An optimised win-win deal that is stable in the long run need not be a straightforward apportionment of benefits; neither does it necessarily have to be proportional to what various parties bring to the table. Game theory provides for many alternate strategies, even disproportionate sharing, which can sometimes be more rational in trying to maximise yet balance all parties’ returns. Whether you support the NDA or the UPA, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The Yale India Parliamentary Leadership Program was the first such India specific programme at the prestigious university, but there have been programmes for others. China has sent thousands of its decision makers — I hesitate to call them politicians — to such international programmes over the last 20 years, from their top ministerial leadership, to mayors of big cities, down to district level administrators.

According to Yale’s distinguished Prof T.N. Srinivasan, a contemporary of and occasional sounding board for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the usual clichés about China’s advantages over India are misleading. It is not simply their non-democratic decisiveness or their by-now formidable infrastructure that has propelled the Chinese economy from being behind India’s — yes, behind India’s — until the 1950s to being on par till the 1980s, to now being thrice as big.

Srinivasan is emphatic that China’s main edge over India is simply its post-Mao commitment to open minds and free markets.

The writer is a BJD MP and led the MPs’ group at Yale University