The third barrier to development is agricultural production. For all the importance of the high-tech revolution, India will not advance by new technology alone. We need to recognise that the future of large segments of the Indian population will rest, for years to come, on improvements in agricultural processes.
India has gone from being unable to feed itself to being the world's largest producer of milk and second largest producer of fruits and vegetables. Yet the average size of a farm is just 4 acres and an unbelievable 40 percent of its harvest is lost to spoilage.
India needs a second green revolution. It needs to improve the quality of its irrigation, its harvest and its farm-to-market cold chain distribution systems. The quality of water, its availability and access, the usage mix between agriculture, industry and family use -- all of these things require our attention.
Internationally, we need to continue the progress towards open markets. Agricultural subsidies have affected developing country farmers, both by denying them access to rich markets, and by allowing farmers from developed countries to sell to developing nations at suppressed prices. For a nation such as India, in which agriculture accounts for nearly 20 percent of exports, this is especially important.
These sound like daunting challenges. The sums of money involved sound enormous. I don't want to stand here and issue proclamations that India must do this and India must do that. India is a thriving nation which will chart its own course. India is, as de Tocqueville said of the democratic spirit in America, a 'land made in broad daylight'. India made a conscious choice to join the democracies of the world and that great and noble idea binds these two countries together.
Image: An Indian farmer cultivates his land in the village of Kasinagar, some 80 km south of Kolkata. Photograph: Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP/Getty Images
Also see: 'There are two Indias now'
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