A newborn baby in India is more than three times likely to die in its first year than one in China and nine times more likely than one in Taiwan. Indians are more than twice as poor as Chinese and seven times worse off than Taiwanese. India has been a democracy since independence in 1947. Its neighbors in Bangladesh and Pakistan have swung between democracy and dictatorship, and life for the very worst-off is about the same in all of them. Pakistanis are slightly poorer, with a $5,100 gross domestic product per capita against India’s $6,700, and Bangladeshis are way down at $3,900, more on a
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