Can India achieve a high-income status by 2050 when it celebrates the centenary of its Republic? 



Will the nation eliminate absolute poverty and improve its human development record? 



This book emphasizes the centrality of a trade-oriented services sector led by communication, business services, health, education, research, and innovations for achieving these growth targets. It also argues that inclusiveness, financial prudence, and low-carbon lifestyles are preconditions to long-term growth. 



India can achieve such prosperity neither through the socialistic policies of 1950–80 nor through the neo-liberalistic policies since 1980. It needs to, instead, follow a middle-path approach closer to the systems adopted by Germany and the Nordic countries. It is within this framework that India will devise its independent development paradigm rooted in its own traditions and realities.