A new study released at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland claims that India now has the worst air pollution in the world, besting traditional crazybad air champion China, as well as Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. more ›

India has summoned China's deputy chief of mission in New Delhi to lodge its protest over the courtroom manhandling of a diabetic Indian diplomat S Balachandran in Yiwu which resulted in his fainting more ›

India is set to lodge a formal protest with China over the ill-treatment of one of its Shanghai-based diplomats in Yiwu more ›

Chinese manufacturers are increasingly "faking" popular Indian products of consumer goods giants such as Dabur and ITC, undermining the legitimacy of brands and causing losses worth as much as $5 billion annually, officials said. more ›

The office of the Karmapa Lama has issued an official statement in response to charges by the Indian police that he was taking foreign money and acting as a spy for China: more ›

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Xinhua News Agency columnist Li Hongmei has done it again with yet another eye-popping commentary, entitled "India's undue worry about China results from inferiority complex". Here are a few gems from the article: more ›

"India and China must work 'hand-in-hand to ensure that the 21st century belongs to Asia.'" more ›

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"India must borrow Confucius for a century; China needs to steal the Buddha all over again." more ›

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Dozens of Tibetan activists attempted to enter the Chinese embassy in New Delhi on Sunday but were stopped and taken away by Indian police. more ›

In the heavyweight bout between Asia's two foremost superpowers, China has beaten India via unaminous decision-it tops India in every category related to nation development. The chart below compares the two nation's levels of development in humiliating fashion, beating a dead Indian horse by showing how many years have elapsed since China passed India's developmental milestones. Most noteworthy among the statistics is the fact that it's been 9 years since China passed India's most recently measured income per head, which is about $3,200. China might even win this one by knockout. more ›

The suggestion has often been made that China is growing a lot faster than India because the Chinese government can often bulldoze its policies through while India, the world's largest democracy, is bogged down by its political system. This view is too simplistic, says Huang Yasheng, professor in international management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. In this TED talk, Huang argues that there is an economic case to be made for democracy, and that if China doesn't hasten its pace of political reform, it is going to face some substantial challenges. more ›

Swiss private banking group Julius Baer has released its first Asia Wealth Report, an analysis of the High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) landscape in ten leading economies in the Asia-Pacific region. more ›

An unidentified Chinese warship demanded that the Indian amphibious assault vessel INS Airavat identify itself and explain what it was doing in the South China Sea, after the ship left Vietnamese waters in late July. An Indian official has defended his country's right to transit through the international waters of the South China Sea, stating that questioning the right of passage by any other nation is "unacceptable." While the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the INS Airavat docked in Vietnam from July 19th to the 22nd, they claim to have no knowledge of the incident. Though the incident is the first ever reported confrontation between the two navies in the South China Sea, it's merely the latest case of Chinese vessels harassing foreign ships this year. Reports surfaced in May of a Chinese fishing boat cutting the cables of a Vietnamese survey ship, leading to a series of protests that continued well into August. If we were one of the fenqing, we'd be all like, "Guess India and Vietnam didn't get that memo about the waters being called the South China Sea, and not the Eastern Vietnamese Sea (or Far Eastern Satellite Indian Ocean)?" more ›

Former beauty queen, Alaska governor and Republican VP hopeful Sarah Palin is now on her maiden voyage to India, where she can see Tibet from her hotel room in New Delhi. more ›

While President Hu Jintao may be the captain of the world's second largest economy, he pays himself a very modest salary of approximately US$10,633 per annum. That's a tiny fraction of the US$184,000 that Ma Ying-Jeou, the President of Taiwan, and the US$530,000 that Donald Tsang, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, take home each year. more ›

Yesterday the Chinese government officially denied that the Karmapa Lama, currently in exile in India, is a Chinese spy. The Karmapa (the third most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism) has been embroiled in controversy this past week after about $1.5 million in foreign currencies were found in his monastery in Dharamsala last Friday. Chinese yuan was among the cash found and subsequently sparked speculation that the Karmapa might be an agent for the Chinese government. more ›

Economists have long said that India's economy will some day grow faster than China's. Will 2012 be that turning point? This year, the World Bank expects China's economy to slow down to 8.7% from 10% last year as the government seeks to unwind fiscal stimulus, place restrictions on overheating sectors and tighten monetary policy. more ›

India Real Time reviews 5 restaurants where you can do just that, but you'll have to fly your way to New Delhi to sample the new hybrid cuisine. Classic hallmarks of "Chindian", writes Margherita Stancati, are the use of paneer (a type of cottage cheese used as a meat subsitute in India), "Manchurian", a generic gravy that can accompany "anything", as well as cauliflower, coriander and cumin. Mmmmm.... more ›

Despite a theme touting "Living in harmony through the ages", the India Pavilion so far has been less than peaceful. First, a debacle with some politically sensitive maps and now, in a dispute over salary, Chinese workers are maliciously taking out their anger by....turning off the lights. more ›

Ever felt you weren't getting the "authentic" yoga experience? Fear no longer: following the popularity of Indian dancing and yoga featured at the Indian pavilion, Indian officials announced that they will be setting up a new yoga institute in Shanghai. The institute will be used to train professional, India-sanctioned yoga teachers. more ›

China and India, never quite besties, are now at odds with each other over a whole host of issues. It seems that as the world's two most populated countries continue to gain economic and political influence, their relationship with each other has become increasingly strained. But who'd have expected the conflict to actually hit the Expo in Shanghai? more ›

Despite having roughly similar amounts of people in roughly the same area of the world, China and India have developed very, very differently. One difference: how quickly they urbanized. While China's urban population jumped 41% a year from 1950 to 2005, India is "still waking up to its urban realities and opportunities," says McKinsey Quarterly. more ›

Why should anyone have to cough up RMB160 per ticket to visit the Expo when Shanghaiist is here to show you everything that's going on inside, minus the queues? more ›

There is often a time and a place for toilet humour, but in China, it appears that there is nothing funny to be found in the lavatory department. Doug Lanksy of the Huffington Post reports that China has topped the "World's Worst Toilet" survey. more ›

• In one of the most hilarious pieces of news to hit the weekend, customs officials in Los Angeles stopped a shipment from China that was listed as Christmas ornaments but turned out to be... $2.6 million worth of bongs and pipes. Somebody hit that, man. [LA Times]
• Daniel Gross waxes on about how companies in China have decided to solve their lack of export demand problem by *gasp* selling to the Chinese. [Slate]
• Ooooh, the U.S. and China are getting cozier and guess what? India's getting J.E.A.L.O.U.S. [Financial Times]

On Wednesday we told you about how the recent comments of Singapore's elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew made during his latest trip to the US have caused an uproar among Chinese netizens. Aside from his more controversial statements that Asia needs the United States to counterbalance a rising China and that the US needs to be "an important part" of any new East Asian architecture, Lee also gave a wide-ranging interview to the Charlie Rose Show of the PBS network. China featured heavily in the 60 minute interview which kicked off with Lee's proclamation that the United States may have half a century left as the world's dominant power. In the new world order, said Lee, the US would have to make space for China and India at the top table of the world. For the next hour or so, sit back with us and gaze into Lee Kuan Yew's crystal ball as he looks back into the past and divines the future. As always, if you're in China and still not able to watch Youtube videos, now is the time to get your VPN. Meanwhile, a full transcript of this interview is available here. more ›

• China's rivers of cash flowing wrong way [Sydney Morning Herald] "On Thursday, the National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Li Xiaochao had been comfortably batting away curly questions from the international media about what lay beneath China's spectacular headline GDP growth of 8.9 per cent through the year. But one question from Shanghai's Oriental Post tied him hopelessly in knots: "What is the amount and growth rate of consumption expenditure for government administration, compared with last year?" The journalist was asking how much of China's spectacular retail sales growth - 17 per cent after adjusting for falls in prices - was simply the bureaucracy taking advantage of the fiscal stimulus to spend more money on itself."
• Salute All Cars, Kids. It’s a Rule in China [NY Times] "All the students at Luolang Elementary School, a yellow-and-orange concrete structure off a winding mountain road in southern China, know the key rules: Do not run in the halls. Take your seat before the bell rings. Raise your hand to ask a question. And oh, yes: Salute every passing car on your way to and from school."
• China and America: The odd couple [The Economist] "IT HAS become a tedious tradition for Westerners dealing with China to garnish their speeches with wisdom from the Chinese classics. Barack Obama, addressing Chinese and American leaders in July, used not just a banal quotation from Mencius, a Confucian sage, but a punchier one from Yao Ming, a Chinese basketball player: “No matter whether you are new or an old team member, you need time to adjust to one another.” Though it is 30 years since the two countries re-established diplomatic ties severed by the Communist takeover, both sides still badly need to adjust…"