From high technology to the creative arts, India is rapidly becoming a global player
Forget the India you knew for the last 50 years: It is gone. Contemplate instead a new, self-confident, resurgent nation, embracing its role as an emerging Asian superpower. From far-off Silicon Valley to home-base Bangalore, Indians are big in global software development. In tacky Tinseltown and London's effete Bloomsbury, Indian writers, film stars and directors are tops. India's core institutions, from an independent judiciary and a feisty free press to a massive, nuclear but always apolitical military, are anchored by roots more than half a century old. There is mounting support for India to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The country's scientists plan to launch a moon probe. Then there is the brightest jewel in India's crown: its firm adherence to democracy. Put all this together and the surprise is not that India is gatecrashing the elite superpower league, but that it has not happened earlier. Now in 2002, those who ignore India's rise do so at their own peril. |
