The Brics economies are all experiencing difficult growing pains, but India is probably most at risk of being left behind, afflicted by slowing growth and a raft of legacy structural problems it failed to tackle in the good times.

Analysts upbeat; fiscal commitment impresses.

Finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has battled valiantly to feed the nimble elephant that is the Indian economy at its best, restarting its stalled fiscal and liberalization agenda. But market expectations are sky-high ahead of the election year and recent evidence that the economy has run out of steam.

Bullish investors – such as Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management – reckon strong earnings growth will ensure emerging stocks can repeat their stellar performance in 2013. But with valuations less attractive than last year, only the smart money will generate outsized returns, with China and Russia looking particularly attractive, analysts conclude.

Cutting deficit seen as urgent; More FDI for retail, aviation, power exchanges and broadcasting

Rising levels of obesity have produced an epidemic of diabetes in India. But there is no part of the country more bloated than its bureaucracy and less healthy than its legal system.

India’s business leaders are increasingly concerned about the will of its political elite to drive economic growth. They see a country trapped between its past and its present, and a financial system that is quickly losing its reputed potential to be a leading global market. What can stop the rot?