WION: Why is India poised to become the next superpower?

[GS Zhou]

Huge infrastructure, in fact India has bigger road network than China

Really? I highly doubt it. I believe any one who travelled in both China and India won't believe this. It more likely to be caused by different definitions on "road", between the two countries.

 

[Dungeness]

@Bilal9 I watched the video, and I believe BJP scripted the video. It's nothing more than usual "blame British and blame congress". Nothing new, and nothing illuminating. If it is how Indians view the reason why they are where they are, India basically has no hope to be what Indians were inspired to be.

 

[rott]

I'll just leave this here:

I think it's truly a bigger puzzle why India is that poor despite having almost everything under the sky:

1. Huge territory​
2. Huge workforce​
3. Huge natural resources (India has more oil than China, and way more coke, and iron)​
4. Education system pumping out more engineers every year than even China. In fact, urban Indians are quite comparably educated to more educated cities in China​
5. Huge infrastructure, in fact India has bigger road network than China​
6. Internet penetration bigger, and for longer time than in China​
7. Financial system largely more healthier than China, as India been letting its banks fail for much longer time​
8. Indian bourses were open for much longer than our, and investment culture is way more mature​

Yet, despite all that, India is still dirt poor.

I am now starting to doubt if you're actually Chinese.

 

[rott]

I don't want to hurt you but all advantages India over China in the list are fake

Please hurt him.

 

[Paul2]

Can you prove points 3,4,6,7 and clarify point 5, as to what types of roads are counted (i.e. paved concrete or asphalt highway vs dirt paths for animals)?

In US and UK legal doctrine, there is the doctrine of falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus. If you are factually lying even once, it means every one of your claims is suspect.

Claim 3: India has more oil. Factual lie for reserves, factual lie for production.
Claim 4: India produces more engineers. Factual lie yet again.
Claim 5: India has longer road network. Technically true if you consider unpaved dirt paths, absolutely false if you consider only improved paved roads.
Claim 6: India has higher internet penetration. Factual lie yet again since 2015.
Claim 7: India has financial system seen as healthier. Factual lie yet again, China has A+ bond rating while India has BBB-.

Claim 3, well that's an obvious facepalm on my side. I always had an impression that India has oil. As for coke, I missed by a quarter. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264774/top-countries-based-on-hard-coal-reserves/
Claim 4: I will challenge calling 2-3 year college grads engineers. But there is no question that 2 countries are ahead of the rest of the world by huge margin.
Claim 5: India has 150000 km of national highways, roughly equivalent of G roads. Well comparable to China. Provincial expressways classification is trickier, I admit. But without any doubt, India is not road infrastructure starved.
Claim 6: By a margin of 8%.
Claim 7: I will thrice doubt credit ratings of top Chinese companies. Evergrande famously had triple A ratings in 2015.

I will add another advantage for India — enormous amount of arable land, with a lot of it requiring minimal, or no irrigation.

With all this, China, and India are rather close when it comes to basics, but, when it comes to economics, India is a giant failure, and the fivefold GPD per capita difference can't be explained by any humanly imaginable handicap attributable to nature, like geography, or lack of basic factors.

 

[Bilal9]

@Bilal9 I watched the video, and I believe BJP scripted the video. It's nothing more than usual "blame British and blame congress". Nothing new, and nothing illuminating. If it is how Indians view the reason why they are where they are, India basically has no hope to be what Indians were inspired to be.

Indian BJP/RSS spineless folks' whole reason for existence is "oh we were so rich and the Brits took everything".

They should focus on their historical spinelessness itself (and the fact that they were ruled over in India for millennia) rather than blaming the Brits (or the Mughals for that matter).

I am sorry - I don't agree with @Paul2 's claims...I will leave it at that and have others argue why....

And why are we even comparing Indian and China's infra especially road infra ??

This is laughable and they don't even compare.

Here are glimpses of China's road infra:

Beijing - Kunming expressway

Here is a section of the Indian Golden Quadrilateral, most of it is basic 4 lane freeway. Only now they are building a six lane freeway from Delhi to Mumbai. India does not spend money on its infra like China does. Here is the NH-16 (Kolkata–Chennai ) section of India's Golden Quadrilateral a VisakhaPatnam.

Indians should compare their road infra to that of Bangladesh (see below)....and cope somehow...Pakistan BTW has far better road infra than India.