Love Thy Neighbors

This morning was no different than any other week day mornings; (well actually, my sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy this morning…I became ‘uncle’, so it wasn’t a usual morning, per se!!) I went on bbc.com and to the ‘South Asia’ news for the up-to-date news from sub-continent.

The headline story was of the ‘Big, Fat, Indian wedding’. One ‘Big, Fat, Rich’ politician’s daughter is getting married to one ‘Big, Fat, Filthy Rich’ politician’s son. Groom was presented with a Bell chopper. Wedding went on for a week and reported wedding cost was around $55 million. As if this was out of ordinary for Indian politicians, I am still wondering why BBC published this as headline news.

I was reading Fareed Zakaria’s “Post-American World” (I don’t know why I am reading so much lately!! I guess I am making up for all my missed school homework…) over the weekend and he had mentioned about how two distinct, emerging economies, China and India will perform in the coming decades. Following are some of my favorite, distinct characteristics, of India & China:

• First & foremost, the most natural difference, Indian’s can Vote, there Chinese counterpart can’t.
• China & India both introduced population control measures in late 1970’s, China was successful with its “One Child policy”, and India’s “Hum Do Hamare Do” (We Two, Our Two) slogan didn’t work!!
• Thanks to the ‘success’ of OCP, an average Chinese is 34 years old, not so good news for the World’s fastest growing economy. On the other hand, thanks to the ‘failure’ of H2D2 an average Indian is 26.5 years young!! This very reason leads most economists to project India as the world’s largest economy by the year 2045-50.
• China benchmarks, US & European cities for there infra projects, India benchmarks China.
• I have saved my favorite for the last…

China is rich, but Chinese are poor…India is poor, but Indians are rich!!

India has to stop comparing herself to other ‘successful’ nations or should care about what foreign media thinks of her. Not a single day goes by when a leading Indian newspapers publishes some foreign analyst’s views on how India ‘will be’ the economic superpower in the future. Worst, they even compare economic growth rates of Pakistan and Bangladesh to India’s.

As far as US is concerned, given the political scenes in China & India, I still think that US economy will remain the most powerful force in the World Theater for years to come.