I am reproducing an article here which is quite thought provoking----

The Weekend Edition:
Are China And India Overrated



Every day, countless commentators prophesize the ascendance of the world's next superpowers, China and India, the two \"Asian giants\" shaking off their ancient slumber and rising to the call of the 21st century. Now let's look at this situation realistically. At this point, the hype about the Indian economy seems patently premature, and the risks on the horizon for the Chinese polity and hence for economic stability is highly underestimated. Both China and India are still desperately poor countries.

In China, rural and urban inequality grows at alarming rates, stirring unrest amongst those hundreds of millions who remain impoverished. In fact, China, responsible for only 6% of world trade, has actually lost manufacturing jobs in the past ten years. With massive layoffs in the rust belt provinces, arbitrary local levies on farmers, pervasive official corruption, and toxic industrial dumping, many in the countryside are highly agitated leading to a sevenfold increase in the number of incidents of social unrest in the last decade. Of the total of 2.3 billion people in these two countries, nearly 1.5 billion earn less than US$2 a day, according to World Bank calculations. Domestic private enterprise, while active and growing, is relatively weak, and Chinese banks are burdened with \"bad\" loans. By most aggregative measures, capital is used much less efficiently than in India, even though in terms of physical infrastructure and progress in education and health, the Chinese are better poised for further economic growth. In terms of the authoritarian system, the government will likely be a major economic liability in the long run, regardless of its immediate implications for short run policy decisions. China is far behind India in the ability to politically manage conflicts, and this may prove to be China's Achilles' Heel.

What about the hordes of Indian software engineers, call center operators, and back room programmers supposedly hollowing out white collar jobs in rich countries? The total number of workers in all possible forms of IT related jobs in India comes to less than a million workers, one quarter of 1% of the Indian labor force. In most parts of India, no similar rural safety net exists for the poor; and the more severe educational inequality in India makes the absorption of shocks in the industrial labor market more difficult. We should not lose our sense of proportion in thinking about the rise of China and India. While adjusting its economies to the new reality and utilizing the new opportunities, the West should not overlook the enormity of the economic gap that exists between it and those two countries (particularly India). Only patience and struggle (not destiny) can guide India and China to the level of superpowers.

The article is good and balanced.

But just imagine, if one billion people get going in one direction...

Even more than 50 years after independence from almost two centuries of British rule, large scale poverty remains the most shameful blot on the face of India.

India still has the world’s largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 350-400 million are below the poverty line, 75 per cent of them in the rural areas.

More than 40 per cent of the population is illiterate, with women, tribal and scheduled castes particularly affected.

It would be incorrect to say that all poverty reduction programmes have failed. The growth of the middle class (which was virtually non-existent when India became a free nation in August 1947) indicates that economic prosperity has indeed been very impressive in India, but the DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH has been very uneven.

The main causes of poverty are illiteracy, a population growth rate by far exceeding the economic growth rate for the better part of the past 50 years, protectionist policies pursued since 1947 to 1991 which prevented large amounts of foreign investment in the country.

Poverty alleviation is expected to make better progress in the next 50 years than in the past, as a trickle-down effect of the growing middle class. Increasing stress on education, reservation of seats in government jobs and the increasing empowerment of women and the economically weaker sections of society, are also expected to contribute to the alleviation of poverty.

Eradication of poverty can only be a very long-term goal in India

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"Ever dance with the devil in the pale moon light?"
"I always ask that of all my prey."
"I just like the sound of it."

There is one reports on my desk about india: from white collar to blue done by Deutsche Bank ekdum mast hai lakin if I can find link I will post it here.

Maybe you can to googling. article written by Sanjeev Sanyal, senior economist at Deutsche bank.

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hinglish zindabad

There has been a consistent growth indeed in new upper-middle-class with good spending capability in India, thanks to the mushrooming MNCs in IT and Finance sectors. BUT they can't be more than 5 % of the total population. If you look into an ordinary citizen living in a small town in Orissa, Bihar or MP, there are not much changes in his quality of life for a decade. Fast-developing sub-urban areas like Gurgaon, Noida reflect changes, but India does not end with them.