Click to play videoOver the last two months, CNN-IBN has brought you 60 moments that we believe have defined India in the last 60 years. Now, with your help, we have chosen 10 of those moments and here's the tenth: the beginning of economic liberalisation.
New Delhi: Once there was the planned economy, there were the five-year plans, government controls and the license permit raj.
But the socialist economy became a predator impoverishing masses of people, preventing the Indian from dreaming of a better life.
Economic reforms began in 1991. Then finance minister Manmohan Singh, slashed at the controls that burdened his countrymen.
Since then taxes have been lowered, public sector monopolies of industries has been broken, there's been massive deregulation of industry, sectors like civil aviation have been opened to private players.
Import duties have been reduced, restrictions on import of technology have been cut - the result? An economy booming at eight and a half per cent growth.
Skylines are changing fast. There are malls, there are mobile phones, and there are new cars, new gadgets and a new class of newly rich Indians creating a lifestyle unseen in India.
Before the greatest dilemma: are the riches trickling down to the poorest? Some say yes, others say no.
Yet economic reforms have set free the Indian entrepreneur.
The world watched when Mittal acquired Arcelor and Tata acquired Corus. This was a defining moment in Indian history.
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