India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond

At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, a new nation was born. It has 17 major languages and 22,000 distinct dialects. It has over a billion individuals of every ethnic extraction known to humanity. It has a population that is 32 percent illiterate, but also one of the worlds largest pools of trained scientists and engineers. Its ageless civilization is the birthplace of four major religions, a dozen different traditions of classical dance, and 300 ways of cooking a potato. Shashi Tharoors INDIA is a fascinating portrait of one of the worlds most interesting countriesits politics, its mentality, and its cultural riches. But it is also an eloquent argument for the importance of India to the future of America and the industrialized world. With the energy and erudition that distinguished his prize-winning novels, Tharoor points out that Indians account for a sixth of the worlds population and their choices will resonate throughout the globe. He 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  (born 9 March 1956) is a Indian Member of Parliament (MP) from the Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala who entered politics in 2009. Until 2007, he was a career official at the United Nations, rising to Under Secretary General for Communications and Public Information, but resigning after losing to Ban Ki moon in the 2007 election for the Secretary General. After his entry into politics, he served as Minister of State for the Ministry of External Affairs, but resigned in less than a year after a controversy.He is also an author and a columnist.