NEW DELHI and LONDON -- The image of India that too many people still have in their minds is one of teeming millions, timeless customs, monstrous poverty and a giant, sluggish economy.
That picture needs to be severely modified. Of course, the poverty and the overpopulation remain, as do some of the tragic and hideous consequences, such as the recent huge death toll from the appalling floods in the state of Orissa.
But alongside the old, a new India has arisen with amazing speed, so new and rising so rapidly that even local opinion, and certainly local officialdom, seem hardly to have caught up with what is happening in their midst.