about Indian incompetence, I have a slightly different view. its not based on any notion of Indian patriotism (I am not even Indian, I am a Pakistani) but on the empirical observation that state failure is actually rather rare and success is coming to all sorts of previously totally incompetent countries provided they dont start a huge war or slip into civil war...in other words, the threshold for real disaster is much higher than the 24 hour news cycle implies. things change. I think India has a real chance of becoming a serious mid-level power (not a superpower) in 10 years or so, but its not a done deal. The joker in the pack is Pakistan. if Pakistan explodes and takes India down with it, end of story. But if Pakistan survives and has barely normal relations with India, then I dont think any of the other problems in India are insoluble. I cannot "prove" my view anymore than anyone else can "prove" theirs....in these matters, its always a guess based on a whole pyramid of other assumptions about human societies in general and this society in particular.
As William Burroughs put it, "in India, the man is always late"....