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Comment by juanmirocks | Hacker News Reader

From my very subjective experience, and my long trip around India in 2017, I can agree on all points raised by the Economist article.

The state of education is appalling. And yet at the same time, you see tons of those in the low 90% of the population checking out Facebook in their cheap phones with 4G connectivity.

Either way, my outlook for India is very positive. IMO They need only 1 or 2 more generations to truly rival or even surpass China.

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Too religious. China's great advantage is that they're all atheists.

Highly religious societies have a strong desire for tradition, and tradition is "women don't work and have no power, corruption is rampant, new things are bad (because they destroy the golden geese that keep the upper class rich and in power)". Pakistan and India are going nowhere soon.

A small subset of Indians will probably continue to prosper.

As an ex pakistani, I have always admired how much India has been able to overcome the odds and continues to prosper and charge forward. I think the gp has some merit in hoping that within a generation or two, India has a chance to overcome a number of these challenges. I do concur with your assessment of Pakistan however.

This is actually very sad. I had hoped the economic development would change society in Pakistan as much as it has changed it in India; perhaps that would finally end the enmity that exists b/w the countries. My Parents generation cared very much about Caste/Religion etc. while my friends and I are very much secular, and I imagine the next generation will be even more so.

China is one of the fastest growing countries for religion both in absolute numbers and in percentages. There are more people living in China who describe themselves as "evangelizing Christians" than there are in the USA, for example. This has been the case for around two decades now.

But percentage-wise they are the most atheist country in the world, right? That's at least what I thought off the top of my head

Actually, I thought it was Albania -- which was for a while the only "officially" atheist country in the world, but checking up on Wikipedia, once Islam was made legal again, it seems to be back to developing-nation levels of religious activity.

So, yes, you're right, it's China. At a rough pulling-numbers-out-of-a-hat, China will be back in sync with the rest of the world average (for levels of religious activity) somewhere around 2050, when it will be mostly Christian and Buddhist.

"The state of education is appalling."

"They need only 1 or 2 more generations to truly rival or even surpass China."

These two seem to be in contrast. Do you know what is being done to change education for most people that would radically improve outcomes within 1 generation or 2?

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