Funnily enough, after reading the first paragraph, it still sounds like a recent article even though it has been years. In fact, the country probably has taken two steps back under Manmohan Singh.

To a certain extent, even if the article was recent, it's not a surprise. Democracies are SLOW and India is still a social democracy trying to be a capitalistic democracy - so even slower.

Democracies move fast only during a crisis. Otherwise, they are inherently slow.

Even in the US, a majority of top issues have not changed much since the 90s. Politicians have been debating pretty much the same thing without much progress...