The numbers are quite stunning. In 1998-9 the volume of India's software exports was $2.7 billion, in 1999-2000 it was over $4 billion and in 2000–1, from the estimates coming in, it is expected that the exports will be $6.2 billion. This trend has been there for the last eight years—an annual growth rate of approximately 40 per cent. This, given the compounding involved, means that every two years India's exports get virtually doubled. A study by NASSCOM and McKinsey in 1999 predicted that India's exports will reach $50 billion by the year 2008. Since India's total current exports are around $35 billion, and nothing like this has happened in any other sector in India in living memory, these estimates and predictions are giving rise to much scepticism.

Are the numbers a result of jugglery? I myself was initially sceptical, but having checked and compared various sources I am convinced that, give or take a margin of 5 per cent, the figures of the volume of exports are right—the performance in this sector has been spectacular over the last eight or ten years.

What about the forecast? This has met with harsh criticism. One argument has to do with pure deduction. If we assume that India's current export growth rate will persist, it is easy to check that in about sixteen years our exports will exceed our national income (assuming that income also grows at the current rate).