A starter's comparison of two fastest developing economies

Of late my preoccupation about India has been more than what usually had been. It had to manifest somewhere in my numerous free-postings! So here is the first post on that, bit long but hopefully not entirely useless.
India and China, the two fastest growing economy of the world as stated in many recent studies, is the most talked about economy of late. We, Indians like to compare India more with China and less with our other's neighbour, however our neighbours feel we act bigger than we are. We even see some studies which suggest that in a decades, Indian economy will, perhaps, surpass China's economy. These are very confusing to my unscholarly mind and I am sure it is for many others. Easy way, I reckon, would be to start with where we stand presently.
I have compiled some data that are easily available in the net. I have picked three countries for comparison for the GDP comparison.

Annual GDP - US [$14.1 trillion] , presently ranked 1st.
Annual GDP - China [$4.327 trillion ], presently ranked 3rd
Annual GDP -  India [$1.254 trillion ], presently ranked 13rd

GDP per capita - US [ $ 45200 per person per year (2008) ]  world ranking: 24
GDP per capita - China [ $ 3290 per person per year (2008) ] world ranking: 142
GDP per capita - India [$ 1060  per person per year (2008) ] world ranking: 186

Economy Growth Rate: +1.12% Y-Y [US], +9.05% Y-Y [China], +7.29% Y-Y [India]
China has already seen double digit growth of late but it is very unsustainable. Economist believe that both India and China will see a growth of around 7-9% for next few years [with China keeping higher than India], however there are some study groups who believe China's economic growth will slow down faster than India. Without that debate, it is quite obvious that China will continue to maintain the present gap in GDP for reasonable time. But the question is will it increase further. In any case our data so far makes amply clear that surpassing China's GDP is more of  wishful thinking than a carefully studied projection.
However, there are other factors to consider. A country's growth depends a lot on how the system works. We know China's system moves faster since it is centralized. But there are pitfalls too. Since there are no opposition voice really erring policy decisions would incur higher cost than they would in India. I am not saying anything new here. Intuitively a Govt run by electoral system is believed to be more resilient in facing the changes. However China can prove to be exception. On the other hand an electoral system typically decimates to lowest common capability. India's weakness is myopic regional politics, a small bunch controlling the power at the helm and a sloth and colonial execution system. And they show their impact in the nation's growth. A simple comparison can be startling.
 In 2010 UN report on poverty a benchmark of poverty-line is defined as people living below $1.25 a day. It has praised both China and India that they were able to reduce the level of poverty over the last 15 years but what it does not comment is China has surpassed the projection of 2015 by a large margin in 2005 whereas India lags by large magnitidue.
See for yourself: China's percentage of poor people [meeting the above criteria] was 84% in 1981, 60% in 1990 and reduced to mere 15.9% in 2005. Their target for 2015 is 30%. Similar figure for India is 60% in 1981, 51.3% in 1990 and 41.6% in 2005. Their target is 25.7% for 2015 which they most likely will not meet unless Govt does something very drastic.
The enormity of the challenge can be further appreciated if we look at population growth of the two countries. India's present population is 1.18 billion [2008] with an growth rate 1.44%. Similar figures for China are 1.31 billion [2008] and 0.6% which is less than half of India's rate. China's inflation is way lower than India. It is accepted fact that population growth is highest at the lower income group which makes them go further down. In other words unless the poor is included in India's growth story, India will remain what it is, merely a potential that is yet to deliver, let alone being recognised as 'super-power'.