India doesn't need a new retail FDI policy; it needs to scrap existing ones

India's politicians and bureaucrats urgently need modernisation of their own ideological thinking on this subject and liberate the retail sector

Now well into its fifth year of being in power, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government continues to ignore one of the most vital growth drivers of the Indian economy — its retail sector.  Inexplicably, the government and its babus’ muddled thinking on this crucial sector has persisted since NDA 1, and through United Progressive Alliance (UPA) 1 and 2. Over the last 16 years or so, successive governments and their top bureaucrats have attempted several times to come up with a pragmatic policy that addresses the needs of the various constituents of the retail sector ecosystem, but each time,