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Economic reforms in India are being hampered by interventions from business pressure groups and politicians, including Left parties who support the ruling United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, Tata group chairman Ratan Tata said on Sunday in New York.
India today is a nation where top officials are writing the right policies which are often foiled in execution by business lobbies, provincial politicians or leftists in the ruling Congress-led coalition, he said in an interview to the Newsweek magazine.
Elaborating about the present business climate in the country, 67-year-old Tata in an article on the history and activities of the group, said India is in 'some form of denial' about China's lead in the manufacturing sector.
The reason China is a big winner from recent elimination of global textile quotas is that the Indian government 'destroyed' the domestic industry over the years, creating small mills without capital to expand and jacking up cotton prices to uncompetitive levels, he said.
The article which analyses the multi-billion-dollar group's operations notes that 'eminently ridiculous' rules have driven Tata out of such business as airlines and make it all the more impossible for India to compete with China.
It also lavishes praise on the group, saying it is a new kind of multinational corporation, a family conglomerate that has gone professional without losing a distinct touch of old school values.
"Forged from both India's struggle for independence from Britain and the influence of early-20th-century Fabian socialists, Tata is a ferocious competitor with a very liberal touch," the article says.