03/06/2005 10:17:52 pm
The New India. At the very good presentation of Anna Kinberg Batras new book about India today, many interesting facts were mentioned. India?s Ambassador to Sweden, Deepa Gopalan Wadhwa, pointed out that India today is a net exporter of food. And it is a country of contrasts; nowhere else have so many people left poverty in recent years, and nowhere else are there so many still poor. But the point is that everyone is not poor any more and every day, the situation gets better. Half the population is 25 years of age or younger - a very important asset when the demographic situation in Europe and China worsens. Lasse Berg, who travelled around India in the 1960s and saw horrifying scenes, told his story. He did the same trip again a few years ago and had thought he would have seen roughly the same things. Not. "I was wrong and it was wonderful", he said. Even the poorest people now had brick houses instead of clay houses, they had clothes and the roads were now paved. Growth, following market-oriented reforms, is not just numbers and tables!