India’s financial system has improved dramatically in the past decade

Editor’s note: This is the second of a six-chapter article on the economy of India, published this week.

In “lombard street”, published in 1873, Walter Bagehot, then editor of The Economist, wrote that the City of London’s success was based on taking funds that elsewhere were kept under floorboards, and putting them to use. He might have found what is unfolding in modern India to his liking.