India on the Security Council

Thomas Friedman writes in this article (registration required) on New York Times:

Sometimes I wish that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council could be chosen like the starting five for the N.B.A. All-Star team — with a vote by the fans. If so, I would certainly vote France off the Council and replace it with India. Then the perm-five would be Russia, China, India, Britain and the United States. That's more like it.

Why replace France with India? Because India is the world's biggest democracy, the world's largest Hindu nation and the world's second-largest Muslim nation, and, quite frankly, India is just so much more serious than France these days. France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it's become silly. India has grown out of that game. India may be ambivalent about war in Iraq, but it comes to its ambivalence honestly. Also, France can't see how the world has changed since the end of the cold war. India can.

Which Indian won't agree, I do. But then again, Is this sudden and unseen favoritism for India, just because of France's position on Iraq. On a related note, France backs India over Security Council seat. Interesting. I don't get politics and I never will.
Update: Times of India relates this story to the benefits India can reap because of US-Iraq conflict.