1. Background

• The nationhood which India acquired in the 20th Century, fulfilling the dreams of Asoka, Akbar and Gandhi, has now brought it to the threshold of Great Power status at the beginning of the 21st. It is now widely accepted that the new century will be an Asian one. 
• The US may still be a super-power in its early decades, carrying on from the New World the supremacy that old European powers have lost. But the future beckons in India.

2. What makes a Nation a Superpower

To be a superpower a country must 

• have a sizeable but manageable population (barring perhaps china);
• be endowed with unity, political cohesion and stability; 
• have structured its national economic orders which are efficient, competitive and productive; have trained manpower resources and high levels of technological capacities;
• have high levels of defence and military capacities including nuclear weapons; 
• preferably be a democracy.

3.Can India be a superpower

• As of now, India is still far from the status of superpowerdom. 
• At present we are considered as a regional power. 
• We are confined largely to the South Asian region, and may be the South-East Asian region. 
• Undoubtedly, serious deficiencies have remained; fresh weaknesses have emerged; new dangers have arisen. 
• Still, it would be wrong not to acknowledge that India has made substantial all round progress; its achievements in the last Seventy-Five years have been considerable by any historical standards, especially if we keep in view the level from which it started and 'how difficult was the terrain along which we had to tread.' 

4. Factors that challenge the Rise of India as a superpower

• ineffective population control programmes;
• high levels of illiteracy;
• poor quality of national politics;
• our economy, despite reforms, is not efficient or productive, and does not ensure distributive justice for our vast population;
• lack of scientific temper;
• we still do not produce nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers etc.
• we still have to plan a pattern of strategic equations with other power centres of the
• World. We have to resolve our problems with

5. Way Forward

India can be an influential power provided :

• We consolidate our national unity and ensure political stability; 
• we undertake a positive programme of public health and public education; 
• we vigorously pursue the objective of economic reforms and modernisation; 
• we undertake a programme to enhance our scientific and technological capacities on a continuous basis; 
• we do not succumb to international pressure and do not in any way reduce our defence, nuclear and missile capacities; 
• We concentrate our efforts to establish a cooperative and working relationship with all our neighbours.