<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p>The motley bunch of people, trends and gizmos we handpicked for this week's issue are a reflection of India's aspirations in the decade ahead. But for many of these, just 2011 will be the defining moment.<br><br>Noel Tata will know by mid-year if he's the chosen one to head the Tata group. Anil Ambani will have to lessen the biggest debt burden in corporate India. And Mamata Banerjee will know whether her wins in circles and wards will translate into a victory in West Bengal. Among the younger lot, 21-year-old designer Masaba Gupta and 32-year-old businesswoman Nisaba Godrej are set to leave their imprint, too.<br><br>But even the coming decade will be a defining one in many ways. In politics, leaders such as Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar have raised the bar and expectations are rising from the Centre, too. Unless the frustration of the general public (and that pot is boiling) with price rise and corruption dethrones the Congress, the UPA will bet its shirt on crowning Rahul Gandhi. Who, in turn, will have to bear the burden of those expectations.<br><br>The need for the right balance between the industry's need for land and the burden on the land to grow more will decide between strife and peace in our hinterland. In technology, we will know if cloud computing as an idea will finally succeed or was it a necessity that was too abstract to become a reality. Economically, the run-up to 2020 will decide if India will break away from the pack of developing nations and power ahead, and whether our biggest corporates can build global empires. And it may well herald the rise of the scions such as the Ambani and the Premji NextGens.<br><br>The decade will see a few disappointments, too. Terrorism threatens our democracy. The domestic pharma industry's dream of a home-grown drug appear unrealistic. Not to forget that the nation continues to be in search of the next big idea since the advent of IT offshoring in the 1980s.<br><br>(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 10-01-2011)</p>