...India emerged as a great economic power...

Good to know, India is now getting recognised as Great Economic Power. Always On Ten top trends of 2003 places India at no. 3.

3. India emerged as a great economic power -- at last. Which country has the world's second biggest middle class? Not Germany. Not Japan. Not Russia. India.

Among its 1 billion consumers, anywhere from 150 million to 300 million are certifiably middle class and can afford a simple car or motorbike, electric appliances, perhaps a home. Of course, there is huge and desperate poverty, but India is rapidly growing and climbing out of slough.

For years after it gained independence from Britain in 1947, India was a massive pain to the United States, leaning to the left in politics and economics, throwing up trade barriers, severely limiting U.S. investment, and generally acting superior. Much of that has started to change, and India, while still socialist, is moving closer to the middle of the road. It also has been building a famously first-class education system, turning out tens of thousands of technological experts who work in the home country and throughout the world.

Now Indian workers are taking more and more jobs from America, and there could be some confrontations ahead, with U.S. labor demanding some form of protection.