India is connecting at a dizzying pace. In 2000, roughly 20 million Indians had access to the internet. In 2017, 465 million were online, with three new people logging on for the first time every second. By 2020, the country's online community is projected to exceed 700 million; more than a billion Indians are expected to be online by 2025. While users in Western countries progressed steadily over the years from dial-up connections on PCs, to broadband access, wireless, and now 4G data on phones, in India most have leapfrogged straight into the digital world with smartphones and affordable data plans. What effect is all this having on the ancient and traditionally rural culture dominated by family and local customs? Ravi Agrawal explores that very question, seeking out the nexuses of change and those swept up in them. Smartphones now influence arranged marriages, create an extension of one's social identity that moves beyond caste, bring within reach educational opportunities undreamed of a generation ago, bridge linguistic gaps, provide outlets and opportunities for start-ups, and are helping to move the entire Indian economy from cash- to credit-based. The effects are everywhere, and they are transformative. While they offer immediate access to so much for so many, smartphones are creating no utopia in a culture still struggling with poverty, illiteracy, corruption, gender inequality, and income disparity. Internet access has provided greater opportunities to women and altered how India's outcasts interact with the world; it has also made pornography readily available and provided an echo chamber for rumor and prejudice. Under a government determined to control content, it has created tensions. And in a climate of hypernationalism, it has fomented violence and even terrorism. The influence of smartphones on the world's largest democracy is pervasive and irreversible, disruptive and creative, unsettling and compelling. Agrawal's fascinating book gives us the people and places reflecting what the internet hath wrought. India Connected reveals both its staggering dimensions and implications, illuminating how it is affecting the progress of progress itself.

Connected Histories of India and Southeast Asia unravels the fascinating history of cultural interactions, of outstanding and universal significance, between India and Southeast Asia, with special emphasis on artistic expressions. India's connections with Southeast Asian countries, namely, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam are seen not only in trade and commerce but also in cultural and religious exchanges. Such histories are well-documented in their monuments, icons, narratives, inscribed artefacts, texts, and ritual paraphernalia. The first part of the book offers an overview of the nature of cultural and artistic interactions and the trade routes that facilitated an exchange of ideas, objects, people, and knowledge systems since ancient times. The second part addresses issues relating to architectural forms, motifs, and mobility across long distances and time periods. The final segment includes essays that discuss narratives and iconographies arising from cross-cultural artistic exchanges. With contributions by eminent scholars and over 170 colour photographs, maps, and illustrations, this book is an invaluable resource for understanding connected histories, which play a key role in revitalizing cultural connectivity and people-to-people contacts between India and Southeast Asia.

Economics is a social science concerned mainly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Beyond the various theories and models, however, economics has close relationship with day to day life. This book reviews the economic journey of India over the last seventy years, and seeks to stimulate the readers’ thinking on some major issues and potentialities facing the Indian economy. Five main themes flow through the book – India’s potential to be the World’s third largest economic power by 2030, the challenges of socio-economic equity that India faces, the several opportunities that India has in that journey, the critical role of governance, leadership, management and administration, and the importance of mindset changes to power India’s futureeconomic growth. A special focus is laid on the role of government policies and projects in socio-economic development. The book sensitises the readers, including college students in general, and students of economics in particular, to the happenings around us which have significant economic import. The book makes all through its seventy chapters several suggestions to power India’s growth as a global economic superpower, on a plank of socioeconomic equity. This book serves as an expansive thought primer and focussed execution guide for an economically independent and resurgent India.

Connecting Dots is a collection of four part essay that dwells on the idea of Life as it is unfolding in front of our eyes. The author is heavily inspired by the Indian legacy of "Enquiry Within" which is also encouraged in the Indian constitution as part of the Fundamental Duties (Article 51 A(h) ). He brings around fresh insights towards this legacy and connects the dots within that macro perspective.