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You never know what is going to turn up at La Mama, but at the very least it will be interesting, and at the most it will be truly exciting. It is fascinating that right now in London a La Mama troupe is getting extremely respectful reviews in the West End. What hope would it have on Broadway?

CHINA and India are in a struggle for a top rung on the ladder of world power, but their approaches to the state and to power could not be more different.

In 1997, when India celebrated the 50^th anniversary of its independence, the world paid homage to its most populous democracy. Other countries had grown richer in those postcolonial years. Many had escaped the political and religious convulsions that had so often shaken the region. But almost alone in the non-Western world -- barring a short interruption in 1975, when Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency -- India had clung doggedly to its democratic convictions. A slew of books commemorated the achievement.