For years, Manuel Aaron and Viswanathan Anand shouldered all our chess dreams. Now, we’re just as proud of the first Indian woman Grandmaster, Koneru Humpy, as well as chess champions like Harika Dronavalli, Dibyendu Barua, Tania Sachdev. And then there’s R Praggnanandhaa, the fifthyoungest Grandmaster in the world, who
earned the title in 2018 when he was just 12.
34. Olympian dreams
India dominated men’s hockey in the early years, until 1980, and won bronze in Tokyo this month after 41 years. Meanwhile, Indian athletes have shone in tennis, weightlifting, shooting, boxing, wrestling, badminton. Abhinav Bindra won India’s first individual gold, in men’s 10m air rifle shooting at Beijing in 2008. Neeraj Chopra’s astonishing javelin throw, securing gold in Tokyo this month, was a treasured surprise.
35. Hockey heroes
India’s men’s hockey team was the first nonEuropean one to be part of the International Hockey Federation. They have won the Asian Games, Asia Cup and Asian Champions Trophy multiple times. The women’s team has won in the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, Women’s Asia Cup, Asian Champions Trophy and reached, for the first time, the semi-final in the Women’s Hockey Olympic event this year.
36. Badminton champs
With badminton, fans can name women players faster than they can male ones. PV Sindhu set Twitter abuzz when she played at the Tokyo Olympics. A biopic about Saina Nehwal was released this year. We’ve cheered on Jwala Gutta and Aparna Popat when they compete. An older generation, however, regards Prakash Padukone as the father of Indian badminton.
37. Tennis legends
From Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati’s iconic partnership to Sania Mirza’s No. 1 ranking to Rohan Bopanna’s Grand Slam win, it’s been a joyful ride all in doubles.
38. Wrestling, boxing grit
Wrestler KD Jadhav created history at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, the first athlete from independent India to win an individual medal. Boxer Vijender Singh punched his way to a bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games. Mary Kom is the only female boxer with a medal in each of the first seven World Championships, and the only boxer (male or female) with eight medals in the World Championships. Wrestler Ravi Kumar Dahiya and boxer Lovlina Borgohain, who won a silver and bronze respectively at the Tokyo Olympics, have shown us the odds that can be beaten.
39. Taking aim
One of our four Olympic shooting medals is Abhinav Bindra’s gold. Gagan Narang brought home a shooting bronze at the 2012 Olympics. Pankaj Advani, on the other hand, has competed internationally since 1999 and has won 23 international championships in billiards and snooker.
A BETTER LIFE 40. Urban heart
India’s cities have driven change. Here, one’s past, caste and famhistory ily don’t matter (or not as much). There are jobs to be found, futures to be forged. As cosmopolitan populations have grown, new ideas have flourished. The good news: more rural Indians now migrate to non-metro cities than to the overcrowded metros, so those new ideas are spreading further.
41. Love is love
India’s first big fillip for gender and sexual minority rights came in 2001, when the Naz Foundation filed a petition in the Delhi high court, challenging Section 377, which criminalised homosexuality. The case proceeded slowly until 2009, when the HC read down the section, saying it would not apply to consenting adults. The position was upheld a decade later, after another legal battle, this time in the Supreme Court.
42. A win for genders
Equality for all has been a long time coming. The Supreme Court recognised the right of Indian citizens to identify outside of the gender binary in 2014. The landmark judgment was followed by a law, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, in 2019. Though critiqued within the community, it provides a framework of redressal and access to anti-discriminatory provisions that were previously unavailable.
43. Nationally networked
Nearly half the country (45%) is on the internet, up from 4% in 2007. India is expected to hit 900 million internet users by 2025. We go online to share stories, launch movements, reach out for and offer help. Much of this is mobile data rather than broadband connectivity, which is why virtual classrooms and working from home have been such unequal fields. But for both internet penetration and telecommunication, China is the only market larger than India.
44. Yoga stretches
Western obsessions with sweaty hot-yoga and doga (yoga with your dog) are merely recent rebrandings of a connection that goes a long way back. Swami Vivekananda’s trip to the US in 1893, to attend the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, gave yoga its first big outing. Another boost came in 1968, when the Beatles spent time at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Rishikesh. Hippies adopted the practice, celebrities made it cool. In 2015, the United Nations declared June 21 International Yoga Day. Mass yoga gatherings are organised globally in celebration.
45. Data packed
A key factor driving internet penetration is that India has some of the world’s lowest data prices. In 2019, 1 GB was reportedly about 45 times cheaper than the US. Data prices have since inched upwards. But they continue to be affordable countrywide.
46. Hearts on our sleeves
Even last year’s dissolution of the All India Handloom Board can’t dampen the love for Indian weaves and crafts. India’s luxury designers liberally incorporate rich fabric and weaving traditions. We wear Indian garments with a pride and casual acceptance few other countries can boast of.
47. Tagged in place
In 1997, an American firm was granted a patent on a long-grain rice strain that had Basmati in its name. It hurt Indian exports, and we learnt our lesson quickly. India fasttracked the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act in 1999 for its regional agricultural and handmade produce. Some 370 products, including Darjeeling tea, Varanasi glass beads and Nilambur teak, are now protected. The American rice has been rebranded as Texmati, Jasmati, Kasmati. Basmati is all ours.
48. Monumental pride
India is home to an astounding 40 Unesco World Heritage Sites. Six more are on the new shortlist, covering temples, marble cliffs, forts, a forest and an ancient burial complex. We’re also learning to appreciate the humble histories of our neighbourhoods, fighting to preserve landmarks and appreciating them as a shared inheritance.
49. Right on track
The Kolkata Metro, running since 1984, was the only purpose-built rapid mass transit system until the Delhi Metro in 2002 It gave city folks a clean, safe, affordable, air-conditioned and reliable way to get around. More than 10 cities have Metro systems today.
50. Chugging on
What began as a colonial effort to transport goods has become a national nerve centre. The Indian Railways move 1 billion tonnes of freight a year and 22 million people every day. Trains are cheap, safe and reliable. The longest service, Vivek Express, runs from Kanyakumari to Dibrugarh in Assam, making 56 stops over 82 hours.
51. We make it cheaper
India is synonymous with fashioning solutions at a fraction of the cost. In 2001, when Big Pharma’s Aids drugs cost $10,000 to $15,000 a year, Cipla, under Yusuf Hamied, offered to sell them for $1 a day. In 2009, Tata Motors under Ratan Tata launched the Nano at Rs 1 lakh, so families with two-wheelers could go further, safer. India has launched satellites and a Mars mission for less than what they cost elsewhere. It’s even made its own version of Coca-Cola.
52. A longer lifespan
Over 75 year’s we’ve stretched the average lifespan admirably from 32 years. Better healthcare, modern medication, improved nutrition means average Indian can expect to live to 69.7 years. It’s inching towards the global average of 72.7.
53. Refugees welcome
India is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. We have no refugee protection framework. And yet, since Independence, we’ve taken in lakhs of people fleeing Tibet, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and of course Partition.
54. Scene stealers
India produced barely 150-odd films in 1947. Fast forward to 2017, when some 1,986 feature films were released, 364 of them in Bollywood alone. Our films unite our people in India and abroad. They’re also a quick guide to our idiosyncrasies, changing preoccupations and social mores, even standards of beauty and storytelling traditions. As an
added bonus, you’ll find fans worldwide.
SAYING EUREKA 55. A good neighbour
India’s greatest geopolitical, military and diplomatic victory came in 1971, when it assisted Bangladesh in its liberation war. Swamped by millions of refugees, a hostile United States and China, and confronting a genocidal Pakistani regime, Indira Gandhi mobilised international opinion, signed a treaty with the Soviets, and destroyed the two-nation theory which had considered religion as the basis for nationhood.
56. The last liberation
When armed forces liberated Goa from the Portuguese in 1961, it ended close to 450 years of European rule in
India. Seven soldiers lost their lives in Operation Vijay, with 36 hours of air, sea and land strikes.
58. Dreaming of space
In the 1960s, a country still trying to come to terms with the economic ravages of colonialism, battling famine, illiteracy and infant mortality, made a decision to look to the stars. The Indian Space Research Organisation was inaugurated on Independence Day, 1969. Physicist and founding father Vikram Sarabhai would have been amazed at how far our space programme has come.
59. Into the stars
India’s lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan 2, is beaming back data on the moon and sun. The 2012-14 Mars Orbiter Mission was famously low-cost, and a rare first-attempt success. Astronauts are readying for Gaganyaan, India’s first manned space mission, in 2023. Rakesh Sharma remains the only Indian citizen to have travelled into space, in 1984, aboard a Soviet vessel. And what a moment it was! Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him how India looked from space. He responded: Sare jahaan se achcha.
60. Atomic dreams
Our first nuclear test was in 1974. But with Pokhran-II in May 1998 we became the sixth nation to develop thermonuclear weapons. Despite global pressure, India objected to a division of the world into nuclear haves and have-nots; it stayed true to its security needs and displayed its nuclear capability. Over time, it won the world over with its responsible record, eventually leading to the 2008 civil nuclear deal with the US.
61. Clocking a triumph
Time is everything out in space. It is used to measure distance, position, location relative to earth. This can only work if all the objects talking to each other have the same readings. Which is why navigation satellites use ultra-high-precision atomic clocks. India would import these atomic clocks from Europe. In 2018, ISRO developed its own.
62. Energy in-house
India has 22 nuclear reactors operational across seven plants, contributing 3% of the country’s power. There are plans for a plant in Jaitapur, Maharashtra. It could boost the share of power contributed by India’s reactors, and set a new record for largest nuclear power plant in the world.
63. Computing power
Param, Mihir and Pratyush might just be the smartest Indians out there. The three supercomputers have made it to the list of the world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers; two are in the top 100. Param is the cleverest of the three, ranked 63rd. Pratyush, a weather forecaster at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, came in at 78; Mihir came in at 146. The computers assist in areas such as disaster management, academia and research.
64. Pole position
Bharti and Maitri are India’s two research stations in Antarctica. Maitri was set up in 1988, Bharti in 2012. They house Indian researchers studying everything from evolutionary history to the climate crisis and how it impacts our monsoon.
65. Underwater feats
The INS Arihant, commissioned in 2016, is the first ballistic missile submarine built by a country that is not among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Our second, the INS Arighat, is undergoing sea trials. Meanwhile, we’re building six more, with 95% components made in India.
66. Missile messages
We have Prithvis and Agnis. But BrahMos made everyone take notice. The world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile can be launched by air, land or ship and is named for rivers in its parent nations: India’s Brahmaputra and Russia’s Moskva. A faster one, reaching Mach 7-8, will be ready by 2024.
BOTTOMLINES 67. Out for delivery
The world used to come to India for spices. Independent India has been able to offer much more. In 2020, we shipped $275.5 billion worth of goods around the world, including petroleum oils, diamonds, rice, pharmaceuticals, jewellery, cars. The US, China and UAE are our biggest customers.
68. Engineering success
Subsidised higher education and the Indian Institutes of Technology are why stereotypes about Indian immigrants are so complimentary. We’re “all doctors and engineers” because India, back in the 1940s and ’50s, laid the framework for what remain some of the first, most affordable, and best, technical institutes in Asia, even the world.
69. Plugged in
India’s information sector has been thriving as a hub for digital skills. We’re coding for the world and are keen to develop our own software too. India is the largest exporter of IT in the world and our first IT company, Tata Consultancy Services (1967), is also the world’s most valued, at Rs 12 lakh crore.
70. A liberal reform
In the wake of a balance-of-payments crisis and double-digit inflation, in July 1991, then finance minister Manmohan Singh announced measures to liberalise the Indian econwere omy. Industrial policies deregulated, import tariffs reduced, foreign investment encouraged. It’s why jobs and markets exploded. It’s why India changed. It’s why you can drive a Japanese car to a Spanish fast-fashion store and order Italian pasta with German beer after.
71. Start-ups step up
Of the world’s 628 unicorn start-ups (those valued at over $1 billion), 52 are in India, and 16 of those were added to the list this year. These not-so-mythical companies have risen from an ecosystem of almost 40,000 tech start-ups, encouraged by the Narendra Modi government.
72. Clear facets
Indian gem-polishers were prized long before 1947. After Independence, the trade was formalised. Surat in Gujarat remains a hub for the polishing of 75% of the world’s diamonds, gems and jewellery. The industry there employs about 7 lakh people, and has a turnover of around Rs 1.8 lakh crore.
73. Finding fuel
The Oil and Natural Gas Commission was set up in 1956, the first time India had control over its petroleum resources. Natural gas was found in Assam and Gujarat in the ’60s. India made its biggest commercial discovery of oil in the early ’70s, at what is now the Mumbai High Field. India is Asia’s second-largest oil refiner, but demand is so great, it is also the second-largest importer of crude oil and its products, after China.
74. One tax for one nation
The GST, a comprehensive indirect tax on the supply of goods and services, was adopted in 2017 under the Narendra Modi government. It was the biggest overhaul of India’s tax system since Independence. It’s simpler, more uniform, and has subsumed states’ sales tax, service tax, and duties.
75. Our people, our strength
India isn’t just a piece of land. It’s more than rivers, resources, recognition and research. The identity of India, 75 Independence Days later, still resides firmly with its people. We steer where India is going, how its dreams will shape up. And there’s always been plenty of us. India’s population has grown since 1950. But its growth rate has peaked. Projections estimate it will hit 1.68 billion in the 2050s, after which the population will decline. What happens next? We’ll steer that story too.