The Rise of India as a Global Economic Power | Bloomberg Originals Marathon

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The Indian economy is booming. This year, the country's GDP is expected to grow between 6 and 7 percent.
India is the world's fastest-growing major economy. We see India growing from about $3.5 trillion in 2023 to about $7 trillion by the end of the decade.
Although the U.S. and China still dwarf the nation in terms of total gross domestic product, powered by a population of 1.4 billion, India could become the leader in global economic growth.
Many of the world's investment banks have keyed in on India as a real prime investment destination right now.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Barclays.
With so much investment coming in, companies around the world may soon need to have an India strategy.
But what will it take for the country to get ahead?
For now, China still holds the crown as the main driver for global economic growth.
Its economic opening in the late 70s only accelerated after 2001, when it joined the World Trade Organization.
It was the country that attracted foreign investment. It was the driver of financial markets and global capital markets.
Every company around the world needed a strategy to deal with China.
India didn't start to liberalize its economy till the 90s, and it's been a slow climb since.
But with current levels at about 7 percent, growing just a bit faster is all it needs to surpass China.
India's per capita income has grown sevenfold from the early 90s to now.
There has been significant progress also in the financial markets.
These boxes represent economic growth in 2023.
China, on the left, contributed close to a third, while India took second place.
But look at how this changes if India grew about one percent faster a year.
By 2028, the new picture is this.
Geopolitics and China's own internal struggles are tipping this trend in India's favor.
What you're seeing recently is investors around the world, as they sort of shift out of China, are actually putting a lot of new funds into India.
Nowhere is this more evident than at the Samsung Noida factory on the outskirts of New Delhi.
This area was farmland a decade ago.
Now it's the world's largest mobile phone factory, producing 120 million handsets a year.
Samsung opened the plant in 2018, when business in China was becoming increasingly difficult.
It isn't alone.
As the Chinese economy stumbles, businesses from Apple to Boeing are looking elsewhere, and at India in particular.
India was growing fast enough to take the lead as recently as 2021, and the government says it can do it again.
But first, it must overcome some major hurdles in these key areas, manufacturing, urbanization, workforce and infrastructure.
Let's start with manufacturing.
For decades, China has been the world's dominant force in manufacturing.
China is the assembly line to the world.
Manufacturing makes up 26 percent of China's economy, while in India it's only 16 percent.
The government aims that the share of manufacturing should grow up to 25 percent by 2025.
To boost manufacturing, some 150 million Indians still working as farmers would need to move and take jobs at factories.
This change would drive urbanization.
Decades ago, both China and India had huge rural economies and were largely dependent on farming.
In the 1990s, China very rapidly urbanized its economy, moving away from a traditional rural agricultural economy and to a much more modern urban industrial economy.
64 percent of China's population lives in urban areas.
In India, it's 36 percent.
India needs a lot more cities.
There is a lot of progress already happening in terms of interconnectivity for the cities.
More railway network, better infrastructure for airports and so forth.
But there are crucial problems like water, like traffic, like urban housing that needs to be solved.
An urban population supports a robust workforce.
And in 2023, India overtook China as the world's most populous nation.
And while China's population is aging, more than half of Indians are under 30, prime working age.
It is going to be harboring the youngest workforce in the world.
Now, this is very important because history has shown that whenever demographic dividend is on the side of a country, that country grows really rapidly.
There's no point to having a large, young, growing population if you don't have enough jobs for them all.
Unemployment in the country remains stubbornly high at around 7 percent.
And in part because of poor quality of education, about half of all college graduates remain unemployable.
On top of this, not enough women in India work.
China has a female workforce of about 45 percent.
In India, it's 29 percent.
Closing the gender work gap could expand India's GDP by nearly a third by 2050.
A lot of economists believe that if India can find enough jobs for all of these people, then really the sky's the limit in terms of what growth can be.
An increase in manufacturing will in turn create demand for more service jobs and incentivize people to join an urban workforce.
But to achieve this transformation, India needs infrastructure and lots of it.
For a long time, India has been plagued by inadequate roads, insufficient or poorly maintained railroads, not enough airports, not enough seaports.
So infrastructure is really one way in which China overtook India early.
In the 90s, India's railway network was 15 percent bigger than China's.
But as China's economy started growing, it quickly took the lead.
And its rail network is now 60 percent bigger.
India is making progress.
The country's national highway network has expanded more than 50 percent since 2014.
If India can address these challenges, then foreign direct investment will likely increase.
That inflow of money is an essential driver of growth.
But accomplishing all of this is no easy feat.
India also needs to increase its ease of doing business.
The bureaucracy is such that it is not very easy to start a business in India and operate.
Even though the Modi government is behind on some of its goals, many in India remain optimistic that it can overtake China as the world's biggest driver of growth.
So one thing really working in India's favor more and more recently is simply that it's not China.
The administration of Narendra Modi recognizes that the U.S. and other countries in the West are looking for a partner in the region that's not China to sort of partner at a time when China is growing more assertive in the region and more closed off to foreign companies and foreign investors.
Who is Narendra Modi?
Well, it depends on who you ask.
India's prime minister makes the impossible possible.
He is very conscious of his image in history.
He has completely seduced the Hindi-Hindu belt.
Some view him as the most effective prime minister in the history of India.
He is passionately worshipped by millions and hailed as one of the world's most popular leaders with approval ratings surpassing 70 percent.
Democracy delivers and democracy empowers.
On the other hand, critics see him as an autocratic Hindu nationalist who marginalizes minorities and undermines democratic norms.
The idea that India is a democracy, this is a lie.
He is a champion to the poor and friend of billionaires.
He has lifted millions out of extreme poverty even as the country's inequality continues to widen.
So who is Narendra Modi?
Former colleagues, bureaucrats and historians give us an inside view of the man who runs one of the world's most dynamic economies to understand how exactly he got here and why he is so polarized.
Narendra Damodar Das Modi was born on September 17, 1950 in the town of Varnagar, situated in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
Narendra Modi used to sell tea. I used to sell tea with Narendra Modi.
Friends, when I was a child, I used to sell tea in the train ticket box.
And today, I am standing in front of you.
Narendra Modi was born on September 17, 1950 in the town of Varnagar, situated in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
An astrologer came here. I used to study in school.
So I gave one rupee to the astrologer in Bihar.
So we were all four or five friends.
I gave him a handkerchief.
I told him to sleep.
He used to think he will become a great sage, a great leader.
Modi experienced a typical upbringing in a small rural town marked by relative poverty and an arranged marriage during his teenage years.
Soon after marriage, he left the house, left the marriage and went away.
So around one and a half year to two years, he was roaming around like a vagabond.
He got a unique understanding of poverty, not as an academic subject, but the actual thing.
He came to Ahmedabad and eventually joined RSS and his life changed.
The RSS stands for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the largest and most powerful Hindu group in the country advocating pro-Hindu causes.
Modi quickly rose through the ranks.
But the RSS has a dark history.
The group was banned for a year after one of its members assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, a preacher of non-violence and one of the most famous figures of the 20th century.
Modi's knack for storytelling and captivating audiences emerged as the talent that propelled his political rise.
He is thinking the way masses think, the way Indian people would normally think.
Modi used his ability to connect with large audiences to preach the RSS philosophy of Hindutva, a hardline form of Hindu nationalism that effectively equates being Indian with being Hindu.
While the RSS itself doesn't stand for elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party or the BJP serves as its political arm.
Among the first lot of people who were deputed by the RSS to work in the BJP, it included Narendra Modi in Gujarat.
That is how Mr. Modi came into the BJP.
When he joined the BJP, Modi held administrative responsibilities, managing events, marches and rallies.
He rose to prominence by helping to organize a movement to build a Hindu temple on a site where a mosque had stood for 500 years.
The RSS and the BJP claimed the site in the city of Ayodhya was the original birthplace of Hindu god Ram and that Muslim invaders had built the mosque where a temple once stood.
The Hindus, within quotes, wanted that site back in order to build a suitable temple for Ram.
And finally in 1992, this resulted in the physical destruction of the mosque by what you can only call a mob, which was mobilized by the political parties.
The destruction of the mosque in 1992 would redefine Indian politics and set up Modi to eventually become the Chief Minister of Gujarat, one of India's wealthiest states, a decade later.
But just months after taking office on February 27, 2002, a deadly incident in Gujarat would scar Modi's image for decades to come.
Nearly 60 men, women and children, all Hindus, were killed in a train fire.
Riots broke out across the state.
Hundreds of people, mostly Muslims, were killed.
Modi was accused of not doing enough to stop the violence and the US would deny him a visa.
Years later, India's Supreme Court cleared Modi of any wrongdoing in the riots.
The Gujarat High Court would convict 31 Muslims for burning the train.
Certainly what happened in Gujarat in 2002, the riots or pogrom as many people call it, did give Prime Minister Modi that image as somebody who represented that particular strident form of what we now call Hindutva.
In the wake of the riots, Modi was under pressure from the opposition and even his own party.
But he called a fresh election and went on to run a defined re-election campaign as Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Hindus would rally behind Modi, leading to a landslide win.
So that is how Mr. Modi suddenly became from the leader of a government and a party which was not very sure whether they will win the elections, to somebody who became the Hindu Hridaya Samrat, the emperor of Hindu hearts.
Modi was poised to ascend onto the national stage.
But first, he had plenty of work to do in rehabilitating the image of Gujarat and himself.
For the first time in the history of independent India, a sitting Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, has been questioned on the role of his government in mass murders in connection with the post-Gujarat riots in Gujarat.
The riots in Gujarat had created a very serious situation for Gujarat.
People were shying away from fresh investment because things did not look normal.
As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi quickly started implementing policies aimed at increasing economic productivity, hoping to turn around the fortunes of the state and his own brand.
He decided the only way the image of Gujarat can be improved at that point, if we go back to 2002, is by projecting the image of a very peaceful state.
Simultaneously, Mr. Modi also realized that it is important to bring in investment.
So there was a considerable pressure on us to do something which will re-establish Gujarat as the best destination for investment.
And Vibrant Gujarat was basically an investor's meeting.
Mr. Modi personally talked to most of them and assured them that his government will extend all the necessary support for them to do the business quickly.
India's top businessmen including Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata and Gautam Adani started flocking to the annual business summit.
I would like to commend Mr. Modi and the entire government for making Gujarat as vibrant, as attractive and as conducive to investment as it is.
India's super-rich got behind Modi and saw their wealth increase dramatically.
They came to dominate domestic industries such as the transportation, telecommunications and energy.
So he became both, the development man who had not left his Hindu heart behind.
Modi's outreach to wealthy industrialists spawned what became to be known as the Gujarat model.
A plan to cut red tape in a bid to attract investment.
At the same time, he focused on delivering tangible benefits to the poor.
He was able to greatly correct the power shortage issue in Gujarat.
In the rural areas, decided to separate the grids for the domestic consumption and for the agricultural consumption.
Quite a revolutionary idea that the people became very happy that we do not have any power cuts in our residences.
While Gujarat's industrial development didn't trickle down to everyone, in the 12 years he was in charge, the state's economy grew at an average of 10% each year.
Higher than the national growth average.
And Modi rode that to power.
That record made Modi the BJP's best candidate to oust the opposition which was hit hard by corruption allegations.
The country should never be in such a state.
Politicians should be deprived.
Policies should be deprived.
Modi promised to fix the economy, generate jobs and lower inflation, keeping Hindu issues on the back burner.
He does want to replicate the Gujarat success story, as he puts it, at the national level.
Because Gujarat has turned out to be one of India's richest states. Investors just love it.
And after that, actually, there was no stopping him to become the leader of the BJP and ran an extraordinary campaign for the 2014 parliamentary election.
We are calling the election. Modi will be the next prime minister.
On May 26, 2014, Narendra Modi became prime minister, with BJP securing India's biggest election win in 30 years.
Narendra Modi has won a landslide victory in India's election.
Modi rose to the top as the next ruler of India.
After taking power in Delhi, he immediately focused on the country's development challenges.
In 2014, the country, the economy, especially, was in a big mess.
Inflation was almost uncontrollable, the bank's losses were mounting, and all these things had to be sorted out.
If you ask people to rank what they voted on, most of these were economic dimensions.
It was infrastructure, roads, inflation, development, governance.
Infrastructure spending rose significantly under Modi, with large construction projects for highways and airports leading the charge.
Fellow Gujarati Gautam Adani was central to this infrastructure push, building companies spanning ports to power plants, to airports and more.
Adani's empire is integral to India's economy, putting his ties to Modi under a spotlight.
The billionaire says he aligns his business strategies with government policy, and denies he has benefited from his ties to the prime minister.
There is more infrastructure today, more roads, more rail network, but that's a natural process of growth.
Modi also pushed through reforms, many of which were initiated during the previous administration, including a national identity card, an inflation target, and a goods and services tax that unified India as a single market for the first time.
But in 2019, Modi would face one of his biggest domestic challenges in the form of a devastating act of terror.
Tensions escalate between India and Pakistan over a car bombing.
The attack killed dozens of Indian paramilitary police in the disputed region of Kashmir.
Modi ordered the bombing of alleged terrorist camps in Pakistan.
His popularity ratings soared, putting him well ahead in the race that had been much closer.
Back in 2014, it was about creating jobs, it was about fighting corruption.
This time around, it was different, it was not about economics, it was about nationalistic sentiment within the country.
After Modi secured a renewed mandate, he moved quickly to fulfil some of the biggest long-standing wishes of India's Hindu right.
That also spurred protests and discontent from his opponents.
First, his government scrapped the autonomous status of India's only Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Second, he passed a citizenship law that openly discriminates against Muslim migrants.
And third, he ramped up the push to build the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
Those moves further consolidated Modi's support among Hindus, who make up about 80% of India's population.
Yet, they marginalised minorities and those who believe in India's pluralistic roots.
He has completely seduced the Hindi-Hindu belt.
We are headed towards a polarised, divided society.
We are not able to see the promise of democracy.
Because the way in which the rest of the world is being cornered, suppressed, their rights are being taken away, they are being made second-class citizens.
Democracy is in peril. Economic inequalities have widened.
Despite the number of people in extreme poverty declining during Modi's tenure, India's economic disparity is staggering.
A recent study showed inequality at the highest levels since at least the 1950s.
The Modi government focused on economic growth above all else and tried to build national champions, rewarding big businesses.
But much of this has yet to trickle down to workers.
India's opposition parties have long accused the Modi government of crony capitalism and favouring certain businesses in government contracts.
That comes as India falls in press freedom rankings and democracy indices because of growing concerns over moves to silence Modi's critics.
On January 22nd, 2024, Modi finally inaugurated the Ram Temple with blessings of the Supreme Court.
A range of dignitaries and celebrities were present. Hindus celebrated across the country.
But for many Indians, it marked the death knell of a secular India.
It is no longer a plural democracy. As far as minorities are concerned, especially the Muslims and the Dalits are concerned, there is overt discrimination, overt neglect.
Others hang on to hope that India can remain a secular society for its more than 1.4 billion people.
There's too much diversity in this country. Even within Hinduism, the Indian state is much bigger than the Prime Minister, than even the government of the day.
So to say that secularism is dead, I wouldn't agree.
India is now the fastest growing major economy in the world, with an increasingly influential global voice.
International investors are captivated by India's growth story, driven by a demographic surge, a young consumer audience and favorable geopolitics.
I think the optimism about India is actually completely justified.
Today, when everyone is saying, India is the future.
For Modi, though, the transformation of India into a Hindu economic powerhouse isn't just a dream.
It is happening now. And it is the future he is building.
Even after a thousand years, people will still talk about this date, this moment.
This is the time of India. And India is going to move forward.
India is now the fastest growing major economy in the world, with an increasingly influential global voice.
International investors are captivated by India's growth story, driven by a demographic surge, a young consumer audience and favorable geopolitics.
There are thousands upon thousands of Hindu temples in India.
This one is special, because in many ways it is emblematic of how polarized the country has become under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
And it is at the heart of his re-election efforts.
It has been three years since the ground was broken on the Ram temple here in Ayodhya.
But the history of the site is a lot longer and more complicated than those numbers suggest.
As India prepares for a national election, the structure on the banks of the river Sarayu shows how Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party has become a seemingly unstoppable electoral machine.
And it could help Modi fundamentally change the world's most populous country.
Construction here in Ayodhya is non-stop, as thousands of workers race to complete the temple.
The city in northern India has become one of the most popular Hindu pilgrimage destinations.
And it has a significance dating back thousands of years.
That is when ancient scriptures started citing it as the birthplace of Ram.
In Hinduism, Ram is one of the most widely worshipped deities.
He is the hero of one of the religion's two epics, the Ramayana.
Born a prince of Ayodhya, the tale recounts his exile and then his victory over the forces of evil.
He is seen as the embodiment of all that is good, the ideal man.
For all those reasons and more, it is a convenient association for the Prime Minister.
His path is for all the citizens.
Following the ideals of Lord Ram is the duty of all us Bharatiyas.
Modi has become India's most powerful leader in decades by pushing Hindu nationalism or Hindutva.
It is a strand of politics that conflates Hindu religious identity and policy.
And it seeks to move India away from the secular politics of its past, instead forging a nation for the majority Hindu population.
Ayodhya has become a controversial focus of Hindu nationalism.
For the best part of 500 years, the temple was the site of a mosque, the Babri Masjid.
In 1992, thousands of Hindus overwhelmed security forces to demolish the mosque.
It was a political earthquake that saw thousands die in the riots that followed.
The quest to build a new temple galvanized the Hindu nationalist movement and helped Modi's rise to power.
In his 2014 election campaign, he made a number of promises to crack down on corruption, develop the economy, introduce the Uniform Civil Code, end the autonomy of India's only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, and significantly build the Ram Temple.
It is possible that Modi is in power.
I don't think so. I am 28 years old now.
I have never seen a leader like him.
But the last decade in power has been challenging at times.
Even as India's economy continues to grow at a rapid rate, that growth hasn't benefited everyone uniformly.
And unemployment remains stubbornly high.
Modi has delivered on some of his more contentious promises, scrapping Kashmir's autonomy and now building this temple.
These are policies that have helped Modi overcome other electoral concerns.
Take the most recent elections in November, when key bellwether states including Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh went to the polls.
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and his Indian National Congress party had been hopeful of capitalizing on some of Modi's perceived weaknesses to make Indians.
There was a sense before the vote that support among farmers and women, two of the BJP's core constituencies might be waning.
Neetu Patel is the former school teacher who is now a homemaker.
After years voting for the BJP, she voted for Gandhi's Indian National Congress in November.
Change is very important. There is a lot of arrogance in them.
Their leaders are only taunting.
Patel was particularly worried about inflation, which remained high in November.
For about 70% of India's rural households, agriculture is still the sole livelihood.
Modi promised to double farm income when seeking his second term.
Tulsi Ram Patidar owns a large farm around Bhopal.
Even so, it has taken time for Patidar to come around to Gandhi and the Congress.
Despite the concerns, there was still a high turnout for Modi.
When the election results landed on December 3rd, the BJP retained power in Madhya Pradesh and wrested control of the state legislature from the Indian National Congress in both Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
The opposition political parties, despite their best efforts, have not been able to challenge or question Modi's credibility in the eyes of the people.
This is something which Rahul Gandhi never understood, that holding a position of power or holding a state office has a natural tendency of introducing a charisma in you, which has benefited Narendra Modi in building up his profile.
As concerns about unemployment and corruption persist in some quarters, the Indian Prime Minister has taken advantage of rising nationalism, which has also taken hold in other parts of the world.
And the Ram Temple stands as an example of that.
Prakash Sharma is the former leader of the Hindu Nationalist VHP, the organization that convened the rally with the BJP that culminated in the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992.
That Modi represents the interest of all Hindus is of course hotly contested by his opponents, not least Rahul Gandhi.
There is nothing Hindu about what the BJP does.
They are not Hindu nationalists.
They have nothing to do with Hinduism.
Since we are in a transition period from the old-fashioned secular politics to a majoritarian politics, there are a lot of people who are sympathizers and supporters of the old ways.
They are very disturbed by this politics of polarization.
They think that something fundamentally disruptive is being unleashed by the present regime.
The temple won't be completed for a few years, and yet Modi is opening it in January 2024, just months before a general election.
An electoral victory might let his government pursue an agenda that could include more temples on disputed sites, a national register of citizens, and a law that makes it harder for Muslims to demonstrate that they are Indian citizens.
Steps that could cement India's move away from the secular politics of its past.
There is not a single luxury house that does not produce in India.
We recently had Beyonce in her tours wearing a few of our outfits.
High quality, exclusive, and European.
The hallmarks of the 180 billion euro luxury fashion industry.
The unknown to many consumers is a closely guarded secret.
Countries like India are often at the heart of what's considered European luxury fashion.
For decades, luxury fashion houses obscured their business ties to developing nations like India or Vietnam, where labor is cheap and hard to find handicraft skills plentiful.
Even if you produce in Europe, at the end, the manufacturing, the reality of that business is done in India.
Fashion executives have long seen labels saying made in France or made in Italy as key to higher profits.
They worry about Western consumer stereotypes that question quality.
There's also the optics of sourcing goods from places where working conditions can be poor.
But that's increasingly contested by those fighting for transparency in how luxury fashion credits its suppliers.
We set out to investigate what's behind a fashion label.
India's contribution to luxury fashion spans empires.
The nation's embroiderers were traditionally mostly Muslim men who had migrated to Mumbai from rural parts of the country.
They're known by the Urdu word Kharigar or artisan.
Embroidery has always been the distinction between the elite, the royal court and the different layers of society.
Even if the creation is done in Paris, even if we have ateliers in Paris doing embroidery or in Italy or in England,
India has really become the backbone of the embroidery industry.
From the 1980s, luxury brands have relied on India for much of their embroidery.
Today, there are two kinds of textile facilities.
First, export houses in safe, well-ventilated facilities.
Second, subcontractors in small factories.
We're sitting in a small factory in central Mumbai that has completed subcontracted orders for some of the most established international designers.
When order volumes are large, Indian embroidery export houses take orders to subcontractors throughout the city.
Sometimes they work with as many as a dozen subcontractors for a single order.
This is the bottom of the supply chain and the working conditions are often the worst.
Sometimes artisans, to save on rent, sleep on the factory floor after they've completed their work for the day.
India is now one of the world's largest garment exporters, with a textiles and apparel market worth more than $150 billion in 2021.
But the country's connection to Western luxury brands remains secret for years.
We've forgotten that India is a country of luxury.
We've forgotten the past. We've forgotten the excellence of craft.
The big question, in fact, is to know why these luxury brands are so hesitant in putting Made India on these products, when they should be, by law, putting it Made in India.
The global fashion system is built on exploitation.
It's not coincidence, but by design, that most of fashion today is produced in regions where freedom of association is restricted, where it's difficult for workers to exert their rights.
So when it comes to obscuring supply chains, there's a myth that being transparent is commercially sensitive, that it would harm business to be transparent and disclose who and where your clothes are made.
Improved transparency is absolutely essential to protecting the people who make our clothes, who are often some of the most vulnerable people in global supply chains.
Our investigation looked at one jacket as the case study.
The garment, embellished entirely with delicate micro-mirrors, retails for almost 43,000 euros.
And according to exporters in Mumbai, it took more than 2,000 hours to make.
Seamstresses estimated the piece then underwent less than 100 hours of stitching and finishing touches in Europe.
It carries a Made in France tag, reflecting European Union regulations that define the country of origin as the place where the last substantial transformation took place, not where the bulk of labor was completed.
A Dior spokesperson told Bloomberg that even though the mirror clothes were made in India,
Nevertheless, it was made in France, which justifies the dedicated Made in label.
Still in March 2023, Dior became one of the first international luxury brands to showcase a collection in India, saying it's determined to promote the country's artisanal legacy worldwide.
Still in March 2023, Dior became one of the first international luxury brands to showcase a collection in India, saying it's determined to promote the country's artisanal legacy worldwide.
Trinity International, the Indian export house that embroidered clothing for the Dior Mumbai collection, declined to comment.
What we are very happy about and elated about is that actually Dior took a first step to announce its supplier.
We were all kept hidden for a long time.
It has changed the way the others are thinking, putting us more forward for recognition of our work and our embroidery and our craftsmanship, which earlier they wanted to show maybe that it was done in Paris or Italy.
Now they are happy to say that this embroidery is done in India.
India's growing importance across industries has made the world's most populous nation impossible to ignore.
One recipient of this attention is Gayatri Khanna.
Her company Malaya Embroideries has climbed to top the ranks in Mumbai's highest-profile export houses.
She counts Versace, Balmain and Dolce & Gabbana as just some of her clients.
Today we are a 450-employee business. We are in the center and the heart of Mumbai.
We have over 150-odd clients, which are amazing and we cherish all our collaborations.
When you talk about Made in India, you tend to celebrate craft which is coming from India.
At the same time, you are also celebrating the people who are making it.
I think it is also all about how to dream together.
For many in the industry, the Made in India garment tag is paving the way for a younger, progressive wing of creatives who want more fairness and transparency in how luxury fashion credits its suppliers.
Today I feel that things are slightly changing, slowly changing because they cannot lie anymore.
They have to acknowledge that since the last 30 years, they have been manufacturing in the country, manufacturing in India.
This is Valerie.
She was five years old when she received chemotherapy.
In November 2019, she was going to be one year in treatment.
The doctor said that the girl was already overcoming the disease.
The doctor told me that in November 2019, the girl was fine.
Valerie would receive chemotherapy treatments here, at the Clinica Medical Duarte in the small border city of Cucuta in Colombia.
On January 23, 2020, doctors at the clinic gave Valerie a dose of methotrexate, a drug used to treat cancer.
Less than 24 hours later, she was back in the hospital.
Days later, she was dead.
The drug Valerie was given, methotrexate, was made by NAPRAD Life Sciences, a manufacturer headquartered in India, a country that supplies 20% of the world's generic drugs.
But instead of being sterile, the medicine was contaminated with bacteria and had become dangerous.
In a month-long investigation, we learned this wasn't an isolated incident.
NAPRAD's medicines have been linked to dire quality issues, with almost zero consequences.
This is the story of a drug maker with a dangerous track record, and how it keeps selling medicine, leaving families and doctors to suffer the consequences.
Methotrexate is a drug used to treat leukemia and other cancers, and has been around for decades.
When given as an injection, the conditions in which the drug is made are always supposed to be sterile.
If the raw ingredients aren't tested adequately, if a production line isn't cleaned properly, if the water isn't filtered thoroughly, the life-saving medicine could become potentially lethal.
NAPRAD Life Sciences plays a crucial, if sometimes unnoticed, role in the world's drug supply chain.
None of its medicines are for sale in the U.S. Instead, it mostly sells directly to suppliers in low-income countries.
Batches of the cancer drug methotrexate, made here in 2018 and 2019, were sent to clinics in Canada.
Later, Colombian drug regulators confirmed that a dangerous bacteria was found in the drug.
Doctors suspected more than a hundred patients had suffered reactions linked to the contaminated medicine.
A total of four kids died, and the drug was later recalled.
The drug is known to cause heart disease.
In the U.S. alone, it is believed to cause heart disease.
My colleague Priyanka Pulla looked into NAPRAD's operations in India.
This is a plant that makes many low-cost cancer generics for big brand names such as Intus, Dr. Reddy's, and Abbott.
Former employees of NAPRAD, whom we spoke to, told us that the quality control in this company was not up to the mark and was neglected greatly.
The former quality control employee spoke to us and convinced us that NAPRAD is a great company.
The former quality control employee spoke to us on condition of anonymity.
He was asked to hurry through quality tests.
What did you think when you heard about this pseudomonas contamination in Colombia coming from NAPRAD's products?
The quality is not coming from anywhere else.
The damage can never be rewarded. It is tragic.
Indian regulators have frequently failed to detect and clamp down on really dangerous quality issues.
What message do you have for Maharashtra FDA?
State governments are very eager to attract the pharmaceutical industry and to get them to set up their manufacturing plants because it helps them generate revenue and jobs.
And the state regulators are directly under the state governments.
The state regulators are not very well staffed. They are underfunded.
If you put these two things together, it's a very dangerous cocktail because this means that India's huge manufacturing industry doesn't get as much oversight as it needs.
This wasn't the first time quality issues were found at NAPRAD.
In India, three separate batches of its cancer drugs failed quality tests in 2017 and 2018.
In Ethiopia, researchers tested multiple samples of its chemo drug and found only half the stated active ingredient.
Yet the company has not faced any serious consequences from regulators, the big pharmaceutical companies buying NAPRAD's products, or public health warnings from the World Health Organization.
NAPRAD declined to comment on Valerie's case or other cases in Colombia, citing ongoing legal proceedings.
The company said it has responded appropriately to quality concerns raised by regulators and makes high-quality products.
Next.
So who is to blame for Valerie's death? And how can people in low-income countries ensure their drugs are safe?
Despite its track record, NAPRAD continued selling medicines around the world, cashing in on growing markets for generic cancer drugs.
And Valerie's case is stuck in the labyrinth of Colombian government bureaucracy.
The Attorney General's Office received Valerie's autopsy report four years ago.
It has listed her cause of death as understudy.
In the years that have passed, there have been few signs of progress in the probe.
In recent months, the Attorney General's Office has started interviewing families and others involved.
But 2,500 miles away, a researcher in the U.S. is trying to perfect a test to help detect bad-quality drugs before they reach patients.
The market for chemotherapy products is increasing.
And it's increasing in locations where often the regulatory agencies are under-resourced, particularly for analysis of highly toxic chemotherapy products.
And so it's a very risky situation right now.
The paper test her team developed is a field lab kit run on a sample of medicine, testing for the amount of active ingredient.
It costs as little as $2 and can be done easily by a nurse using a cell phone.
Nearly four years after Valerie's death, Naprod continues to sell its drugs to customers around the world.
I'm not the only one who's going through this.
I know that there are more parents who are suffering because this vaccine is very strong.
For me, it would be important that nothing bad happens, that other parents don't suffer.
For the last 10 years, India's leader, Narendra Modi, and his ruling party, have been fighting to protect the health of their children.
But the U.S. has not given up.
The U.S. has not given up.
The U.S. has not given up.
The U.S. has not given up.
The U.S. has not given up.
The U.S. has not given up.
For the last 10 years, India's leader, Narendra Modi, and his ruling party, have been promoting a resurgence in Hindu culture.
That includes Ayurveda, an alternative medical system that has existed in India for centuries.
The business of Ayurveda is booming.
Today, both Indian and Western consumers are more eager than ever to snatch up Ayurvedic medicines and treatments.
Within the next five years, the market for Ayurvedic products in India is projected to top $20 billion.
But there's a dark side to the boom.
Some doctors in India have reported patients facing life-threatening side effects after long-term use of Ayurvedic medicines.
It's all about nationalism. This has nothing to do with public health care.
It has everything to do with maintaining a vote bank.
Is nationalism changing the way medicine is practiced in the country?
Ayurveda's history stretches back thousands of years, making it one of the world's oldest forms of health care.
The word translates to science of life.
Ayurvedic products include everything from herbal medicines to yoga and meditation.
Here, at the Global Ayurveda Festival, hundreds of practitioners and startups have gathered to sell their products.
The promotion of Ayurveda is a key priority for Narendra Modi's government.
He even set up a special ministry, Ayush, to promote Ayurveda in India and abroad.
Traditionally, Ayurveda proponents would focus on balanced lifestyles, energy alignment, and herbal cures.
But today, highly commercialized packaged goods and quick-fix supplements are generally used to promote Ayurveda in India and abroad.
Patanjali Herbal Power Vita, Patanjali Foods, and Dabur India are two of the biggest companies selling Ayurvedic goods.
They're worth more than $15 billion combined.
Social media has been critical to marketing these alternative medicines.
It's not just about marketing.
It's about promoting Ayurveda.
Dr. Saba Mahmood is a health professional with over 15 years of clinical and public health experience.
She is the co-founder of FirstCheck, a website that battles health misinformation in India.
People are asking me, how can I help?
And I'm like, well, first of all, how can I help?
FirstCheck is a website where you can find information about Ayurveda,
She is the co-founder of FirstCheck, a website that battles health misinformation in India.
People fall for it because of social media only.
There are so many claims that this will heal you without giving you any side effects.
That's the main thing, what they claim.
But you never know what are the side effects of those medicines because they have not been researched well.
In 2020, the Indian government ordered Patanjali to stop claiming a kit of herbal treatment could cure COVID-19.
Some doctors are using social media to take on Ayurveda.
You can actually see that it's 90% alcohol.
Dr. Abbey Phillips is a hepatologist and routinely sees patients with medical complications stemming from Ayurvedic treatments.
When I started working in Kerala, I started seeing a large group of patients with severe liver disease.
And ultimately, we figured out that the causes for this severe liver disease was actually because of herbal medication.
Ayurveda is a pseudoscience.
It's an ancient practice that was born out of culture, faith and religion about 2000 years ago.
Dr. Phillips has styled himself as something of a whistleblower, posting almost daily about the dangers of Ayurveda.
As a physician, I am very concerned about the dangers of Ayurveda.
As a physician, I am bound to educate the people on what is right to health for them, what the right informed decisions on health-seeking behavior should be.
What we have seen in the last decade, a lot of money has been spent on Ayush-related practices, promotion of Ayush-related practices at the central and at the state level.
As a result of his activities, he has faced lawsuits and even government intervention.
Politics is very closely intertwined with healthcare.
So there is going to be a lot of limelight on the Ayush industry and Ayush stakeholders, especially with the elections.
And I think there is a huge vote bank.
And also, it's not just the practitioners in these communities, but also the people who support these communities.
But inside Ayurvedic hospitals, pharmacies and spas, practitioners say the government is doing a terrific job.
They have been giving support to the colleges, to the universities to do more research, to the hospital to build better hospitals, research centers also.
Ayush Ministry definitely are doing a very good job.
Ultimately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Ayush strategy supports his government's larger project.
Celebrity figures like Baba Ramdev, a yoga guru widely seen as an ally of Modi, are key to this project, attempting to modernize Ayurveda and transform it from an alternative medicine to a primary healthcare option in India.
Indian traditions are seemingly taking the world by storm.
And Modi's rise is sweeping the nation.
But doctors, including Adi Phillips, continue to warn that extending the Modi government's nationalist mission to medicine and to Ayurveda could spell trouble.
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On the front lines of an epidemic quietly sweeping India, driven by a new menace, junk food.
In India, almost one in four adults are considered overweight or obese.
If nothing changes, the country's obesity rate is set to increase by more than 80% by 2035.
This is not simply a story of individuals making unhealthy lifestyle choices.
In India, and much of the world, larger economic and social forces are threatening people's health and prosperity.
Much of India's history has been blighted by famine.
As recently as 1943, the Bengal famine killed up to 3 million people.
Even now, roughly a third of children suffer from stunted growth.
And yet, over the last three decades, obesity has surged.
And it's set to get worse.
That's been accompanied by a rise in cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
The economic costs are enormous.
Premature deaths, healthcare costs and productivity losses resulting from an overweight population are estimated to top $129 billion by 2035.
Almost 2% of its GDP.
Dr. Arun Gupta is a pediatrician and health campaigner.
He is the co-author of The Junk Push, a report detailing how changing food consumption threatens health.
Throughout the country, home-cooked meals are losing out to empty calories and sugar.
In the span of a decade, India's consumption of breakfast cereals and potato chips have more than tripled.
While confectionery items and soda sales have doubled.
India is a massive emerging market for Western brands.
Sales of ultra-processed snack food and sugary beverages grew from $6.2 billion in 2009 to $32 billion in 2022.
For companies like Nestle, Unilever or Kellenova, sales are growing at double-digit rates.
And who are one of the main targets?
India's new food economy has created a public health conundrum, with the packaged food and beverages industry increasingly affecting the diet of 1.4 billion Indians.
One remedy that other countries have turned to is stricter regulation.
Chile, for example, has an advertising ban on television on certain foods between 6am and 10pm.
It also has restricted the use of child-targeted imagery in the marketing of these products.
After these interventions were introduced, sugary drink sales dropped by 24%, as well as calorie consumption, calories from sugar and calories from saturated fat.
Until now, India has mostly relied on the companies themselves self-regulating how they convey the nutritional value of their products.
The results, some argue, are misleading.
If you see the front of the bag, you will see that they claim that it's like 50% of vitamin D, rich in vitamin C, no added preservatives.
And it says very brightly 20% protein.
But if you look at the back of the label, you find the 46% of it is sugar, more than 13 grams of sugar, stabilizer, colors and flavors.
If you are telling people that it is high in protein, you very well tell it is high in sugar and high in fat also.
Efforts are underway to introduce a more rigorous system.
Throughout 2021 and 2022, Indian authorities consulted health and consumer rights experts and representatives of food companies about a new labeling system.
While health and consumer rights groups argued for a traffic light system used by much of Europe, which signals red for products high in sugar, fat or salt, the eventual conclusion by the authority was for a health star rating, which assigns star ratings for a product's overall nutritional value.
Not everyone was happy.
A health star's only point that the food is either healthy or less healthy. It doesn't tell people that it is unhealthy.
For example, a pack of cookies may have a very high amount of sugar, but if the manufacturers add nuts, it could get awarded a star for containing fiber.
Getting that regulation right has been evading us in the country.
So that is one part of the story. But what we are missing out is, you know, working at community level with children, with parents, families, to create an environment for healthy eating and sustainable food environments.
Pavan Agarwal runs the Food Future Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to educate schoolchildren about healthy eating.
The foundation runs programs in schools like this one in order to educate children and parents.
It is so important to focus on preventive strategy and use diet and lifestyle as an entry point for this intervention.
Government or any regulatory body cannot reach out to individual citizens at all times.
So at the end of the day, it is about individual choices.
While nutrition advocates seek tighter regulation, that may run at odds with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strategy to attract more investment from multinational companies.
The fear among health experts is that the burden will ultimately fall upon people to make healthy choices on their own, with little guidance from the government.
One of the tactics they use is putting the onus on the people, that it is the people who are choosing to eat wrong foods.
It's not us, which probably is one of the strategies which they have been using for tobacco also.
That people are smoking by their choice, not because of the marketing.
What cigarette do you smoke, doctor? The brand named most was Camel. Smoke Camels, the cigarettes so many doctors enjoy.
The tactical industry will become a part of the solution. They want to be a part of the solution.
They enter into policy making bodies. Of course, the government allows them to do so as stakeholders.
Strict regulations and education have driven down smoking rates across the globe.
Imposing controls on the food industry may be necessary to fight India's surging obesity rates and the illnesses that it causes.
Diabetes, hypertension, joint pains, back pain, varicose veins, gallbladder stones, hernia, cancers, infertility, chest problems, heart problems.
It is putting an enormous strain on our economy.
A country once blighted by too few calories must face a new battle with too many empty ones.
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