India is on the move, with millions climbing into middle class status and a growing pool of super-rich billionaires. Yet it also has more poor, hungry and illiterate people than any other country in the world; access to safe water and sanitation remains a pipedream for most people and disease is endemic; power, transportation and communications infrastructure are risible; and life continues to be nasty, brutish and short for millions.
Welcome to the land of contrasts, where in the city that hosts the world's largest teeming slum (Dharavi, the setting for the hit movie "Slumdog Millionaire") a multi-billionaire industrialist is building the world's costliest, 27-story family mansion complete with three helipads and six levels of parking.
On May 14, results were announced from elections in four states and one territory. In four cases, incumbent governments were swept away, comprehensively in three and narrowly in one instance. There are two notable features about the results: