The International Community has somehow forgotten that members-only progress can spur a deep sense of injustice. Economic growth of 8% sounds pretty good until you realize it means just an extra $40 for the average Indian. The changes that will improve the life chances of all -ending malnutrition and corruption, reforming infraestructure, education and health care- will take generations to achieve.

Arguably the best legacy the English left in India, the railway system keeps the country moving non-stop. There is a whole universe surrounding each station, and people waiting or sleeping in the stations are omnipresent around the clock. Chronic train delays keep Indians wondering how long it will be before India finally takes off. A woman waits for her train after she finds out it has been delayed for another hour. 

 Street scene, New Delhi

Cows are one of India's most impressive symbols, venerated throughout the country as holy. Although India presently has one of the world's highest concentrations of poverty, with an estimated 400 million Indians living below the poverty line, thousands of holy cows are fed daily while people starve among them.  Feeding both (cows and people) means good karma but somehow cows end up better off. Cows are not only a symbol of a dated tradition to some, but they are also a main source of dirt throughout the country.   

Despite national legislation prohibiting child labour, human-rights groups believe India currently has between 80 and 115 million child labourers - the highest rate in the world. Poorly enforced laws, poverty and lack of a social-security system are cited as major causes of the problem. But in many rural areas laws are never enforced and it is common to see children working in markets and elsewhere. 

The holy city of Varanasi constantly receives pilgrims from around India. They all come to bath in the Ganges, 'The Mother" according to Hinduism. Every day about 60,000 people go down to the Varanasi Ghats to take a holy dip along a 7km stretch of the river.

Family members play on their backyard. Rajasthan.

Street scene.

Each year millions of Indians are forced to migrate to the urban centers in search of work. For those who stay, livestock and agriculture are the main livelihoods. In these villages -and mainly everywhere-, the biggest threat to public health is inadequate access to clean drinking water. Rivers are affected by run-off, industrial pollution and sewage contamination. Indians depend on their rivers for cleaning themselves and their cattle, washing their clothes and offering puja to their gods.

Rituals that are believed to have been brought to India by Aryan migrants from Iran who settled in the north about 5000 years ago are still performed as part of Indian's daily routines or puja, literally offerings or prayers.  Those who decide to surrender all material possessions in pursuit of spirituality become holy men, or sadhus, and make pilgrimages to India's sacred places until they die. To westerners, sadhus remain as one of India's symbols of spirituality. 

A boy watches a daily rutine in the backstreets of the holy city of Varanasi: the dead being carried by family members to the main cremation centers by the Ganges. According to hindu religion, dying in Varanasi asures a place in Heaven. Thus, hundreds of thousands are brought from all over India to be cremated here.

Rising the living standards of India's poor has been high on the government's agenda since Independence. In a country where roughly one third of the population subsists on less than US$1 per day, and an estimated 61.000 people are millionaires, it is of no surprise why many impoverished Indians joke about what a great improvement it would be to be reincarnated as a rich man's pet. 

During George Bush's recent visit to India, he toured the southern city of Hyderabad to praise an example of everything that's right about the nation. Hyderabad is not only a hub for science and technology, but also an example of what's still wrong with India. In the last few years, thousands of impoverished farmers have committed suicide in the barren, drought-stricken land outside the metropolis.

Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western civilization. "That would be a good idea" he replied. So would an India in which economic development benefited all. Those who see a nation that has already arrived are suffering from a very Indian illusion.   

The major causes of poverty in India include illiteracy and a population growth rate that is substantially exceeding India's economic growth rate. Slums are often surrounded by rich neighborhoods and fast growing western-style shopping malls. To the dwellers of the city's slums, Mumbai's skyline reveals a foreign world they will never be able to reach. 

The International Community has somehow forgotten that members-only progress can spur a deep sense of injustice. Economic growth of 8% sounds pretty good until you realize it means just an extra $40 for the average Indian. The changes that will improve the life chances of all -ending malnutrition and corruption, reforming infraestructure, education and health care- will take generations to achieve.

The aftermath of the 26 December 2004 Tsunami showed the profound devastation a natural disaster can cause, but it also showed the dignity with which many survivors faced their blurry future. A girl stands cheerful in front of her partly destroyed house a year after the tsunami, in the coastal town of Kanyakumari (the southernmost point in India where at least 62 people died). 

Although the caste system has weakened throughout the years, it still wields considerable power. Caste is the basic social structure of Hindu society. Beneath the four main castes are the Dalits, or Untouchables, who hold menial jobs such as sweepers and latrine cleaners. In this image a Dalit smokes a cigarette while heading to work at the bus station where he cleans the toilets for 55 rupees per day (roughly one Euro).

Along with religion, family is at the core of Indian society. Although most Hindu marriages are arranged -it has been traditionally done this way since ancient times-, western modernization has introduced popular ways of finding a partner in india: the Internet (through matchmaking websites catering to a combined total of roughly 30 million Indians) and the Sunday newspaper. Of the 1900 matrimonial advertisements appearing in a leading Indian newspaper on just one day in August 2005, only 225 declared caste no barrier. This woman's father does not allow her to have a boyfriend so she has to see him secretly in the park. 

Market scene near Sai Baba's Ashram in Putaparthi

In the evening birds come to the park to be fed by beggars who throw bones with meat to the sky for them to catch. Parks have become the only place for vagrants to try to escape the harsh life they cannot get away from. Many of them have migrated from their villages to the urban centers in search of a better life but have found themselves begging in order to survive. 

A tribal man awaits for the bus to take him back to his village in Jaisalmer's surrounding desert.

Street scene.

The 26 December 2004 Tsunami, which battered coastal parts of eastern and southern India as well as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,  left 10,776 dead with 5640 still missing. Not long after the tsunami struck, the Indian government came under fire for not only failing to act swiftly enough to assist tsunami victims, but for also initially shunning offers of foreign aid. It later agreed to international assistance. The aftermath showed the profound devastation a natural disaster can cause, but it also showed the dignity with which many survivors faced their blurry future. Many Indian fishing villages were severely damaged but residents managed to remain hopeful. Cementery in Kanyakumari where the Tsunami victims were buried.