benefits of greater economic freedom and openness -- which has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in India -- explicitly spelled out. As a consequence, even as India’s reforms have been successful by many measures, there are still few politicians who see electoral benefits to being a reformer. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi , who some hoped would cut red tape everywhere, Thatcher-style, has turned out to be a cautious tinkerer, constantly mindful of imagined political costs.The costs to India of this embrace of gradualism are grave. The agenda of 1991 remains incomplete. Had genuine structural reform been undertaken then, Indian industry would have had the flexibility and dynamism needed to be competitive in today’s world. Instead, the government continues to control and meddle in markets, causingMI5 grants its informants legal cover to participate in crimes that may extend to murder, torture and sexual assaults, a tribunal has heard.

The policy, in existence since the early 1990s, is likely to have enabled the Security Service to conceal wide ranging illegal activity, Ben Jaffey QC, representing an alliance of human rights group, told the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) on Thursday.

The policy was so secret that even judicial oversight of the practice, introduced in 2012, was not initially acknowledged. Sir Mark Waller, a retired judge appointed to oversee the policy, was instructed by the prime minister at the time, David Cameron, not to comment on its legality.

Known within the intelligence services as “the third direction”, a letter from Cameron to Waller dated 27 November 2012 said his