If the dumbness of the #1 government on this list comes from extremely underachieving leadership, and the dumbness of #2 from the lack of appreciation of its proximity alongside two of the biggest economies in history, India’s dumbness comes from the history of its leaders.

 

If a nation can trace its lineage from five thousand years of civilization one would think that the accumulated knowledge of its population could solve its socio-economic problems. It doesn’t. 

 

Without western investments India is perhaps the greatest economic underachiever of present times.

 

The second biggest nation on the planet, in terms of population, is also the biggest democracy in the world today. Metaphorically and literally, a lot is expected from this nation and the numbers don’t speak for themselves.

 

An estimated two hundred million people – roughly a third of the population of the entire United States – are living below the poverty line. Its labor force is estimated to be half of its current population of one billion. Despite its seeming numerical superiority, India’s political and business leaders still expect western initiatives when it comes to innovation, invention and job creation.

 

So what does India do with all its human capital and potential? When an overpopulated nation see their fellowmen as a source of ultra cheap labor, and tens of millions of lives are a dime a dozen, it becomes the center of the universe for human trafficking, forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.

 

The Indian government is the proverbial party planners who have the authority over a huge number of people and they don’t know what to do with them, themselves or with each other. This is, without a doubt, the ultimate test for the Cambridge- and Oxford-educated Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. 

 

 

 

It’s like a “and then what?” moment where people look at each other in amazement and wonder. If that’s not enough, women and girls from neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh are illicitly brought into the country and similarly forced to become prostitutes.

 

Malnutrition among children is widespread, and according to the World Health Organization, almost a million Indians die each year from unsanitary conditions of water and polluted air. That's about twelve people every hour, every day.

 

Which begs the questions, what’s the point of having historical literature that dates back five thousand years, control of the world’s third largest armed forces, nuclear weapons, and a space program when your nation also has the highest concentration of poor people on the planet?