A matter of understanding.

Since 1997, India's "GDP per capita (current prices) has increased more than ten-fold - from Rs 14,500 to Rs 170,000 - as per the International Monetary Fund (IMF)," wrote Tauseef Shahidi & Pragya Srivastava. In that time, "In US dollars, GNI (current prices) grew at an annualized rate of 8.5%; GNI (gross national income) per capita increased five times, from $400 to $2,170." Current prices are higher than constant prices because of inflation. "Current series are influenced by the effect of price inflation. Constant series are used to measure the true growth of a series, i.e. adjusting for price inflation." World Bank. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi...set an ambitious target of making India a developed nation by 2047 and made a renewed pitch for cutting import dependence and boosting domestic manufacturing." FE. "The minimum required GNI growth rate is 8.9% for India to touch high-income threshold by 2046-47." Surjit S Bhalla, Executive Director, IMF tries hard to get there. If India grows at an average of 6.8% while China grows at 3% "then India and China will have similar per capita incomes in 2047, around PPP $35,000". Bhalla is using PPP or purchasing power parity which is the cost of buying the same article in different countries in respective domestic currency. ET. It is not the same as income in absolute terms. Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal "predicted that the size of the Indian economy would touch $30 trillion 30 years from now," wrote Vivek Kaul. "If it grows by 8% per year in each of the next 30 years, it will cross $30 trillion in 2052." That is 30 years from now. But, "In fact, between fiscal years 1951-52 and 2021-22, economic growth of 8% or higher has happened only on eight occasions." "In the mid-2000s, 50 economies were growing faster than 7%; by the 2010s, fewer than 10, mostly small ones in Africa, were growing that fast. A more plausible target for lower-income economies is 5%," wrote Ruchir Sharma. "Even at that pace India will be a breakout star in a slowing world: on track to surpass the UK, Germany and Japan to become the third-largest economy by 2032. At that point India may not yet be a middle-income country, but it will be moving in the right direction." "After a decade of scepticism over free trade deals, India has been signing a bevy of new agreements with a number of countries to reduce trade barriers, eliminate tariffs and gain preferential access to global trade markets." BBC. "These deals are expected to cover a range of products and services from textiles to alcohol, automobiles, pharmaceuticals." But, isn't that the opposite of "cutting import dependence and boosting domestic manufacture" as desired by Modi? Since 2018-19 "a massive 42.3% of all tariff lines went up, the average of all customs duties increased from 13.7% to 17.7% and the proportion of tariff lines bearing 15% or higher duty rates shot up from 28.7% to 51.0%," wrote Prof Arvind Panagariya. The rate of goods and services tax (GST) has been increased on a whole raft of goods and services just last month. NDTV. Higher taxes increase prices and make us poorer. What is the point of increasing the GNI of the nation and making its people poorer? Only true chamchas can understand.