India "On Cusp Of Huge Change" As World Looks Beyond China

In a multipolar world, India's embrace of a middle path has bolstered its image as a nation "with which everyone is interested in having a good relationship," said a former US ambassador to India.

India's economic transformation is kicking into high gear.

Global manufacturers are looking beyond China, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi stepping up to seize the moment. The government is spending nearly 20% of its budget this fiscal year on capital investments, the most in at least a decade.

PM Modi is closer than any predecessor to being able to claim that the nation - which may have just passed China as the world's most populous - is finally meeting its economic potential. To get there, he'll have to wrestle with the drawbacks of its exceptional scale: the remnants of the red tape and corruption that has slowed India's rise, and the stark inequality that defines the democracy of 1.4 billion people.

"India is on the cusp of huge change," said Nandan Nilekani, a founder of Infosys Ltd., one of the nation's largest technology services companies. India has quickly created capacity to support tens of thousands of startups, a few billion smartphones and data rates that rank among the lowest in the world, he said.