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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Modernization means more money, and rising economic disparities, at least temporarily. India is a country with overcrowded cities, tens of thousand people living per sq. mile. The demographic pressure will only get stronger in the years to come with large number of peasants moving from their subsistence agriculture to better jobs and more economic options. On the other hand, the new wealth will inevitable, we hope only temporarily, be concentrated in the hands of few. More disposable incomes of few are already making real estate off reach for the vast majority. This leaves millions with no good prospects. For them national wealth will mean first and foremost personal misery. Ironically the next years, perhaps a full decade will be the most difficult for India in terms of modernization. It will have to pay the high social cost of it far before being able to reap the first national-wide harvest of prosperity. The situation for those who by tradition occupy the bottom of the social pyramid will get even worse. Their chances to get off the social trap will be minimal. Every new investment, especially in real estate, will only aggravate the situation. The irony is that these investments, in industrial, commercial, and residential properties, in long term are the only real opportunity for India to overcome its perennial economic backwardness.

Another very risky area is the fact that India is perhaps the only big Third World country experiencing long history of liberal democratic political institutions. Fast economic modernization in some way shrinks the popular support for democratic institutions. This was one of the reasons why Indian leadership after the independence didn't opt for fast economic progress, opting instead to provide measures appeasing the huge majority of population, the peasants. At no time so far India has taken forcefully the money it needs for modernization out of the peasants, the usual way of doing this in traditional but non-democratic societies. Introducing VAT tax is the first major step in this direction and mass protests in both cities and villages show the limits of this unprecedented state intervention into the ordinary people's pockets.

Every country allows economic progress to a certain point without major social backlash. Unlike many sugar-sweat predictions pouring about Indian economy and making big headlines in Western newspapers, our forecasts are much more cautious. India has a strong weapon in making its modernization more peaceful and predictable, and this is the established system of publicly supported institutions. These institutions however, by giving power to the mass of poor people, can produce backlash against modernization and against wave of new investments. The worst scenario will be to sacrifice these institutions in order to make the transition faster. In a large and poor country such as India such transition will take many decades. India should find its own magic formula how to do this without sacrificing its democratic political institutions. The example of China where uncertainty about democratization is the single most important danger ahead should not be repeated in India.

India country profile:

• Area: 3,287,590 sq km
• Climate: varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north
• Population: 1.095 billion (July 2006 est.)
• Population growth rate: 1.38% (2006 est.)
• Life expectancy at birth: 64.71 years
• Total fertility rate: 2.73 children born/woman (2006 est.)
• Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)
• Religions: Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi 2.5% (2001)
• Languages: English is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi spoken by 30% of the people; 14 other official languages.
• Literacy: 59.5%
• GDP per capita: purchasing power parity $3,400 (2005 est.)
• Population below poverty line: 22% (2006 est.)
• Labor force by occupation: agriculture 60%, services 23%, industry 17% (1999)
• Main trading partners: the U.S.A., China, and EU countries.
• Internet users: 160 million (2006 est.)

(Sources: CIA World Factbook 2006, Reuters)

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