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I seriously want to have a insightful discussion about this.

What is China doing right with regards to governance and infrastructure development that India isnt? What are they doing wrong in this area? I know China is a Communist state, but their switch to a capitalist economy back in the 80s has worked out well for them. On the other hand, what is India doing right or wrong? Lately all i have been seeing is wrong, i.e infrastructure projects being delayed (other than the Delhi Metro), massive corruption, Maoists in 208 districts, other ultranationals, a "half-dead" police and security apparatus, etc, etc. It saddens me as a person of Indian origin that these things are happening and China is racing way ahead of us and is probably on track to become the world's next superpower. Now i know that everyone will chime in and say that India is the world's largest democracy. Its true, we are; but are we really using it to the fullest extent? Do we really deserve it? All i hear day in and day out is people complain about this and that, but no one is doing anything about it or trying to do something about it. I seriously think China see us as weak so thats why they can push us around with regards to Akasi Chin, Arunachal, etc.

The answer is present in your post itself. Earlier it was predicted that we will leave behind China and be ahead of China in almost every department.

China has learnt lessons from USA. During the 60's USA went for development of roads and infrastructure in general. Suddenly, USA came up, and it went very high. China did the same thing, developed infrastructure at a very very massive scale. They progressed then.

They have tried best to keep corruption to a low level, worked really hard. The mentality of its citizens is better than what we have here. The list of our problems is endless. What happened to Golden Quadrilateral ? We cant even complete this because of corruption, no doubt on this. And truly speaking, show me where we are good at.

Any place, any example we have issues. The road behind my house was planned 14-15 years ago. It is yet not built.

The low level of thinking and cheap mentality is the issue at root level for our country. This gives rise to corruption which is as omni present in our country at every level.

Show a single inch of land of USA as China territory. What are we doing ?

Its almost meaning less to speak more. I am speechless to admit what we are. One thing is for sure, we are ruining ourselves and one day, some small country like China will rule over us.

Just one hint to know what we are :
Roads indicate culture of the nation. Lets say like this : Road, road users and how people behave on road indicate culture of the nation.

every one of the above problems has only one main cause and its corruption.
from a pune till a guy who is sitting in the parliament house is corrupt.
all they think of is to make a fast buck.
Due to corruption among authorities people have become dishonest . 4/5 people in india have that "i dont care and i can get away with anything in india" attitude.
Discipline and education together is the Key . In states like kerala there are Bandhs often for useless reasons. This is nothing but exploitation of our democratic system.
If someone is booked for an offense there are loopholes in the system to Delay the punishment for a very long time.

I would say following are some of the reasons,

1. Judicial system - One of the worst judicial system with ample loopholes to get through or to postpone the justice forever.

2. Enforcement - No one in the parliament knows the meaning of enforcement. No rules or laws are being enforced in India, they are all just name sake. In 70's New york was a hell hole. The city administration took up the challenge to clear the filth, remove the graffitis and moreover to make sure the city does not become the same again. Any glass broken/new graffitis appearing on the streets or the trains were removed. When the broken windows and graffitis appeared again, the administraion kept removing them promptly. Due to the persistent efforts of the administration, over a period of years, the city conditions improved. Will this ever happen in India? Enforcement is an art in itself and cannot be done by just fining the law breakers.

3. Finishing - Indians start everything great and they have the tendency to talk more about the project than to complete the project. Eg- GQ project, India shining campaign was launched in 2004 in such a massive scale, but the GQ is still not complete. What is the use of building such great highways if people do not know how to drive on that?

4. Ill-planning - Any planning done, be a huge infrastructure project or building a small flyover, there is no fool proof planning. If proper planning is 100%, all we go is till 60% and lots of compromises (due to political pressures,etc) on that 60% leads to just 20-30% planning for a project. An ill conceived project never fulfils the requirement.

5. Accountability - If we do not deliver our task in time, we are brought to check in our offices, but no one is accountable in the whole country if a dam breaks/storm water drain fails/shortage in electricity/shortage in water supply,etc. The system has been designed in a way that no one can be made accountable for any failures.

6. Awareness - Government is not ready to increase awareness of the common man on any major issues. Even after holding rank 1 in the most fatal accidents in the world, no major steps have been made to educate the public on road manners and rules.

China is not the best in all the above parameters, but they are best in "Enforcement" and finishing. They can vacate 100 villages in a day to make way for a huge extravagant Industrial park, in India, we are not able to vacate even the illegal enroachments in the major cities. China who was behind India in the 70's was able to be on par with the western countries in just 30 years.Its just a matter of time before China flexes its muscle with India.

small country like what???

India is ruled by people, who choose their leaders. now the leaders ensure the people stay where they are, with no education, no thought process and dying over petty issues like ram mandir or marathi dominance.

to answer your question, it's the people that make a country (and government) and unfortunately we are very very backward where most of our population lies, i.e. in villages. We deserve this governance.

I agree with you on this and yes, China isnt the best in all the parameters. Freedom of the press is still curtailed over there as well as Internet access, and human rights are still violated, but China knows how to get things done. Its no wonder everyone is saying this century will be China's. China is already flexing its muscles with India, i.e Arunachal and the Dalai Llama.

Main problem in India is education and the attitude of people. No here takes a stand on anything! Its all "Chalta-Hai" for everything :Frustrati . Education, Education, Education needs to be the mantra. People need to change quickly. Corruption needs to be weeded out somehow. Someone or a group of somebodies needs to stand up against all this crap and change the course of India. How can India prosper if things continue like this? I know the villages are backward, but its time to guide these people into the modern world and make them understand that things will be better. Just take a look at this list: BBC News | WORLD | Corruption list . China, a communist country, is less corrupt then our India :(.

Partly agree with you. But I dont think we deserve this governance. Another problem is with educated mass. Off late they have stopped going for voting, basically they have lost hope that things will go up. The salaried middle class is one of them.

1) Within next decade or less, Arunachal will be gone. China literally entered once, did some damage and went back. After 10--15 days, Indian Army accepted this fact. China has built railway network too.

2) Again, education will not help. What we need is an education that is values first. Today we have marks first. Values like Honesty, Discipline and Hardwork need to induced into the education system from base. Just visit a University and those who have passed out school will tell you what our education is.

We lack in values and this results in bad attitude. Even at home kids dont see good attitude. Shortcut is considered to be best. If somebody doesn't work properly, do thing lazily at office, he can be proud of that and there are others who help in making him feel proud.

Smart work = unfair means in general terms. If one uses unfair means, he is called smart. This is attitude and its from educated mass.

Corruption is not going out anytime. Its only going to increase along with tax and cost of living. And who will stand against it ? Who has energy to fight problems that are now very deeply rooted ? First thing, nobody has attitude good enough to fight against corruption. Second thing, even if a group stand up, they will be crushed easily. We know now easily this is done. The youth of India, unfortunately, is again lacking moral values. Ground realities are very hard to digest as they are rough and bad for India as a nation.

Since you brought it up, may I know what you are doing about improving things in our country? I haven't made an assumption that you are not doing anything. I am just curious if you are or not. In case you are wondering, I am not really doing anything about things in our country. But I don't think it's fair to say that no one is doing anything to improve things. I am sure there are a large number of social workers etc. who are trying to do stuff and who have their heart in the right place. I think it is not right for people like me to point fingers at others for not doing anything, since most of them, like me, are just busy with their own lives. But I do reserve the right to criticize those who harm the society, for example those who indulge in corruption, discrimination etc.

About the other questions you raised in the OP, regarding what China is doing better than India, I have no clue. I am not well versed in Indian economics and politics, let alone Chinese. So, I will be following this thread with interest.

That said, I agree with some of the points touched upon in this thread. India is a democracy and we, as a nation, probably deserve our government. The most important ingredient to elect a better government is the education of all citizens. But it can be argued that the government itself is responsible for the very slow progress of India on the education front. Its all just a vicious circle.

PS: CaliAtenza, I know you are American and don't have the right to vote in India. So, you don't deserve Manmohan Singh and Co lol:

LOL. Thats because if you complain in China, you get arrested and thrown in jail without trial.

I'd rather drive down bad roads with my head held high, rather than drive on smooth roads with fear of big brother in my heart.

Reading posts above, I thought all have missed one major point. The bureaucratic hurdles in clearing projects or tenders in the Indian setup is a major reason for delays and overruns. The checks and balances put in the system for weeding out corruption and biased decisions has been used to delay projects and on the other hand have failed to weed out big time corruption. The greedy and crooked have just shifted the point of corruption to a different area outside the government decision making process using middlemen. To buttress my arguments, just would give you an example of the BSNL tendering for GSM Cellular equipment. For how long have you been reading this issue in papers, lingering for ever ?? Definitly there are extraneous forces which have used the bureaucratic and judicial process in the country to stall the whole thing to the detriment of the public sector organisation.

Well, the way the game is being shaped these days, we've started seeing Big Brother effect in our country as well. Perfect examples being MNS and company, who blatantly violate freedom guaranteed by the constitution, but they get away with it, time and time again. The sad thing is the general populace is also beginning to connect with such thoughts which explains why they grow with alarming pace.

Such narrow-minded thoughts will never enable one to think towards progress of the country, but only towards filling one's own coffers.

It's not about the roads. I am sure China has a thing or two to learn from India and other countries, but I think China is way ahead of India in other, more important issues like child malnutrition, education, healthcare, poverty etc. I don't have any statistics handy at the moment, but I will dig them up a little later.

Oh, and keeping safety aside for a moment, I'd rather drive in India than anywhere else stupid:

China :

1. Is a totalitarian state
2. Not a democracy, has no free press, no formalised human rights framework
3. More homogeneous ethnically ( Hans constitute the overwhelming majority of the population)
4. Understands the concept of hard power
5. Is determined to become the single leader of Asia
6. A single minded focus to grow economically as a national, with little consideration for development at the individual level
7. Has a long term plan to keep India down, with its close friend on our western borders
8. Has no intellectual leadership worth the name which can be recognised globally

India :
1. Is a noisy but working democracy
2. Is where its political class is out of sync with the aspirations and values of the approx. 100+ million strong emerging middle class ( most team bhpians belong here)
3. Is less homogeneous in matters of ethnicity/faith/language/customs
4. Is where the institutions of democracy - an independent judiciary, a vigourous executive, an independent election commission, independent law enforcement bodies and so on, have been deliberately undermined by the political class to serve narrow personal, caste, linguistic needs
5. Has humungous challenges to overcome w.r.t health, education, poverty, job creation and physical & social infrastructure
6. Is slowly realising the importance of engaging with the world to understand & solve its many problems ( we have always looked inward within India and have never been attentive to happenings outside which might impact us both positively and negatively)
7. Is surrounded by collapsing states
8. Is the victim of virulent hatred (of our culture/civilisation/political system) by our western neighbour, abetted & supported by its friends

If you consider the above points and factor in the rising middle class ( which is always the driver of socio-economic-political change) you will realise that although we have many seemingly intractable problems, we will solve them, over the long term.

To wit, we have been alert to the Maoist problem now, given wide publicity. Didn't we realise that in many parts of rural India, there was no infrastructure, no water, no jobs? Only exploitation by dodgy businessmen with support from lumpen political elements? Only bonded labourers? Why didn't we protest when Shankar Neogy was murdered by the henchmen of those businessmen against whom he had raised his voice and organised a protest against such exploitation? Because we were thinking only of our next car or perhaps bribing the RTO's agents for a licence?

The educated middle class has to think beyond its own affluence ( jobs, flats, education, cars, clubs) and start thinking about other more pressing issues.

No country can do well when a huge proportion of the population lives in poverty, filth and with no access to education, to health and to democratic institutions.

Regards

^and im not saying that india doesnt have all these problems. The thing is, what are we doing today to solve these things? Everyday the media, notwithstanding that most of the media outlets in this country are a joke, paints a worse picture. As an american i cant vote here, but if i could i would. the problem is, in the current scenario, there is no one worth voting for; everyone is just different shades of bad. Change has to start from the grassroots, the youth. The youth here need to get involved in the government and politics..the time has come. Why have we let petty things like caste and creed divide us? We should be united and working for the greater interest of the nation..and not listening to whatever idiotic thing that the MNS and people of their ilk say.

China is miles ahead of us in many aspects and the future too seems to be bright for them.

Infrastructure - China was way behind us in roads in the 80's , now they are near US...
Army - They were always superior than us in this anyway. Even now it applies..
Airforce - They were far superior before, even with low numbers we have closed the gap with superior technology. Still they have a slight advantage.
Navy - We were and are ahead of them as of now. They have massive plans to close us and overtake by 2015. Even then strategically they are not in a better position.
UnManned vehicles (Missiles, icbm etc) - China can attack any city in india, but India can't with its current capabilities... So they are far ahead.
Space research - They are far ahead of us... We will need another decade to go where they are now...China would be far ahead by then.

Even after all these advantages, in an eventual war, China is not is a good position... Why??
1) We are a democracy, western powers value democracy more than a communist government. So we will get good support internationally.All countries know that if they don't support India it will be costly later. Hitler taught the west about this through Poland.
2) They are sorrounded by Russia, India and Japan.. So geographically they are not in a good position. They are dependent for oil and these trade routes, else they will choke to death... (moving oil through pakistan will be a nightmare as it can easily be countered.)
3) All of China's cities are near costal areas. This pose a great threat to them as their Navy is weak.

All these considered, China cannot fight a prolonged war as they will be chocked until they are dependent on oil and trade... They know their limitations and will not do any mis-adventure in the near future.

In 1962 they attacked us because they knew US and Russia will not interfere (They were struck in Vietnam, punching each others noses in a cold war with their troops in korean uniforms!). Britan and Europe were more concerned about their own developments exploiting Africa after world war II and stayed away from any other conflicts. Now everything has changed and the last thing the western countries want is a communist expansion... In essence China will pose agressive and play mind games instead of a real attack.

All this will change after 2020 when the real power game of 21th century starts. This is when the worlds reliance on fossil fuel will become low. Since lithium battery manufacturing cost for heavy duty use is astronomical, the hybrid cars need Lanthanum batteries to store energy and neodymium magnets for car motors and other industrial applications (including ICBM, Rockets, Missiles e.t.c.). Over 90% of the worlds rare earth minerals is found in the China-Mongolia border, that is where the future lies in. Also China has inked exclusive deals with all the dictatorial governments in Africa for all common minerals by bribing the top heads of states in return for arms and ammunition to keep them in power.
Unless some alternative way of energy is found in the near future the whole world will be begging China for these minerals starting 2020 or 2025.
The future as of now does not look bright for all developed and developing countries except China.

India will need to play its cards right and push ahead with developments and reforms if it wants to have a say as a major world power.