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India links: Corruption, state politics, Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, genetics and more

India links: Corruption, state politics, Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, genetics and more
Published 30 Aug 2013 

Danielle Rajendram is a Lowy Institute research associate. Her work focuses on Indian foreign and domestic policy, India-China relations and Asian security.

Things do look bad in New Delhi, but the capital is not the whole of India. Think of the country as a continent, like Europe. After all, it is made up of 28 states, the largest of which, Uttar Pradesh, has more than 200 million people. India has 34 officially recognized languages, and only 40 percent of Indians speak a dialect of its first language, Hindi. There is as much variation in the political and economic culture among India’s states as there is within Europe; Bihar and Gujarat are as different as Germany and Greece .



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