Reasons to be upbeat about India's prospects

THIS summer marked the 70th anniversary of India's independence. Each passing decade has seemed to bring about more radical changes in the country's socio-economic landscape than the last, and, looking at the past 10 years, this could not have been clearer.

Total power generation has doubled, wind capacity has quadrupled and solar capacity has increased 10-fold in the last five years alone. In 2007, there was just one modern metro rail system in an Indian city; now there are seven, with eight more under construction.

The consumer experience has changed radically too. The number of Internet users has increased by a factor of 10 to 460 million, making India the second-largest web market globally. It is also Facebook's fastest-growing and second-biggest national community.