In 1991, India began the process of liberalizing the economy. But it has been gradual-even import licensing (on consumer goods) was not fully removed till 2001. Between 1991 and 2023, tariff liberalization was reversed twice-first between 1996-1997 to 1999-2000 and then from 2018-2019 onwards. Anti-dumping was also used extensively to exclude the imports of specific products from the most competitive sources.

Economist and chairperson of the Sixteenth Finance Commission Arvind Panagariya has closely observed the Indian economy over decades and written extensively about it. In this book, he has collected his writings from 1989 to the present day to provide an overview of the Indian economy from when liberalization started to where it has reached. The chapters in this book offer a window to the history of trade-policy changes, the factors driving them and their implications for the country's development and well-being.