India's tradition of debate critical for economic progress, says Rajan

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan on Saturday said that India's tradition of debate and an open spirit of enquiry is critical for its economic progress. He was speaking at the convocation ceremony of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) here.

"India's tradition of debate and an open spirit of enquiry critical for economic progress; tolerance can take offense out of debate. We in India are far from the production possibility in India. We can grow for a long time by just catching up with the methods of industrial countries," Rajan said.

Rajan said that more intelligent ways of working will enable India to lead for old methods and come more quickly to the production possibility frontier.

"Once you are at the frontier and using the best methods in the world, the only way to grow is to innovate even better than others in the world. This is what software firms are now trying to do," he added.

The RBI Governor also stressed on the fact that the first essential is to foster competition in the market place for ideas.

"All ideas should be scrutinised critically, no matter whether they originate domestic or abroad, whether they come from an untutored student or a world famous professor," said Rajan.