
In the Newsweek, on the election results:
One can date precisely China's debut as a great power. It was the evening of Aug. 8, 2008—the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics... We might look back a few years from now and date India's coming-out party to May 18, 2009, the day its most recent election results were announced. They are also a fitting symbol—in this case of India's unique strengths, which are defined not by state power but people power, with all the messiness and chaos that implies. With 420 million people voting, the recent polls were the biggest exercise of democracy in history.
The date seems to be a typo (the results came out on May 16), but Zakaria is quite right about the broad point: "The Indian electorate is one of the world's poorest and least educated, and yet it voted with remarkable intelligence*".
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*Mr Advani's close aide seems to agree, albeit for different reasons.