It's just geopolitics.
China has had Pakistan as an ally for decades, we can't just give up our old allies, that isn't possible. Plus they are strategically essential, in giving us a bridge to central Asia and to the gulf via Gwadar port.
The problem is that by appeasing our ally Pakistan, we often end up annoying India, and that is something that is difficult to balance.
The best thing for me personally, would be for China/India/Pakistan to all form a united Asia. If Europe could do it, why can't we do it too? That would truly be the Asian Century.
Guys, could everybody please stop digressing? Let's stick to the topic.
;-)
You do realise that trolls dislocate threads deliberately, not accidentally. If someone wants to derail this thread, it could be due to one of three reasons: someone wants to be wicked, a troll; someone is doing this through ineptitude, because he doesn't know what he's setting off with remarks that he considers are important, but others consider irrelevant; and through thread-drift, where we keep commenting on peripheral items, and keep moving away by sticking to each succeeding new periphery.
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The article touts too much about Indian demographic advantages.
In fact,
Indian demography may well be the obstacle to Indias further development.
According to UN data,
UNICEF - India - Statistics from 2003-2007, Indian youth (age 15-24) has a literacy rate of 82% ((87+77)/2). This group of people is very important. As in next 20-30 years, they will be the corner stone of labor market and are the indicator of potential future of the country. Yet, they will have about 20% of illiteracy.
Vast illiterate with young age is actually an evil force of destabilization to the society:
they are often unemployed, but full of energy and easy to commit crime to contribute to the economy negatively. Unlike in an authoritarian country where people are relatively controlled, in a democratic country, it is worse as rampant media can easily mislead them into being extremists or other kinds of criminals. Moreover, Indias democracy is infamously rambunctious.
I wouldn't take quite such a view. In fact, I don't.
Without
any doubt, 100% literacy is an excellent thing. We only have to look at Kerala to see the impact on every single parameter or social index. But there is a scope for tolerance of less than perfect performance at this stage of the economy, when we are still dependent largely on agriculture, with some amount of extractive mining, an even lesser amount of manufacture, and a services sector perched on top.
A point that we have to remember is that India's is still very much a rain-fed agricultural system. Meaning that multiple crops throughout the year are not possible; instead one or two crops provide most of the output. At harvest time, there is a severe peak in the numbers of hands required. This means that in the old system, thousands of migrant labourers went to the granary districts, helped with the harvest, and went back with enough to tide over most or all of the remaining. Now, as agricultural progress increases inexorably, the peak harvest-time need for hands is becoming more and more local. In other words, there will be hands to spare as the improvement of agricultural technique continues.
A last point: this does not create a criminal lumpen-proletariat automatically. One must also bear in mind that the utilisation of people is different in different parts of India. In the south, for instance, there is a perpetual shortage of technicians and skilled workmen, with the Gulf rush showing no end and the cities within continuing to expand. The result is that workmen have been flooding in from all quarters to participate in the building boom.
There is a healthy and flourishing criminal sector, but this has less to do with the failure to achieve 100% literacy than has been suggested, more to do with the attraction of quick wealth and local prestige that is displayed blatantly every hour of the day.
In addition, India is notorious in lacking of fund for agricultural irrigation build and improvement. Food may be a problem to feed the vast mass. Bear in mind that malnutrition and hunger have dealt a devastating impact on Indias population today, rendering many of the people unable to contribute to the economy, but becoming the burden of the country.
This is a puzzling passage. The contents are so mistaken, so wrong.
There is a huge, worrying surplus of food. The Supreme Court has gone to the extent of censuring the government for allowing this to build up, and has asked that part of this should be given away to the poorest sections of the population.
Perhaps you are not aware that the problem in India is lack of a mechanism to distribute free food from the surpluses to the numbers who need them. There is a tremendous problem of hunger, which slows us down; you have been very accurate in that. Unfortunately, the reasons are purely organisational, not inherent; they can be fixed once someone in charge, the Prime Minister perhaps, puts his mind to it.
In contrast, from the same set of data, Chinese youth has 99% literacy and the country is moving cautiously towards a rational democracy with sound demographic base. In addition, Chinas manufacture is moving towards higher-end where brain capability such as knowledge and experiences are more important than physical capability. A living example is that Japan is a much-aged society than China, but with a much better economy.
Thus, it is wrong or not quite right to use demography to predict that Indias future economy will be better than Chinas.
Since I deal with Japan, or rather, was dealing actively with Japan till about two years ago, let me also point out to you that Japan has suffered a dramatic hollowing-out, and there was then a 15% to 20% shortage of engineers and trained technicians, which had already begun to affect the economy. Already many Japanese firms have transferred some significant part of their operations to other countries, where there is no such dramatic shortage of personnel.
To complete consideration of this point, Japan is unable to import labour, the way the Germans once invited Gaestarbiter, because of
cultural reasons. I would rather not dwell on the specifics of those.
Of course, that too is not incurable, but we are talking here of transient phenomena, of a transient situation which will be corrected in due course.
On the other hand, your prediction of China's economy moving towards the 'high-end', mainly in the direction of technological value addition, seems to be precise and accurate. This is inevitable; once the low-hanging fruit are gathered, China's economy will no doubt cope with her increasing onset of demographic stability by moving up-market. The day will come when China imports basic manufactured goods from other economies, perhaps India, typically labelled Chinese brand names, such as Lenovo or Huawei.
This, incidentally, in case CardSharp is listening somewhere, is also the reason why, in spite of China so very probably proving to be the dominant force in the world from 2050 onwards, if not earlier (my private guess is as early as 2025), there is likely to be interdependence, not counter-dependence, between your country and other large economies nearby. The China that we see today may actually represent the grand climax, and this may be the widest, most glorious extent it will reach in history.
However, it is unlikely to do so at the cost of other economies.
One last point, which I am unable to deal with: what exactly is a
rational democracy? Is there a corresponding
irrational democracy? Can we apply the adjective 'rational' in this context?
Regards,
Police retaliated by shooting and killing three farmers, Mr. Naik and farmers interviewed say. 
