While I think this is indeed good news, I would add a note of caution: our relations with India since its independence have not been good, not least because India wants to punch way above its weight and expects to be treated accordingly. It is a country that combines contrasts of affluence/modernity with abject poverty and a viscous caste system unknown elsewhere; it is a democracy of sorts, but has consistently opposed the United States. Working with India is necessary, even good. Trusting India would be a serious mistake. Interestingly, one of my children just finished a study abroad program where the kids spent a month in India and a month in China (among other places). India did not come off well in the comparison.
I agree.
There are many rightwingers of sorts in India who endlessly wonder at the what-ifs. What if it was Patel not Nehru who had become India's first PM, for example. What is they'd aligned solidly with the US and not the USSR? What if Shastri had not died and Indira never had become PM? etc etc etc
Anyway, that was the XXth century. This is the XXIst.
India's time will come. sometime in the next half of this century or maybe the next century altogether. By then we'll all be safely dead. but would be good to know the grandkids inherit a relatively safer world than one where a totalatarian regime (China) or a totalatarian ideology (islam) dominate the planet.
As for the comparison between India and China, sure China looks and feels better. Germany looks and feels better than China does. A generation down the line, China's median population age will be 40+, Germany's will be 55+. The pension system will've collapsed in Germany, Japan and the other ageing economies or the muzlim immigrants will have taken over the asylum. It won't look or feel so nice then. My point being, play the game anticipating where the ball will be 10 seconds from now. Not where the ball is now. (Old ice hockey wisdom, though they don't call it 'ball' methinks).
Have a nice day.