Planet India: how the fastest growing democracy is transforming the world

Through incisive reportage and brilliant analysis, Mira Kamdar explores India's astonishing transformation from a developing country into a global power house. She reports on the people, companies, and policies defining the new India and reveals how it will profoundly affect our future.

The world's fastest-growing democracy, India has the youngest population on the planet, and a middle class as big as the population of the entire United States. Not only is India the ideal market for the next new thing, but with a highly skilled, English-speaking workforce, elite educational institutions, and growing foreign investment, India is emerging as an innovator of the technology that is driving the next phase of the global economy.
While India is celebrating its meteoric rise, it is also racing against time to bring the benefits of the twenty-first century to the 800 million Indians who live on less than two dollars per day, to find the sustainable energy to fuel its explosive economic growth, and to navigate international and domestic politics to ensure India's security and power. India is the world in microcosm: the challenges it faces are universal-from combating terrorism, poverty, and dis ease to protecting the environment and creating jobs. The urgency of these challenges for India is spurring innovative solutions, which, if successful, will catapult India to the top of the new world order. If India succeeds, it will not only save itself, it will save us all. If it fails, we will all suffer. As goes India, so goes the world.