India From Midnight To The Millennium And Beyond

Well-balanced, informative and highly readable’—Amartya Sen

India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond is an eloquent argument for the importance of India to the future of the industrialized world. Shashi Tharoor shows compellingly that India stands at the intersection of the most significant questions facing the world today. If democracy leads to inefficient political infighting, should it be sacrificed in the interest of economic well-being? Does religious fundamentalism provide a way for countries in the developing world to assert their identity in the face of Western hegemony, or is there a case for pluralism and diversity amid cultural and religious traditions? Does the entry of Western consumer goods threaten a country’s economic self-sufficiency, and is protectionism the only guarantee of

independence? The answers to such questions will determine what the nature of our world is in the twenty-first century. And since Indians account for almost one-sixth of the world’s population today, their choices will resonate throughout the globe.

Shashi Tharoor deals with this vast theme in a work of remarkable depth and startling originality, combining elements of political scholarship, personal reflection, memoir, fiction, and polemic, all illuminated in vivid and compelling prose

About The Author
Shashi Tharoor is the prize-winning author of ten books, both fiction and non-fiction, and a widely published critic, commentator and columnist (including for The Hindu, Times of India and Newsweek).

In 2007 he concluded a nearly twenty-nine-year career with the United Nations, including working for refugees in South-East Asia at the peak of the 'boat people' crisis, handling peace-keeping operations in the former Yugoslavia, and culminating as the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information.

In 2006 he was India's candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General, and emerged a strong second out of seven contenders. Dr Tharoor earned his PhD at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at the age of twenty-two, and was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998 as a 'Global Leader of Tomorrow'. He was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India's highest honour for overseas Indians.