Progress report
INDIA and Pakistan offer a study in contrast as both countries marked 75 years of freedom from British rule last weekend.
In his address to the nation on Monday (15), India’s prime minister Narendra Modi spoke of his ambition to make the country a developed nation by 2047, 100 years since independence, while around the same time, his counterpart in Pakistan regretted that his country had not lived up to its potential.
It may seem a while away, but the countdown to the next two and-ahalf decades has already begun.
India holds its next general elections in 2024 and it is widely expected that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party will remain in power for a third consecutive term.
But the prime minister, who is in his 70s, will be aware of the challenges facing his administration. With a increasing young population, Modi has to help create jobs which will keep the economy growing. Investment in infrastructure, education, skills, health and tackling entrenched corruption as well as climate change will all be a priority if India is to take its place among other developed countries. India’s vast population can be as much of an impediment as it can be an asset.
Pakistan, meanwhile, grapples with finding its place in south Asia – it has been courted by China, while relations with the US have cooled off and ties with India remain strained. To its west, Afghanistan – which is now ruled by the Taliban – poses a fresh challenge.
Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif was candid in outlining why his country had come to rely on bailout packages from the International Monetary Fund or allies such as Saudi Arabia. The role of the influential military cannot be ignored as the country navigates its political and economic future.
As western nations face declining birth rates and try to shake off their sluggish economies, many are looking east to seek new markets and avenues of growth. India and Pakistan, along with China, have all to play for in the next 25 years, as the Asian countries seek their place among the world’s top economies.