India’s economy, now with muscle

From the Christian Science Monitor:  India's economy, now with muscle

Long considered a dead end for manufacturing, India's economy is now headed to the factory floor.

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Boosted by the country's growing appetite for global goods, companies ranging from Honda to Hewlett-Packard are bringing new assembly lines to India. Manufacturing grew 11.3 percent in the first quarter of this fiscal year, spurring the country's highest first- quarter growth this decade: 8.9 percent.

The old problems persist, and India is nowhere near ready to displace China as the world's factory floor. But in a nation where 250 million people live on less than $1 a day, it offers a hope that high tech cannot: that India may begin to spread its newfound prosperity beyond a small, urban middle class.