If China wants to build a new six-lane expressway, it can bulldoze its way past any number of villages in its path; in India, if you want to widen a two-lane road, you could be tied up in court for a dozen years over compensation entitlements.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the differences in decision-making and infrastructure development between China and India.
Shashi Tharoor contrasts the efficiency of infrastructure development in China with the lengthy and often problematic legal processes in India. He suggests that while China can rapidly implement changes and progress by bypassing obstacles, India faces a more complex and bureaucratic approach which can severely delay essential developments, reflecting broader differences in governance and societal structures between the two countries.
In practice
In a discussion about infrastructure development in India, this quote can exemplify the challenges faced in comparison to other countries.
Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America.
The roots of India's soft power run deep. India's is a civilization that, over millennia, has offered refuge and, more importantly, religious and cultural freedom, to Jews, Parsis, several varieties of Christians, and Muslims.
Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people.
I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.
I returned to India because I believe in an India of honesty and hard work, not of corruption and crookedness. I believe in an India of openness and straightforwardness, not of hypocrisy and double-dealing. I believe in an India where opportunities are available to all, and not just to a chosen few.
The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.
If women would today would rise en masse and demand their emancipation, the men would be compelled to grant it.
To preserve the human race, it is now necessary to reorganize society. To this end, an Authority must be created with the power to control human population, to redistribute food, to purify air, water, soil, to re-pattern the cities.
When we, as a nation, put our minds to something, when we truly choose to care about something, change always happens.
We are building a country where a person's prospects are determined by their own initiative and hard work and not by the color of their skin, place of birth, gender, language, or income of their parents.
Every great movement in the world starts with a tiny group of people who simply refuse to accept a situation.
We have to overcome the practice of male domination - even though it's changing, and changing in Liberia quite drastically.
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