India’s new right-wing premier Narendra Modi announced Friday an end to Soviet-style economic planning in an Independence Day speech as he pressed ahead with overhauling cumbersome government policymaking.
Modi said he was scrapping the Planning Commission — a relic of socialist policies put in place by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was impressed by the former Soviet Union’s centralised planning and five-year economic blueprints.