How old is your government?

PRANAB MUKHERJEE (aged 76) beat Purno Sangma (aged 64) to the presidency of India on July 22nd. The office is largely a ceremonial one and, like Italy's presidency, is traditionally held by someone who could politely be described as distinguished. In India's case, the politicians who sit in the prime minister's cabinet are also strikingly older than the people they govern. Looked at like this, Russia is the only BRIC that is not a gerontocracy. Such arrangements are fine when all is going well. But, as our shoe-thrower's index on unrest in the Arab world suggested, a big age gap between the rulers and the ruled can be a source of instability. It is striking that there is a divide between the rich world, with its young leaders, and the emerging one, with its legions of greybeards. America, though, is an outlier: viewed this way its model is more Chinese than European.