For two decades India has been talked up as an emerging economic giant along with China. But while developments over that time have been impressive, are they sustainable and are they helping all Indians? With an election approaching next year, the ruling Congress party is under pressure to show that it can both stimulate further growth and ensure the benefits are made available to the millions of rural poor, while the opposition BJP’s presumed prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is both feted as a model of progressive governance as Chief Minister of Gujarat, and blighted by his association with the 2002 massacre of thousands of Muslims in the state. Is India’s democracy - mired in ‘vote bank’ politics, but at least engaging the masses in state and national government in contrast to China - a help or a hindrance in driving development? And does the fallout from last year’s Delhi rape case indicate that deeper cultural problems have yet to be overcome? How different might India look after a century of independence?