Exactly. India did not have any economic reforms until the 90s which is when industries such as telecom etc exploded. If you compare the economies of China vs I

Exactly. India did not have any economic reforms until the 90s which is when industries such as telecom etc exploded. If you compare the economies of China vs India (I know it is a sensitive topic), they were very similar until the 80s. But India did not have "open" trade policies until the 90s which really hurt the overall economic growth. Look at India's growth after the 90s economic reforms and you can see the story.China took off and India has been far behind. I really think a country like india needs to open up to encourage foreign investments which will drive improvements in infrastructure which India severely lacks compared to other developing economies. TL;Dr: In case of India, protectionism has hurt it more than it helped. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_Ind... Look at the graph below and pay special attention to the GDP growth comparison. Notice the huge spike for India beginning the 90s. http://statisticstimes.com/economy/china-vs-india-gdp.php http://statisticstimes.com/economy/china-vs-india-gdp.php