thank you. good to see you again, stephen. you just heard me talk about india s current place in the world, the most populous nation, a growing economy, a stable government. would you agree that india right now is in a good place? it s not in a bad place in overall terms. that is that it s a country, it has always been, i think, a country to be reckoned with on the world stage, but now it s number one in global population, it s number three in purchasing power parity terms in the overall gdp, number five in dollar terms. it s a country of some substance. it does have free and fair elections. every once in a while we sort of overturn state governments, so we haven t yet been able to overturn the central government. so it counts for a great deal on the world stage. and i must say that when you look at things like technology, it s done rather well for a so called developing country. it s got some very fine talents. we seem to have exported an awful lot of ceos around the world w
shashi tharoor, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. good to see you again, stephen. you just heard me talk about india s current place in the world, the most populous nation, a growing economy, a stable government. would you agree that india right now is in a good place? it s not in a bad place in overall terms. that is that it s a country, it has always been, i think, a country to be reckoned with on the world stage, but now it s number one in global population, it s number three in purchasing power parity terms in the overall gdp, number five in dollar terms. it s a country of some substance. it does have free and fair elections. every once in a while we sort of overturn state governments, so we haven t yet been able to overturn the central government. so it counts for a great deal on the world stage. and i must say that when you look at things like technology, it s done rather well for a so called developing country. it s got some very fine talents. we seem to have exported an
shashi tharoor, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. good to see you again, stephen. you just heard me talk about india s current place in the world, the most populous nation, a growing economy, a stable government. would you agree that india right now is in a good place? it s not in a bad place in overall terms. that is that it s a country, it has always been, i think, a country to be reckoned with on the world stage, but now it s number one in global population, it s number three in purchasing power parity terms in the overall gdp, numberfive in dollar terms. it s a country of some substance. it does have free and fair elections. every once in a while we sort of overturn state governments, so we haven t yet been able to overturn the central government. so it counts for a great deal on the world stage. and i must say that when you look at things like technology, it s done rather well for a so called developing country. it s got some very fine talents. we seem to have exported an
shashi tharoor, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. good to see you again, stephen. you just heard me talk about india s current place in the world, the most populous nation, a growing economy, a stable government. would you agree that india right now is in a good place? it s not in a bad place in overall terms. that is that it s a country, it has always been, i think, a country to be reckoned with on the world stage, but now it s number one in global population, it s number three in purchasing power parity terms in the overall gdp, number five in dollar terms. it s a country of some substance. it does have free and fair elections. every once in a while we sort of overturn state governments, so we haven t yet been able to overturn the central government. so it counts for a great deal on the world stage. and i must say that when you look at things like technology, it s done rather well for a so called developing country. it s got some very fine talents. we seem to have exported an
of the electoral machines have been rigged. i don t think we ve ever been able to produce any convincing proof of that. but i m thinking of the information and media landscape, as well. so the challenge is the election will be free and fair, but it won t necessarily have a level playing field because, as you rightly say, information, the ecosystem of the free press has been somewhat eroded through a combination of the media being cajoled and cudgelled into seeing things the way the ruling party wants. the other challenge is, as i said, what happens between elections, where we are seeing the autonomy of a number of institutions severely diluted, and we are also seeing an atmosphere of, to put it mildly, intimidation with the tax authorities, for example, running rampant against dissenting organisations or even dissenting newspapers. over the course of the last few years, i ve spoken to several indian journalists, brave journalists who are committed to independent investigative journalis