Rajendra Prasad Gupta writes about the BJP's Manifesto (check here) in ET of 5 May 2014. Terms that I thought India had buried still seem around: Gupta promises growth with import substitution!! India has experimented with import substitution and lost decades in the process. Surely, we don't want to revive that strategy again. Gupta also promises that the BJP will reduce the current account deficit (CAD). Surely a deficit that is under 2% of GDP does not merit a mention in the vision document of a political party. Yes, it is possible that as the Indian economy revives, imports may rise; but then the world economy is also coming back to life and India's exports should rise as well. But to see mention of the terms import substitution and CAD reduction in the same paragraph does bring back some images of the insular, autarkic India of the late 1950s and 1960s.
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