Nitin Desai at the first Prof Y K Alagh Memorial lecture in Ahmedabad. India must move beyond the liberalisation policies of 1991 to address modern economic challenges such as geopolitical fragmentation and the politicisation of trade, economist Nitin Desai said in Ahmedabad on Friday evening. Sustained growth requires greater investment in research and development and a reduction in government dependency, Desai said. There is also a need to bolster state capacity, and to develop a decentralised, region-based strategy on agriculture that moves beyond minimum price supports for wheat and rice to embrace cooperatives and diverse crops like milk, he said. Desai, chairman of the Governing Council of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) New Delhi , was speaking on India’s manufacturing and agriculture sectors at the first Prof Y K Alagh Memorial lecture organised by the Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research (SPIESR).…