Rewind 2023: India's 'star performance' with glittering successes and some misses

As the year 2023 draws down, there is a definite sense of contentment and achievement as India looks back at this very productive year. PM Narendra Modi, in his year ending interview to Financial Times exuded confidence when he said that “our nation is on the cusp of a take-off” adding that today, the people of India have very different aspirations from the ones they had 10 years back. The year which was dominated by India’s G20 presidency and SCO chairmanship, had many achievements and ‘firsts’ that have laid a strong foundation in the ‘Amrit Kal’, aimed to ensure India becomes a developed country by 2047. G20 Summit: Historic milestone The G20 presidency and India set the ground running. India hosted the first ever ‘Voice of Global South Summit’ on 12-13 January 2023 which was attended by 125 countries where PM Modi highlighted the importance of including the voices of the countries of Global South in the global discourse. It finally resulted in the African Union being included into the G20 during the G20 Summit at Delhi in September. The G20 Summit was a historic milestone in its own sense for India. It was India’s first G20 presidency and coincided with the celebrations of its 75th year of independence. The G20 Summit in Delhi, held on 09-10 September 2023 was the largest in the history of G20, attended by more than 30 heads of States/Government. The ‘Delhi Declaration’ issued at the end of the summit truly justified the theme of this year’s G20 ie ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’ and was an apt reflection of the priorities that India proposed, key among them being the inclusion of the Global South in the G20, inclusive and human centric development, climate preservation models and new models for financial inclusion for the developing world. The fact that some key meetings of the presidency were held in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, areas which have been ‘contested’ by adversaries in the past, gave India a chance to show to the world the strength of its sovereignty and its national interests. Foreign policy On the foreign policy front, the visit of Egyptian President Al Sisi in January as the Chief Guest for the Republic Day and thereafter signing of the ‘Strategic Partnership Agreement’ was a good start. Joining Saudi Arabia, Oman and UAE, Egypt completed the missing link for India’s strategic engagement in the region. PM Modi’s first state visit to the US in June was another highlight of the year. The SCO Summit hosted by India on 04th July, held in virtual format, led to Iran being admitted to the SCO as a permanent member. The 15th BRICS Summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 22 to 24 August 2023, also added new members, namely, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, four of these are from the West Asian region. Both these summits had a key Indian imprint, especially as the addition of new members from West Asia strengthened India’s outreach in the region. Economic progress: The backbone of success This year was also India’s year in terms of economic progress. There were many unique achievements. IMF and World Bank along with major rating agencies projected India to continue as the fastest growing global economy for next few years, if not more. IMF report in December projects that India is expected to contribute over 16 percent of global growth making India a global “star performer”. The India growth story left a global impression and fresh NRI deposits reached $6 billion during April-October 2023, doubling from $3 billion from the previous year. The year-end report from the World Bank published on 18th December reported that India will be the largest recipient of foreign remittances at US$125 billion in 2023, way ahead of Mexico at US$ 67 billion. India’s stock market surpassed the $4 trillion market value for the first time on 29th November, marking a significant accomplishment with market capitalization of companies listed on India’s exchanges surging by US$ One trillion in less than three years, positioning India as one of the top performers regionally and globally. There were some key announcements too during the year. In June, Air India signed agreements to acquire 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing in a deal worth US$70 billion making it one of the largest aircraft orders in civil aviation history. In October, announcement of India’s first semiconductor plant being set up by Micron Tech at US$ 2.75 Billion in Gujarat set the ball rolling towards India becoming one of the exclusive few to manufacture such critical components in the country while the manufacture of Apple phones in India picked up pace when Apple’s hardware manufacturing partner Foxconn announced in August that it plans to start manufacturing of iPhone 15 series at its Tamil Nadu plant soon. In December, India made its first-ever rupee payment for crude oil purchased from the UAE, part of its strategy to promote Rupee currency globally. Innovation and manufacturing continued to remain as key focus areas and India, which was listed as the home to the world’s largest number of Unicorns (startups valued at US $ one billion or more) in the year 2022, surpassing the US and China, is likely to continue in 2023 as well. India’s aggressive push to encourage digital payments through UPI and e-wallets has breached all records. In 2022, India accounted for the largest number of worldwide real-time transactions at 89.5 billion which was 46 percent of the global real-time payments and more than the combined digital payments of the next four top countries. This year, it is set to score a century, as estimates suggest that it could touch 140 million — a staggering growth! Promotion of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) was, in fact, an important priority of India’s G20 presidency and caught global attention with advanced economies like Japan, Singapore, France, Germany, UAE looking at ways to adopt it. The fact that India, through its DPI, has been able to pull millions out of poverty through financial inclusion and ‘direct benefit transfer’ stopping leakages, was widely applauded.

Climate and environment protection Preservation of the environment and saving the earth from climate disasters continued to be a key focus area for India. India’s emphasis on LIFE (Lifestyle for Environment) and climate preservation was a huge hit at the G20 Summit. India proposed a formula which involves a country specific climate assessment and transition rather than the earlier ‘one size fits all’ approach. India has already walked the talk on climate preservation by surpassing its renewable energy target nine years ahead of the 2030 target set at the 2015 Paris Climate Summit, where India had pledged that 40 percent of its power capacity would be met by non-fossil fuels by 2030, a target that was met in December 2021 itself. India highlighted it at the COP28 Summit in UAE in December too, stating that between 2017 and 2023, India has added around 100 GW of installed electric capacity, of which around 80 percent is attributed to non-fossil fuel-based resources. In addition, India’s global initiatives like the International Solar Alliance, set up in 2015 now has over 100 countries as members. India’s initiative at the G20 Summit of launching the Global Biofuels Alliance too is a major step towards preserving the climate. Over the year of its G20 presidency, India also showcased its traditional ‘living in harmony with nature’ as an effective measure to safeguard the climate. Keeping with its commitment to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, India launched a pilot for ‘E20’, or petrol blended with 20 percent ethanol in February 2023, a move which could not only reduce Indian import bill but also save the environment from release of harmful gases. Defence and technology There is a clear realisation in India that self-reliance in defence equipment as well as modern technology is critical towards India becoming a developed nation. During the year, a number of important landmarks underscored this priority. The biggest was definitely the successful launch of Chandrayaan-3, India’s Moon mission in August, which led to India landing its craft on the Moon becoming only the fourth nation to do so. In the process, it made history by becoming the first mission to soft-land on the lunar South Pole, a region that has never been explored before. Shortly thereafter, India made history again with the successful launch of India’s mission to the Sun, ‘Aditya-1’, India’s first space-based observatory class to study the Sun, launched on 02nd September, merely 10 days after the successful Moon landing, once again catapulting India into an exclusive club of countries which have done so successfully. India also hosted the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) Summit on 12th December, highlighting India’s progress in harnessing the power of AI in India’s progress and the ability to recognize the potential as well as threat posed by AI technology. India incidentally also holds the Chair for GPAI in the year 2024. In continued push towards self-reliance in defence equipment, India got a major boost when HAL announced that it is in talks to sell 15 Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) to Argentina and 20 to Egypt. Other countries that evinced interest in Tejas LCA jet are USA, Australia, Indonesia and Philippines. In November, Indian armed forces too placed an order for 97 Tejas LCA and 156 Prachand helicopters for approximately US $26.74 billion in what is perhaps one of the largest defence deals of the country. The commissioning of India built Stealth Destroyer INS Imphal for the Indian Navy towards the end of the year boosted India’s defence capabilities. The icing on the cake was however the successful testing of Akash Surface to Air Missile (SAM) on 18th December when it successfully engaged four aerial targets simultaneously at a range of 25 km, becoming the first country to have such a capability using a single firing unit. Other successes The India story would be incomplete without its recognizing its vibrant culture. At the 95th Annual Academy Awards held in March 2023, Indian movies ‘RRR’ and ‘The Elephant Whisperers’ both won the prestigious Oscar awards. In September, The Hoysala temples at Belur, Halebid, and Somanathapur in Karnataka were declared as UNESCO World Heritage Sites while in December, UNESCO declared Garba, the traditional dance form of Gujarat as an ‘Intangible Heritage’, both apt recognition of India’s cultural heritage. The UN also declared the year as the Year of Millets, promoting the healthy coarse grains towards ensuring food security and good health, once again an Indian initiative. Elsewhere in India, the dramatic rescue operation in Uttarakhand to rescue all 41 trapped workers from inside the Silkyara tunnel on 28th November brought cheer to the entire nation. The Supreme Court held the repeal of Article 370 from Kashmir as legitimate, paving the way for continued growth and prospects of peace and prosperity for the people in the valley. In sports, Neeraj Chopra, the Olympic Champion, continued his dream run by winning the gold at World Athletics Championship at Budapest in August while the Indian contingent did the country proud by scoring a century of medals and winning 107 medals at Hangzhou Asian Games. In Badminton, duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty climbed to World No.1 and won three BWF titles and clinched gold in the Asian Games, to be aptly announced winner of the prestigious Khel Ratna Award for 2023. The pace of infrastructure growth too kept pace and the inauguration of first phase of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, completion of Chenab Railway bridge in Kashmir, the continuing launch of modern Vande-Bharat Trains, electrification of railways, extension of rail links in the North-East and increasing number of modern airports, kept India’s focus towards a modern developed economy on track. The misses Along with the successes, there were some misses along the way too. The death sentence to eight Indian ex-Navy personnel jailed in Qatar was a blow. However, reports emanating from Qatar on 28th December that the Qatar courts have accepted India’s pleas and commuted their death penalty, offers hope. The Nijjar killing case and the resultant spat between India and Canada, as well as the discord between India and the US, were points of friction. The elections in Maldives resulted in the election of Mohamed Muizzu, a pro-China candidate as the President in September. Among his first announcement was the withdrawal of Indian armed forces from Maldives, which immediately sparked concerns in Delhi. The two major train accidents during the year, one was in Odisha on 02nd June in which 296 people lost their lives in the three-way crash involving two passenger trains and a freight train in Odisha while the other one was the derailment of the North East Express on 11th October in Bihar which led to 4 deaths, both shocking as well as sad. And, in sports, the loss in the Cricket World Cup Final to Australia in November broke a million hearts Conclusion The list of successes and misses is not exhaustive but is clearly indicative of the trajectory of India’s growth in the past one year. The year 2023 has been exceptional for India in every sense. India believes that if India grows, the world grows with it. The year 2023 has set a strong foundation for the India growth story to continue in the coming years as India aspires to a ‘Vishwa Mitra’ i.e. global friend as well as a ‘Vishwa Guru’, a global leader. PM Modi was perhaps modest when he said that India is at the cusp of take-off. India has taken off, both at home and abroad and is clearly setting benchmarks and agenda for the world. The author is Assistant Director, MP-IDSA. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.