Several IT/ITES professionals are still hurting about the downturn that hit global markets in 2008, but they should be counting their stars that it wasn’t worse.
According to Sundar Ramaswamy, president, Monterey Institute of International Studies, the recession that upset India’s incremental growth through the last decade wasn’t even close to the Great American Depression of the 1930s, “The financial crisis of 2008 was not as bad as the Depression of the 1930s. If it was worse, it would have taken 20 years to build the economy back to what it was,” he said, during a lecture on where the Indian Economy was headed after the last recession. The lecture was hosted by the Scientific Research Association for Economies and Finances.
Ramaswamy also stressed that a healthy competition policy needed to be brought about to negate the effect of monopolisation by large corporate entities, “This will help foster a positive growth environment for producers as well as a quality filled market for the consumers,” he said.
Reflecting on the role the government ought to play in such a setting, he said that a paradigm shift was needed, “The government should shift their focus from production and consumption and concentrate more on distribution and regulation mechanisms instead.” In conclusion, Ramaswamy likened the way ahead to how people worked with a traffic light, “It is the peoples will, whether to build the Indian economy in such a way that it is a blinking green or a blinking red light. That will ascertain the country’s economic climate,” he said.