2point6billion.com, in conjunction with the Indian Embassy and the Capital Club in Beijing organized last night an evening of Indian culture �with a twist� to a crowd of 150 guests including the Ambassadors of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, in addition to the Chinese Ambassador to India and many Indian and Chinese clients of Dezan Shira & Associates and other guests.�

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Ishira, who is originally from Yunnan Province in South-West China, has studied�classical Indian dance moves

Displays were given by the Yogi Yoga Centre in Beijing, a Chinese owned yoga centre, with some amazing contortions carried out by the Indian Yoga masters, by the dancer Ishira, who is originally from Yunnan by has studied Indian classical dance in India for many years, to the crack Indian fusion jazz-rock group Indian Ocean, who flew into Beijing specifically for the event following their successful sell out tour of Japan.

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Numbers:(”73%”,”88%”)

I recently came across a bit of information that surprised me. A world bank report states that prior to 1980, India had more power, roads and telecom than China.

“India�s infrastructure shortages hinder the growth of labor-intensive manufacturing industries that generate jobs for low and semi-skilled workers. While India had more power, roads, and telecom than China in 1980, China now has an enormous and growing advantage over India in infrastructure.” - says the world bank report.

In less than 30 years, China has superceeded India on all infrastructure fronts. In fact it has not only built roads, power supply and communication for the present demand, but has already invested heavily in infrastructure for the future.

It got me thinking…..where and how did India start slacking?

Infrastructure is today, the premier reason skeptical investors stay away from India, a blemish on our growth, Indians are not to proud of. As a result, India has vowed to invest $500 billion over the next few years and is actively seeking foreign investment to re-pave the highway to super growth.

The graph below shows the staggering rise of China’s infrastructure Vs India’s.

“Inclusive growth” is the hottest buzzword to have hit Indian shores of late. With a sizzling GDP growth of 9%, the Indian government is now trying to make sure India does not leave the bottom billion behind in its dash to emerge a global superpower.�

The India Development Policy Review 2006 titled “Inclusive Growth and Service Delivery: Building on India’s Success” focuses on two major challenges facing the country today: improving the delivery of core public services, and maintaining rapid growth while spreading the benefits of this growth more widely.

Core public services: It is essential for India�s rapidly growing economy to improve the delivery of core public services such as healthcare, education, power and water supply to all its citizens. This means empowering its people to demand better services through reforms that create more effective systems of public sector accountability. Options include decentralizing to local governments, producing regular and reliable information for citizens, undertaking internal reforms of public sector agencies, or creating public-private partnerships. But ultimately, implementation is everything.

Rapid and inclusive growth: Maintaining rapid growth will require more, and more effective, investments in infrastructure to create more jobs for low and semi-skilled workers.

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We�ve had a lot of emails about the 2point6billion event we held last week in Beijing and specifically the content about the new air, rail and road links that China and India are currently developing. Chris always uses powerpoints as prompts rather than as the full text for his speech, and he never pre-writes what he�s going to say anyway, he speaks off-the-cuff. However, what we can do is present some of the data for you in this thread, which includes parts of his debate.

Chris started off by going through a fair amount of China-India trade history, from ancient silk road routes, Roman times to WW2. Part of this was the point made that Chinese-Indian trade has been going on for centuries, and that the slow down over the past 60 years due to war and political problems is now coming to an end, and normality of trade between the two countries is in the ascendancy. To demonstrate this he provided copies of old trade routes.

�China to Rome

The Overland Silk Road, with it�s spurs into India � the Uttarapatha route across Northern India and West China, through Bactria and onto Constantinople, and the Dashinpatha Route, which connected from this and brought goods down to the Western ports of India, and then to Arabia and Africa, thus providing a steady stream of Chinese and Indian product through to the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago.

As part of this, samples of 1,500 year old Chinese silk were shown, from sites in North-Western Europe that traveled the Silk Road, in addition to ancient paintings showing Chinese, Indian Buddhist and Muslim traders riding on horseback together.

Old Sea Routes

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