In its 67 years of independence, India has changed considerably. As Table 1 shows, growth in gross domestic product has increased steadily and also become less volatile.





The same pattern is visible in Table 2, which shows per capita income in the years since FY53.





Part of the decrease in volatility is because of the change in the structure of the Indian economy, as shown in Table 3.

Agriculture is now far less important in terms of the overall than in FY51. This is in spite of considerable success at improving output, as shown in Table 4; five times as much rice and almost 15 times as much wheat is produced now than in FY51.

The change in some human development indicators is as striking. Table 5 shows mounting literacy - it is clear the 1980s and the 2000s were especially effective decades.





Table 6 shows how the number of colleges has also increased 30 times.

Meanwhile, the infant mortality rate - the number of children out of 1,000 under the age of a year who die - has decreased steadily, as Table 7 shows.





And, fertility rate, the number of children from an average woman, has declined - in urban areas, it is now well below replacement levels, meaning the urban Indian population would decline if not for migration from villages.





