About this item
Over the last 25 years, India's explosive economic growth has vaulted it into the ranks of the world's emerging major powers. Long plagued by endemic poverty, until the 1990s the Indian economy was also hamstrung by a burdensome regulatory regime that limited its ability to compete on a global scale. Since then, however, the Indian government has gradually opened up the economy and the results have been stunning. India's middle class has grown by leaps and bounds, and the country's sheer scale-its huge population and $2 trillion economy-means its actions will have a major global impact. From world trade to climate change to democratization, India now matters. While it is clearly on the path to becoming a great power, India has not abandoned all of its past policies: its economy remains relatively protectionist, and it still struggles with the legacy of its longstanding foreign policy doctrine of non-alignment.
About the Author
ALYSSA AYRES is senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors.
Her book on nationalism, culture, and politics in Pakistan, Speaking Like a State, was published worldwide by Cambridge University Press in 2009, with a paper edition in 2012. It received the 2011-2012 American Institute of Pakistan Studies book prize. She has co-edited three books on India and Indian foreign policy: Power Realignments in Asia: China, India, and the United States; India Briefing: Takeoff at Last? ; and India Briefing: Quickening the Pace of Change. In 2015 she served as project director of the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on US-India relations.
Ayres speaks Hindi and Urdu, and in the mid-1990s worked as an interpreter for the International Committee of the Red Cross. She received an AB magna cum laude from Harvard College, and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago, where her dissertation was defended with distinction.
