India as an economic power

A lot has been said about where India stands as an economic power in the world and I'm guessing there are better people than me to opine on this. My curiosity was sparked by an article in the ET, which suggested that India had the fifth largest economy in the world at $2.6 trillion. On searching the web, turns out there are more places that suggest similar things. Its pretty staggering if you think about it, we are richer/more powerful than almost any country with 3 exceptions - the US, China, Japan. No more colonial mentality of thinking of western countries that are as big as some Indian states as 'rich countries'.

Except for one little hitch. Turns out that if you look at more reliable sources like the World Bank, we are about $590 billion in size and about 12th in world rankings. According to me, that's still great and wonderful. In these tsunami-ridden days, there is fresh fodder for thought, as probably for the first time in the history of India, we have refused all foreign aid. We are in fact offering some aid to smaller countries like Sri Lanka.

I'm not commenting on the merits of that decision but merely pointing out that as an Indian, I feel like the country finally has some kind of economic feet/grounding of its own based on which it can not only take care of its own but is capable of helping others. Pretty cool....