[dis-sys]

Did I miss something here?

The rocket is nicknamed "fatboy" and it is indeed fat. I was having the impression that india finally made a rocket comparable to Falcon Heavy, Ariane 5, Delta IV Heavy and CZ-5. When I checked its specs, well, 8,000kg to LEO and 4,000kg to GTO, seriously? Not trying to discount its symbolic importance to india, but technically, why its so fat when the payload capacity is so limited?

[Symmetry]

The Falcon 9 is long and thin, this one is short and stout, and they weight about the same amount. The payload isn't nearly as good as the current Falcon 9 revision but it's about the same as the Falcon 9 v1.0 from way back in 2010 and most rockets of similar. The payload to mass isn't great compared to other rockets but most of the gross mass is in the solid boosters so you shouldn't expect the price to be very high for the mass to orbit.

[dis-sys]

Using wikipedia data, Falcon 9 has 20% less weight when it is in the reusable mode, at the same time its LEO/GTO payload capacity is better. I don't think those two are on the same level, Falcon 9 is THE state of the art while GSLV MKIII is just a highly inefficient rocket with some pretty poor specs.