It is vitally important both China and India make every effort to move their people toward a strong Middle Class.

India to kick off world's biggest election in remote northeast (click here)

(Reuters) - Indians start voting in the world's biggest ever election on Monday, with a Hindu nationalist opposition party that has promised economic rejuvenation and jobs tipped to emerge as the clear leader but likely to fall short of an absolute majority....

Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi given scent of outright victory by opinion polls on eve of India's general election (click here)

Jason Burke in Delhi
The Observer
Saturday, 5 April 2014
 
Two polls released hours before voting starts in India's general election show the Hindu nationalist opposition set for a huge victory with the ruling Congress party facing a debacle.

The two main contenders in the increasingly bitter battle to lead the world's biggest democracy intensified their campaigning – and their personal duel – before the first of 815 million eligible voters head to the polls on Monday.

One poll suggested that Narendra Modi, the controversial 63-year-old prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), might come close to an outright majority. A second said the BJP would miss a majority by about 30 seats in the powerful 545-seat lower house.

India has been ruled by coalition governments for decades and debate among analysts in Delhi now largely centres on the margin of the BJP victory, not on its likelihood. The polls showed support for Modi's rival, 43-year-old Rahul Gandhi, slipping. The ruling centre-left Congress party, which has ruled India for all but 13 years since it won independence from Britain in 1947, now appears to be facing its worst ever defeat....

Gandhi is interesting. He once stated the Pakistan ISI were recruiting relatives of riot victims. That would not surprise me. It is not uncommon in Muslim circles to have grieving relatives to avenge their family's death. Rahul doesn't like corruption and calls it out whenever he can. Sorry to hear he is having a difficult election.

...The Gandhi scion (click here) also took a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party's 'Indian Shinning' campaign, accusing the party of suppressing the voice of people and instead claiming that it was working for their development....

I am not accustomed to seeing such a young leader in India. 

Rahul Gandhi


Manveer Saini
TNN 
Apr 7, 2014, 05.36 AM IST
PANIPAT: Promising the next level of economic reforms (click here) for the downtrodden, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said that his party will strive to bring people from backward castes, who may be above the poverty line but still economically weaker, into the middle class. He said this will be done by generating employment and entrepreneurial opportunist.

Gandhi on Sunday also accused BJP and its allies of creating obstructions in respect of reservation for women and overall developmental issues. He termed BJP and Modi as anti-poor and anti-farmer. Addressing a public meeting in support of Congress candidate Arvind Sharma, Gandhi hit out at BJP and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, saying that BJP did not allow the Parliament to function and opposed the bill to provide 33% reservation for women...