Let's have a hearty laugh over Bush's gaffe

Last year, a study by the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that India's middle class numbered only 50 million, out of a total 1.1 billion population.

India's National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has also estimated that there were 56 million people in households earning $4,400 to $21,800 a year, which it defines as middle class.

So where did Bush get his extra 300 million or so middle class Indians from-

Perhaps from the NCAER's 220 million "aspiring Indians," living in households earning between $2,000 and $4,400 a year, who can afford to buy a motorbike, a refrigerator and a television.

Together that makes a "consuming class" almost as large as the population of the United States.

Perhaps, Bush meant that. And, perhaps the Indian leaders kept quiet in this regard, because, like Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary and Indian Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Nuclear Issue, they must have felt that Bush's remark had a positive aspect to it as well. "It (the remark) is a recognition of the distance India has traveled as a result of its successful economic development," Saran said, adding that Bush had spoken about the growing prosperity of India when he talked about the country's middle class that was now bigger than the entire population of the US.