India in 1957 vs. India in 2026
India is ahead of China in several areas, many will dismiss these areas as niches rather than scale advantages though many amount to such. India since the 1960s built its atomic program around Thorium instead of Uranium. India possesses more Thorium than any other nation with estimates of one million tons being present in India. Thorium is a safer better atomic fuel than those based on Uranium. Thorium offers shorter half life for waste products and far less risk of overheating and meltdowns. India began with full ability to have complete self-sufficiency in Atomic technology once it possessed limited Uranium seeds. Indian Atomic Reactors once operational produce their own Thorium based atomic fuel. India’s advantage here is global and should be commended not played down.
India holds a definitive advantage in the IT field, a strong English base and talent pool is not matched by China, India is still the main recipient of outsourcing and software development globally. Trillions of dollars have been earned by Indian companies during the past 30 years in this field. This capital transfer to India was key in increasing tax revenues in India. For this reason and political leaning; India leads in open digital payment ecosystems, China does not compete with India in this field on an equal level. India also leads in the production of generic medicines. While many components are sourced from China, the over all production and scale of India’s industry is larger. India excels at being able to structurally analyze and create generic versions of even the most complex medicines in the world.
India has led the world in cost effective space programs, and results. Indian rocket technology along with its military use is globally remarkable and unmatched in cost. Sadly, India is yet to find an equivalent path for aviation, though this will change in the future. India while not the factory of the world, is indeed the office of the world. While many like to question India’s advantages, the fact remains that India is still the world’s fastest growing large economy, with the World Bank upping its projections for 2026 for India. India will be forced by changing global political dynamics to keep greater numbers of its work force and talent in India, creating a better path for increased manufacturing in India. India which is now the 4th largest economy in the world, is quickly poised to become the globe’s third largest economy. We can hardly call this a narrative of failure, as India has gone from a bankrupt starving nation 80 years ago to having one of the largest food reserves on the planet and over 700 billion dollars in foreign reserves. Sometimes we must look at where the story of modern India began to appreciate the sacrifice of Indians who both went abroad to advance their education, and to send money to their families in India during the early days of Independence, to the Indians who struggled in India to push India into the 20th century. India is a success story only second to that of China, in the past 15 years India has pulled more people out of dire poverty than any other nation, this fact should not be lost upon us. There was a time not long ago that my father left a dusty Palam Airport in 1957 to seek higher knowledge in the U.S. there was one runway, and a nation which could not even keep electricity running for runway lights in it’s capital city let alone for the public. If he were alive today, he would proudly commend the development of infrastructure in the nation he so much helped to educate. India chose to become a socialist leaning democracy in 1947, not a Communist state, Indians had the courage to stay on this path and reduce socialist outlook, as India regained dignity lost by hundreds of years of colonialism. India