PART 10 OF 10: THE BEGINNING OF THE END
The year was 1992. The First Gulf War had ended and the world was cooling off after a thirty-five nation coalition, led by the United States, handed out a decisive defeat to Iraq and its supreme leader, Saddam Hussein. The situation in Bosnia was rapidly deteriorating due to an ethnic conflict between the Serbs and Bosnians. A hundred thousand people, predominantly Bosnian Muslims, would be massacred by the end of the conflict. India had just managed to avert a balance-of-payments near-miss that had brought the country to its knees and to the brink of bankruptcy. The government had to air-dash sixty-seven tons of bullion to European banks to secure a $600 million loan so that we could pay our monthly bills. It was a historic low-point for the country. The situation forced the then Prime Minister, PV Narasimha Rao, to announce sweeping economic reforms that would open up India's economy and eventually pull three-hundred million people out of poverty. Just when things were looking