Terming India a country of 'extreme paradoxes' with 48 'dollar billionaires' on the one hand and 260 million below poverty line people on the other, former top UN official Shashi Tharoor has said a great distance still remains to be covered before the country's emerging status as superpower percolates down to all levels.
While India boasts of its nuclear strength, 600 million people are still living in darkness, 150 million do not have access to health clinics and farmers' suicides make it to the pages of newspapers now and then, Tharoor said at a 'Face To Face' programme organised by Bengal Initiative, a conclave of front-runners in different fields of the state, on Sunday night.
On the cellphone revolution in the country, the former UN Under Secretary General said it signified the emblematic transformation of the lumbering Indian elephant to