The Mega-trends propelling India to the top

India has been on a trajectory of growth for the past decade or so, clocking handsome growth. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a spanner in the works, stalling the economic growth. Yet, the overall trends of the country remain pretty positive, namely India's technological prowess and the demographic leverage. In the recently concluded Virtual Tech Leadership Summit, Future-Proof Your Business,

which dwelt on the topic of Digitization to Accelerate Disruption, Prakash Mallya, VP & MD - Sales, Marketing & Communications Group, Intel India, spoke about four mega-trends that are shaping up India:

Thanks to digitization and the spread of Internet connectivity, cloud computing has become pervasive. Internet is no longer an elitist platform; people from across the spectrum are on the cyber-highway. According to Statista, with over 560 million Internet users, India is the second-largest online market in the world, ranked only behind China. It was estimated that by 2023, there would be over 650 million Internet users in the country. Not surprisingly, everyday activities are moving to the cloud, from ordering food or groceries, to hailing cabs or exchanging office documents. The same trend is visible even on the enterprise side, with companies migrating their functions to the cloud, for convenience and cost benefits. According to estimates, 56% of Indian enterprises are on the path to adopt the cloud. That should give you an idea of how everything is getting cloudified.

India is slated to be the third-largest global economy by 2025. One of the interesting factors that distinguish India from the rest of the countries is its diversified economy. Unlike China, which is primarily a manufacturing economy, or the Middle East countries, which are dependent on oil revenues, the Indian GDP is much more diversified. The services sector accounts for 53.66% of India's total GDP, the industrial sector contributes 29.02%, and the primary sector of the economy - i.e. agriculture and the allied sector - contributes 17.32%. This is one of the reasons why the Indian economy is resilient to external shocks, unlike other economies.

The adage that there is strength in numbers is quite valid in the Indian scenario. According to Statista, in 2019, about 26.62% of the Indian population fell into the 0-14 age group and 67% into the 15-64 category,while 6.38% were over 65 years. Not surprisingly, India is the "youngest" country in the world, with the maximum number of young people. This means there's an enormous amount of talent pool that can be tapped. The statistics also speak for themselves; India has 4.2 million software developers, the highest in the world. India also boasts the third largest AI startup ecosystem in the world. This talent pool can be one of the biggest strengths for nation-building; we already see its genesis in the "Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan".

India's ascendance as a global superpower has been based on infrastructure growth. Also, India is steadily becoming urban.In 2019, approximately a third of the total population in India lived in cities. The trend shows an increase of urbanization by almost 4% in the last decade, meaning people have moved away from rural areas to find work and make a living in the cities, according to Statista. The government too has been focused on creating localized infrastructure, taking broadband connectivity to the remotest locations in the country.

All four mega-trends are shaping the contours of development in India. And while there might be blips in the journey, there's no stopping India's eventual ascendance as a global economic superpower.