ABSTRACT
National Power Index (NPI) 2012 is a comprehensively revised version of the previous National Security Indices published in India’s National Security Annual Review (INSAR) series since 2002. We recognise the fact that there is a serious discussion in the international scholarly community with regard to the shifting power balance in the world and the rise of new power centres with considerable emphasis being laid on the emergence of China and India as future global powers. Therefore, it becomes necessary for us to make a hardened and realistic assessment of where does India stand in relation to other leading powers of the world and what are the strengths and weaknesses of India in various components of power. Varied calculations have been made in the last ten years by Western thinktanks and scholars in China about the future trends in the distribution of power. All these calculations, while agreeing that India would be among the leading power centres and would wield a significant share of global power in the next twenty to thirty years, also indicate that India would be way behind China and that India’s rise would be contingent on improvements that it must make in certain critical areas of governance and growth.
