India may be the world's economic model for the future, an international business professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth said last week.

The subcontinent, with its huge and growing population, provides social, economic and environmental challenges, and to successfully tap into the market of 1.2 billion people, companies will have to be resourceful and innovative, said Vijay Govindarajan, director of the Center for Global Leadership at Tuck.

"With the Indian economy and social habits, the only way to survive there is to be innovative. If companies figure out how to serve the vast number of Indians living in poverty, then that is a model that can be applied to other parts of the world," he said.

It's the sort of innovation that is already on the drawing boards. It is the resourcefulness that could change the world by providing the illiterate with computers and the working poor with a safe, reliable car that sells for less than $2,000.

India is poised to become a world economic power, not only because of its market, but also because it has abundant, inexpensive, well-trained, English-speaking talent who know the necessity of innovation, Govindarajan said. "I think it's going to be a very exciting place for American companies to do business over the next 25 years."

India's gross domestic product is $750 billion, and it's growing at a rate of between 7 percent and 10 percent a year. "In 15 years, India is going to have a GDP of $12 trillion, which is what the United States is now. It's a huge market for American companies."

A strong and growing India is a sign that the economic playing field is being leveled globally, which opens opportunities for United States and for the world, Govindarajan said.

"A strong India is a strong America. A strong global economy can be harnessed for the benefit of every human being. It can make things better."

The recent visit by President Bush validated India's importance in the world both economically and politically, Govindarajan said.

And although viewed as controversial, an agreement between Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to provide India with $60 billion in nuclear power plant technology was a powerful move by the United States to recognize India's importance in the world, the Tuck professor said. "It's an interesting question of how Bush could give India that much nuclear technology when India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but I think it's a moot point.

In addition, India has a great need to develop new sources of energy. Nuclear power is a good substitute for the vast amount of fossil fuel that India is using now, Govindarajan said.

Critics of the nuclear deal say that renewable resources are a better bet for India and China, and that the money that would be poured into providing nuclear technology for India would be better spent on other alternatives such as wind, solar and biomass technologies.

Waiting market

India is a huge market, with 300 million people considered to be in the middle class, and Indians are customers who have been waiting a long time to start buying, Govindarajan said.

"India is 5,000 years old and, until a little over 10 years ago, it was a closed economy. Now, it has 5,000 years of pent-up demand -there is huge consumer demand for such things as automobiles, computers, televisions and appliances,"he said.

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