A dragon can fly. Can an elephant?

When looking at the map of India every time you look up you see China, this enormous dragon to the north, looking down at us from the heights of Tibet. And when you see China all you can think of is the phenomenal economic growth in the last few decades unleashed by Deng Xiaoping, when he adopted an aggressive form of capitalism in 1978 by disguising it as " Socialism With Chinese Characteristics ", in accordance with his perceived wisdom about colorblind cats catching mice. Comparison with China has so mesmerised our politicians that all they can think of is the rate of growth of the economy and engage in verbal duels about rates of 0.001% up or down. The Congress ' big bang reforms ' consisted of vast numbers of social schemes, in the belief that increasing the buying power of the poor will stimulate growth by increasing demand, which will increase production, investment and numbers of jobs. Unfortunately, all that did was to increase inflation, fiscal deficit and taxes to fill big holes in revenue collection. The present government has targeted infrastructure to lay the foundation of long term growth but the demands are huge. We need to increase job creation by 700% every year for the next 10 years, increase building of highways by 300% everyday, increase wheat productivity by 141% and rise by 84% in the list of the ease of doing business where India is languishing at number 142 at present. Come 2019 we will be lagging China by some margin even if our rate of growth becomes faster than that of China. GDP at current prices will be $15.5 trillion for China compared to $3.18 for India, per capita income will be $11,070 for China compared to $2,366 for India, national savings will be 48.8% of GDP for China compared to 30.58% for India, investment will be 45.84% of GDP for China compared to 33.13% for India and current account balance will be +2.95% of GDP for China compared to -2.55% for India. India will be ahead only in the rate of retail inflation at 6% compared to 3% for China. China's success was built on its ability to use its vast population to become the factory of the world with cheap labor but our laws are so restrictive and taxes so high that our population, of similar size, has 400 million people below the poverty line. When compared to countries with about the same level of GDP we can see how the excess population makes us so poor. We have 1.25 billion people with a GDP of $2 trillion giving us a per capita income of $1625 per year. Brazil's GDP is $2.24 trillion with a population of 202 million giving it a per capita income of $11,067, Russia - GDP $2.057 trillion, population 143 million, per capita income of $14,316 and Italy - GDP $2.129 trillion, population 60 million, per capita income of $35,511. The more you divide the less the amount. Class 2 maths, really.