A Tale of Two Indias The New York Times Upfront January 10, 2011

This article is about how India is rapidly improving to become a world power. India used to be a extremely poor country, especially because of socialist government. This type of government prevented the country from healing and fighting poverty. Now that India has stopped their socialist government, they are rapidly industrializing and becoming powerful. India has 1.2 billion people, with a literacy rate of 61%. 670 million people use cell phones and 81 million people use internet. This is extremely impressive since only ten years ago, almost nobody had a cell phone. However, India is going through something similar to the U.S.s Gilded Age. That means that India has rich people and a booming economy, while other areas, where people are pulling in only $1.25 a day. India is getting stronger by each day and will prove to be a great challenge to the U.S. My opinion of this article was that the author described the current situation very specifically and in depth. As I read this article, I was very surprised. I had always thought that India was a very powerful country, almost as strong as America. Now that I read this, I realize that there are still people in India who are suffering from poverty. I think that India is growing, but not growing fast enough since more and more people are moving into cities to let their children have a better education and to have better lives and jobs.