Economist Amartya Sen compares India to China, showing how India seriously lags China, and even poorer neighbor Bangladesh, in health, education and poverty. It's hard to see that other than democracy, and even then this is dubious, India has nothing over China. On the other hand, it's also a good example of why democracy is useless without other factors like economic growth, stability and low corruption.

Another revealing look into how microlending got out of hand in India. Still, the idea itself still seems sound, it looks more that some lenders got too greedy and their intentions were mainly self-enrichment and profit rather than helping the poor.
An interesting excerpt:

Overlending in Andhra Pradesh calls to mind the U.S. subprime crisis, says Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder, director of corporate risk at International Finance Corp. in Washington, which invests in microlenders. “Subprime lending was initially seen as extending homeownership to poorer people, doing good,” Shyam-Sunder says. As the industry expanded, making a profit became more important to some lenders, she says.

There's a storm brewing within India and it's been getting stronger in recent years. No, not Kashmir, but a rejuvenated Maoist Communist insurgency that has seen over 10,000 killed in the past 10 years and compelled the PM Manmohan Singh to send in 2009 "almost 100,000 new paramilitary troops and police to contain" the rebels. Read on in this Foreign Policy piece exploring this civil insurgency driven by socioeconomic inequality and resource-rich but poor areas. If nothing else, at least you'll learn of such a thing as a reporter carrying a gun, 90-year-old underground fires still burning on, and a provincial chief minister who allegedly stole US$1 billion from the state.

A perfect graphical representation of why India still lags significantly behind China, much less the developed world. This is a photo essay of child laborers working in the capital city New Delhi on construction sites. The city is undergoing a wave of construction for the Commonwealth Games in October and desperate contractors are using children to finish the sites on time. They work alongside their parents who are also laborers, but still a wretched and disturbing situation nevertheless.

One of India's worst faults with its democracy is that a lot of its elected parliamentary representatives are literally criminals. About a quarter, according to this article, about a bunch of activists trying to create a solution to this problem, through bringing about laws to promote transparency in choosing candidates to highlighting to the public information on these crooked MPs and

Following the supposed conclusion of the stunning attacks in India's premier city Mumbai, the Toronto Star has this interesting piece written by an Indian commentator. He mentions the large poverty and the significant lawlessness in Indian cities, of which Maximum City by Suketu Mehra touched on in Mumbai, and this underworld's alleged relations with Pakistan.
One important point he makes is how unprepared India was for this despite the amount of time and preparation involved in planning attacks of this order.
While India has captured a few of the attackers, one hopes that it doesn't lead to larger cross-border reparations, not that this is the first significant terrorist attack in India blamed on Pakistan.

This Newsweek article describes the inefficiency of india's PM Manmohan Singh's reign, much of which is not actually attributed to him personally but to party politics and general corruption and incompetence.

A look at India-China relations.

This Taiwan Journal article offers an interesting commentary on India-China relations, painting a not so rosy picture despite increased ties between the two. The article instead claims that on different issues like India's push for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, border and territorial negotiations and most importantly, a proposal by India for an "open and inclusive security architecture" in Asia, China has not responded warmly. The article also describes the alarming incursion by Chinese troops into Indian territory, such as this one.
One would think that if these two Asian heavyweights were ever to truly cooperate in any sort of vital issue, they could indeed wield some substantial influence on the world stage. Instead there's still lingering suspicions between the two despite growing trade.