"You know a country has it good when the worst news to emerge in the last year is a warning that economic growth could slow — to 7 percent.
Such is the situation in India, which is enjoying a remarkable combination of good luck and fundamental strengths that include a popular prime minister in the form of recently elected Narendra Modi, a growing consumer market and its emerging market cohorts in Brazil, Russia and China (BRICs) faltering in a way that has unsettled investors around the globe.
India's successes have led to the country's becoming what political scientist and geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer recently referred to as "the last BRIC standing."
Not so for India, the world's largest democracy, which is home to more than a billion people and is currently a darling of investors.
"In contrast to other major developing countries, growth in India remained robust [last year], buoyed by strong investor sentiment and the positive effect on real incomes of the recent fall in oil prices," the World Bank said last week. Highlighting the country's relative outperformance to other BRIC economies, the organization cut its global growth estimates but forecast a 7.8 percent growth rate in India for 2016.
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