Primus Partners, in its latest October edition of Moving the Needle, highlights how India’s next phase of growth will depend on strengthening institutions, improving policy implementation, and ensuring that progress translates into tangible outcomes for businesses and citizens. This is the thread that runs through this month’s edition.
Across sectors, India is navigating challenges that require more than ambitious policies; they call for reliable data, effective institutions, and solutions that respond to the needs of a changing economy. Whether it is creating a more investment-friendly environment, protecting consumers from counterfeit products, improving financial protection under public health schemes, or advancing artificial intelligence, the focus must remain on bridging the gap between policy intent and implementation.
This edition begins by examining NITI Aayog’s Investment Friendliness Index and its potential to strengthen how states and Union Territories assess and improve their investment climates. By bringing together indicators of institutional performance and investor perceptions, the Index offers a framework for identifying strengths and areas for improvement. Its long-term value, however, will depend on consistent measurement, transparent methodologies, and timely, accessible data that enable meaningful comparisons and informed decisions.
Consumer trust and market integrity remain equally important to India’s economic progress. The growing challenge of counterfeiting in the fast-moving consumer goods sector affects not only businesses and brand credibility but also consumer safety, employment, and government revenues. Strengthening supply-chain visibility, adopting technologies such as QR codes and track-and-trace systems, improving online seller verification, and raising consumer awareness can help build a more transparent marketplace. Collaboration between industry, policymakers, and consumers will be essential to addressing this challenge effectively.
Healthcare financing presents another critical test of implementation. Although public health scheme coverage has expanded, households continue to bear substantial out-of-pocket expenses, highlighting the gap between formal enrolment and meaningful financial protection. Improving the use of verified information during enrolment, revisiting reimbursement rates, reducing unnecessary fraud alerts, and ensuring timely claim settlements can help make coverage more effective. International experiences, including Thailand’s progress in reducing out-of-pocket expenditure, offer useful lessons on how financing arrangements and better-designed delivery systems can improve access to care.
Finally, this edition explores the opportunity for the Global South to move beyond adopting artificial intelligence towards actively developing and shaping its future. At the Grounding the Frontier convening during the 81st United Nations General Assembly week, global leaders discussed the need for AI frameworks that reflect local priorities and development contexts. The accompanying compendium, Built Lean, Built to Scale: An Artificial Intelligence Compendium from the Global South, underscores the importance of local-language capabilities, representative data, access to computing resources, skills development, and partnerships that enable responsible, resource-efficient innovation at scale.
At Primus Partners, we believe that lasting progress depends on building institutions that inspire confidence, policies that respond to real needs, and innovations that deliver measurable impact. Across investment, consumer protection, healthcare, and artificial intelligence, the opportunity lies in translating ambition into systems that are transparent, resilient, and inclusive.
We hope this edition offers fresh perspectives, sparks meaningful conversations, and encourages all of us to look beyond policy announcements towards the effective implementation needed to build a stronger, more resilient, and future-ready India.
