By 2025 the Indian subcontinent's population will reach two billion. Do we have the wherewithal to look after so many people?

The Mumbai-based Strategic Foresight Group has released a report called 'The Second Freedom �€” South Asian Challenges 2005-25'.

Based on this study one comes to a pessimistic, but not unrealistic picture about the subcontinent's prospects. In Pakistan and Nepal the institutions that dominate life are, respectively, the military and the monarchy.

Pakistan has had spells of rapid economic progress under its military rulers, but the benefits of that progress haven�€™t percolated beyond a narrow establishment.

Ditto in Nepal, where links with the monarchy-dominated establishment pave the road to prosperity, while those outside this charmed circle are desperately poor.

These conditions feed into general instability in both countries.

As "the world's biggest democracy" Indians may like to think they are different, the one shining beacon of hope in South Asia.

Unfortunately, the report shreds this complacency.

If Pakistan's military is its bane, the bureaucracy in India (and in Bangladesh) performs a similar role in distorting economies. India's inspector raj is billed to deliver $2,000 billion in missed economic opportunities and industrial growth over the next two decades.

We don't need the jackboot to trample us; we have already tied ourselves up with red tape. Even privatisation needn't be a panacea in such circumstances.

Delhi's privatised discoms are still inefficient, but they charge higher electricity tariffs. The government fobbed off the rising staged by Delhi�€™s middle class by authorising an additional Rs 90 crore subsidy for power companies.

That Rs 90 crore, of course, comes out of the taxpayer's money. In other words, the best solution envisaged by the government is not to pressure private companies to cut transmission losses and raise efficiency, but to rob Peter to pay Paul.

As a slogan put up by protestors has it, privatisation without competition is a fraud. Red tape, of course, will come off magically for a few favoured players, which is the story of the inspector raj.

As for other Indians �€” sorry, if you happen to be outside the magic circle.