"This good be a never ending discussion, governance is everything, is governance a court system what can take up 10 to 20 years before sentence? The appalling position of woman in India society? The caste system? The unbelievable poverty? The mothers having a baby in the street? Kitchen 'accidents' in case you give birth two times to a girl?

"The patchwork of roads build some states have other priorities, drive from Jaipur to Delhi, and on the moment you cross the state border from Delhi you will find a 'proper' motorway before that you have to fight with what ever moves for a space on the road!

"Good management would be my mantra, I am not blind for the abuses by local governments in China, or the corruption and lack of political freedom or the Airport (Dali) with 5 flights a day but the size what would make the airport of Birmingham jealous.

"I agree that the infrastructure in India is 20 years or more behind China, but I can not believe on what I have seen that it will take India 20 years to have the infrastructure of China now, my guess is double it, at least if you are optimistic.

"One of the biggest problems in India is the corruption of the governments, specially the local, secondly nobody gives a dam about it, nobody cares about the poverty or the position of woman in India except the foreigner (if not being blinded by the 'mystic and spiritual of India').

"In China, sometimes a corrupt government worker gets arrested and shot as a kind of example, China to my understanding has the highest execution rate in the world (I personally am against the death penalty full stop) and yes there are many issues, but the poverty in China in the big towns or in the countryside where normally not a foreigner would show up is nothing compared with India. (I have been only in North India)

"Fly to Kolkata (Calcutta) look at the airport, look out of the window from your taxi to the Oberoi Grand hotel don't take a room with a street view (you will see families sleeping on the pavement) walk out of the hotel left right straight forward your choice and have a look at who lives on the pavements, have a walk along the river admire the flower market walk through the slum and see what life is for god knows how many people, I have been in South Africa, Egypt, Sri Lanka Cambodia, Laos to mention poverty stricken countries, but nothing compares with India and I have never encountered somewhere else the kind of total lack of interest from Indian people in the suffering of there own country man.

"Comparing China with India? They are by far two total different worlds.

"This email is gone a bit too far maybe, I obviously have not recovered from the shock of 5 weeks travelling in India 9 months ago

"Eoin I going to pull some weeds in the garden..! I know live is tough!!

Eoin Treacy's view Thank you for this trip report and I hope you are enjoying the sun in the south of Spain. I share your abhorrence at the treatment of women in many parts of India. I agree that China and India are completely different markets which share remarkably large populations.

I would also like to point out that the preference for boys is not limited to India. Forced terminations are still a feature of Chinese life, particularly in rural areas when it is a second child. Additionally, in my experience, some people seem to have no compunction with talking about how many terminations they have had before having a boy. As the father of two girls I find this particularly troubling. A family such as ours is seen by some in China as something of an oddity because we have two children and they are both girls.

Corruption, poverty, a void between rich and poor, a lack of adequate electricity, sewers, clean water, roads, railways, airports, education and healthcare are all hurdles that India and a large number of other markets need to overcome. For India, this is likely to take decades but the country is coming from a low base so small improvements can have a beneficial effect.

You are not the first subscriber to have returned from a trip to India with a jaundiced view of the country's prospects. While I share you moral outrage at the majority's abject poverty and the second class status of most women, the trajectory of development, while slow, is positive and because it is coming from such a low level has enormous upside potential over the long term. Given the continued pace of economic growth it is not unreasonable to expect hundreds of millions of Indians to be lifted out of poverty over the coming decades.