But overall, the formula seems to work. It has yielded rapid growth for two decades and India has sailed through the financial crisis that has battered the West. Growth has transformed living standards and cut poverty (see table), although there is some controversy over how to measure the latter. Middle-class folk say their children laugh when told what it was like before 1991, when phones took years to get, soap burned your skin and red tape suffocated the economy. Back then, the leading founder of Infosys, a big technology firm, has recalled, importing a computer would take about three years and require 50 trips to Delhi to get official approval.

That all came to an end 20 years ago, on July 24th 1991, when Manmohan Singh, then minister of finance, facing a balance-of-payments crisis, told parliament that "the room for manoeuvre, to live on borrowed money or time, does not exist any more." He attacked the prioritisation of producers over consumers, and swept away tariffs and the mesh of licences used to micromanage firms. The reforms were less dramatic than events in the Soviet Union-where a month later Boris Yeltsin stood on a tank and denounced an attempted coup-but also changed hundreds of millions of lives. Mr Singh's speech marked India's entry into global capitalism. He ended by paraphrasing Victor Hugo: "No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come."

Today such radicalism seems alien, even though Mr Singh is prime minister, heading a coalition led by the Congress party. Plenty of heavyweight people think that progress is still being made, if more quietly. Suman Bery, an economist, speaks of the "old Indian formulation that at the end of every two-year period it seems as if you have got nowhere but in each seven-year period you look back and things have been transformed." Reform is not a word that describes what happens in government any more, says a senior official, but "nuts-and-bolts" changes do occur, at a pace that India's democracy can handle. Added up, they make a difference.

David Fuller's view I maintain that India is one of the most interesting and promising growth stories. Much has been achieved following Manmohan Singh's reforms in 1991 (see the 20-year summary table in the article above).

At 80, I wish he could step into a less gruelling role, as a Minister Mentor, and turn the reins over to a trustworthy and economically savvy successor.

For India's stock market (monthly, weekly & daily), I maintain that the long-term potential is enormous. However there are still short to medium-term risks to the downside after 10 consecutive interest rate hikes since 2009, including last months unexpected 50 basis points rise which rocked the market. An eventual break in the progression of lower rally highs will be required to indicate that demand has regained the upper hand.