From Publishers Weekly
Bahl, founder and managing director of India's largest TV news network, compares the superpower prospects of India and China in this meticulously researched but unevenly written study. Contrasting their foreign and domestic policies, cultures, and geographies, Bahl measures their potential for economic growth. Though China doubles its economy every eight years and "spends billion every day to develop world class infrastructure," India has its own advantages: it is the world's largest democracy, 350 million of its people speak English, half its population is under 25, and it boasts a "robust judicial system." Furthermore, India impressed the world with its resilience to the global economic crisis, rebounding with modest inflation, while China experienced deflation and a huge debt. But Bahl warns that India's dithering government could obstruct its potential, lamenting its failure to improve India's crumbling infrastructure while China's "democratic dictatorship" could stymie growth by discouraging innovation. Though the book offers valuable insights into the motivations of the world's two most populous countries, it could have been more tightly edited to eliminate repetition, clichés, and some awkward--occasionally bombastic--phrasing ("India's macroeconomics was beginning to allure"). (Nov.) (c)
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While his book’s title is posed as a question, Bahl, who credits himself with helping to bring such American media brands as CNBC, CNN, MTV, and Forbes into India, is clearly arguing India’s case as a superpower counterpart to its “non-identical twin,” China. Bahl openly admires China’s white-hot pace of development and its seemingly unlimited financial reserves, but he points to India’s resilient democratic institutions, its relatively young population (median age: 25.3), and its fiscal prudence in resisting the economic forces that ultimately devastated so many of the world’s economies in September 2008. Bahl’s cheerleading for India can wear thin, and he does not address such mitigating issues as India’s conflict with Pakistan and the possible environmental damage of a more developed India. Still, his book will clear up a lot of misperceptions about the nature of his country’s socioeconomic path. --Alan Moores
Review
"A unique and gripping account of the evolving geopolitics and the role of India and China in a transformational shift."
-Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India
"Raghav Bahl's colorful, engaging book does his reader two invaluable services: It moves well beyond conventional wisdom to provide an insider's view of India's political complexities and reveals just how different China and India truly are."
-Ian Bremmer, president, Eurasia Group, and author of The End of the Free Market
"With great flair and a keen editor's eye, Raghav Bahl tackles the first great question of the twenty-first century-who will lose the race to become the world's next superpower?"
-David M. Smick, author of The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy
About the Author
Raghav Bahl is the founder, controlling shareholder and managing director of Network 18, India's largest television news and business network. It broadcasts content from CNN and CNBC and also publishes Forbes India. Bahl has negotiated joint ventures with U.S. media giants such as NBC Universal, Viacom, Time Warner and Forbes. In just seventeen years since its creation, Network 18 has grown its market capitalization to more than $750 million.
Among his many honors, Bahl was hailed as a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum and selected by Ernst & Young as Entrepreneur of the Year for Business Transformation in 2007.
