May 28 2032
India, the country with the largest population, has managed to maintain food security, thanks to seven varieties of bioengineered rice developed in recent years.
While nobody knows for sure exactly how many people live in India, the consensus is that the population crossed the threshold to 1.5-billion within the past six months. Though birth rates in India, like most of the world, are declining, the sheer size of the population means it will continue to creep upwards.
With this in mind, agricultural research has focused on improving yields and quality for staples such as rice, while also reducing the need for pesticides, chemicals and environmental resources. And this research has paid off, handsomely.
The first “climate-smart” rice varieties were introduced in 2025. By using Crispr to edit specific genes, yields were boosted by 30% and water consumption reduced. As there were no genes from another organism added, these are not considered genetically modified. Instead, genes were selectively switched on or off to accentuate desirable traits — bioengineered precision breeding.
Emboldened by this success, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research has improved and refined the process, developing special varieties adapted to thrive in specific regions of the country, and to resist disease. Assisted by AI, of course.
The results have been spectacular. Not only is India by far the largest exporter of basmati in the world, rice and other staples in the country are more than sufficient to feed the huge population. With hunger eliminated, people are more productive — it’s a virtuous cycle.
As India continues to thrive economically, joining leading nations on the world stage, the prime minister can rest assured that their agricultural sector can feed them all.
First published on Mindbullets May 8 2025.
India pips China for second spot in GDP ranking
October 17 2048
It’s official, India is now the second-largest global economy. Having joined the club of economic giants in 2025 in third spot, India had a long way to go to catch China, which had four times the GDP. But India’s rise in the economic ranks has been nothing short of meteoric.
A combination of liberal democratic reforms, slashing red tape and awakening India’s natural bent for entrepreneurship, has seen the country soar like its space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation. With the internet’s biggest English-speaking community and the world’s largest workforce, India was perfectly poised to dominate the global services economy birthed by the “information age” and capitalise on the demand for virtual workers.
But it was China’s rivalry with the US that really fuelled India’s growth spurt. As the US decoupled from China, it found Indian suppliers more than willing to provide anything from auto parts to custom electronics — at Asian prices. A long-time ally of America, India benefited from technology transfers and free trade agreements.
For its part, China floundered as India flourished. The triple whammy of population decline, consumer retreat and the US trade war turned rampant growth of previous decades into economic stagnation. Faced with a declining birth rate and ageing workforce, China’s leaders desperately tried to rebalance their economy. But the heavy hand of state planning didn’t sit well with the new world order, and getting closer to Russia and Iran has not brought China much benefit other than cheap oil.
Now India has surpassed China in purchasing parity terms, according to the IMF, and the US remains the world’s largest economy, since 1871.
First published on Mindbullets October 19 2023.
• Despite appearances to the contrary, Futureworld cannot and does not predict the future. The Mindbullets scenarios are fictitious and designed purely to explore possible futures, and challenge and stimulate strategic thinking.
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