essay on 21st century india

Essay on India In 21st Century

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100 Words Essay on India In 21st Century

Introduction.

India, a diverse country, has seen significant changes in the 21st century. It is now a global player in various fields like technology, economy, and space.

India’s technological advancements have been remarkable. With initiatives like Digital India, technology is reaching even remote areas.

India’s economy has grown rapidly, becoming one of the world’s largest. Sectors like IT and manufacturing have seen a major boost.

India’s space missions, like Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan, have gained global recognition, showcasing India’s progress in space technology.

Despite challenges, India’s growth in the 21st century is commendable. It continues to evolve, promising a bright future.

250 Words Essay on India In 21st Century

The dawn of a new era.

India, in the 21st century, is a land of diversity, brimming with potential and teeming with challenges. It stands at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, grappling with rapid socio-economic changes.

Technological Advancements

India has made significant strides in technology. The IT revolution has transformed the global image of India, positioning it as a major player in the world’s digital economy. The success of ISRO’s Mars mission and the proliferation of tech startups underscore India’s technological prowess.

Economic Growth

India’s economy has witnessed remarkable growth, with a shift from agriculture to a services and industry-oriented economy. However, the challenge lies in achieving inclusive growth, addressing income inequalities, and improving living standards.

Social Changes

The 21st century has seen major social changes in India. Increased literacy rates, a growing middle class, and greater gender equality are reshaping societal norms. Yet, issues like caste discrimination and gender violence persist, demanding urgent attention.

Environmental Concerns

India, like the rest of the world, faces serious environmental challenges. Climate change, air pollution, and water scarcity are pressing issues that need sustainable solutions.

India in the 21st century is a dynamic entity, a country in flux. It is a nation that is striving to balance economic growth with social equity, technological advancement with environmental sustainability. The journey is arduous, but the potential is immense. The 21st century could indeed be India’s century if it successfully navigates these challenges.

500 Words Essay on India In 21st Century

India, the world’s largest democracy, has witnessed tremendous growth and development in the 21st century. The nation has made significant strides in various sectors, including technology, education, healthcare, and economy, transforming it into a global player. This essay delves into the various facets of India’s growth in the 21st century.

The advent of the 21st century marked a technological revolution in India. The country has emerged as a global IT hub, with cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad housing some of the world’s leading tech giants. The surge in digitalization, fueled by initiatives like ‘Digital India’, has improved governance, increased transparency, and provided a boost to the digital economy. The Indian Space Research Organisation’s feats, such as the Mars Orbiter Mission, have further showcased India’s technological prowess on the global stage.

Educational Progress

India’s education sector has also seen significant growth. The Right to Education Act, 2009, has made education accessible to all, regardless of their socio-economic background. The Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education has increased substantially, and initiatives like the National Institutional Ranking Framework have enhanced the quality of education. However, the challenge remains to bridge the rural-urban and gender gaps in education.

Healthcare Developments

In healthcare, India has made commendable progress. The country has successfully eradicated polio and has made significant strides in reducing maternal and child mortality rates. The Ayushman Bharat scheme, launched in 2018, aims to provide health insurance to over 500 million people, marking a significant step towards universal health coverage. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of India’s healthcare system, emphasizing the need for further improvements.

Economically, India has become one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world. The liberalization of the economy has attracted foreign investment and boosted entrepreneurship. The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has simplified the tax structure, facilitating ease of doing business. Nevertheless, India still grapples with issues like unemployment and income inequality.

While India’s growth story is impressive, it has been accompanied by environmental challenges. Rapid urbanization and industrialization have led to increased pollution levels and loss of biodiversity. The country is grappling with issues like air pollution, water scarcity, and climate change. To address these, India has committed to ambitious targets under the Paris Agreement and is making strides in renewable energy.

The 21st century has seen India’s transformation from a developing nation to a global power. While the country has made significant strides in various fields, it continues to face challenges. The way India addresses these issues will determine its trajectory in the coming years. The 21st century holds immense potential for India, and with the right policies and initiatives, the country can achieve sustainable and inclusive growth.

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Essay on “India in 21 Century” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

India in 21 Century

4 Best Essays on “India in 21st Century” 

Essay No. 01

The twentieth century is about to come to its end. We are making preparations for the 21 st century which is expected to come after one year. Now it is the right time to think what will be the position of India in the 21 st century.

We presume that India will surely occupy an important position in the world in the new century. The world will recognize her as the leader or torch-bearer of Asia.

Every country in the world will try to have friendly relations with India. She will have good relations with our neighbouring countries.  Indo- Pak relations will improve and there will be free trade and communication between these two countries. India and China will succeed in settling their border disputes in the coming century and both will have very good relations with each other. The new century will see India and Sri Lanka as good friends. In the same way, India’s relation with Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma will improve considerably.

In the economic field, the country will make great progress, in the 21 st century. The standard of living of all persons will rise. India will become a big exporting country in the coming century. She will not stand in the need of taking loans from the world bank. The country will be able to put a check upon the rising prices of all necessary commodities. The country will make great progress in industry and agriculture will be modernized.

In the scientific field, India will become the most advanced country in Asia. In making inventions she will leave Japan behind. She will not stand in the need of borrowing technology from any country of the world. She will make wonderful progress in space technology. she will launch more rockets in the 21 st century from her own launch complex.

She will also make great progress in the cultural field. She will patronize her national culture in music, dancing, painting, and sculpture. The artists of the country will win a great name in the international exhibitions of art.

In the 21 st century, India will be in the front in the educational field. She will overhaul her present system of education. Technical and vocational training will become an integral part of the education of the youth of the country. There will be no educated unemployment in India in the coming century. This will be possible on account of the change in her educational policy. The county will be free from illiteracy.

In the social field, India will get rid of many social customs in the 21 st century. The Dowry system will be put to an end. There will no trouble for our women. Nobody will pour kerosene oil on her body to put an end to her life.  

Essay No. 02

India in the twenty-first century

According to the Hindu Calendar and Vikram Samvat, we are already in the middle of the twenty-first century. But according to Christian Era, the twenty-first century is a decade away. Time is eternal and a ceaseless flow that does not admit any break or division. It is for our convenience that we have divided time into periods like years, decades, centuries, etc. It is not easy to imagine what would be the shape of things and life to come in the next century. However, it is exciting to think about India which would be after a couple of decades. We may just guess from what has already happened and from what is happening about things to come at the turn of the century. It is a kind of speculation to guess what would be there in India after the present century.

To imagine the coming century we have to see what has happened in the present century during the past three-four decades. In these years many fundamental changes have taken place as a result of rapid and radical advancement in the field of science and technology. We have harnessed atomic energy, space and time have been conquered to some extent. With the help of supersonic aeroplanes, the barrier of sound has been crossed, and now we can travel at tremendous speed. The increasing use of computers has revolutionized our life. In the field of entertainment television and audio systems have transformed life completely. Man has landed on the moon and space labs have become a reality. People have become better aware as regards family planning and welfare, and are accepting the norm of small families. Many of the diseases, previously regarded as fatal, have now been controlled and eradicated. But diseases like cancer and AIDS have posed a new challenge.

In the coming century life in India would become more automatic, mechanical and computerized. Man will become more materialistic, comfort-loving and dependent upon machines. Many things would be computer-controlled. Students in India would depend on computers even for simple arithmetic problems. Housewives will have more leisure and spare time because of the computerization of the home and the hearth. The twenty-first century would be virtually a century of computers in India as well as in other countries.

There would be greater industrial and technological development in India in the coming century. As a result, there would be more and more luxury items and consumer durables. There would be no shortage of consumer goods and food items. The farm technology would be further improved and food production would increase in spite of the increase in the population. In the next century

India’s population may surpass that of China. There would be marked improvement in the living standards of the people in general. They would become comparatively better off than they are at present. India is deeply religious. There are many faiths and religions in India. It is a secular country. India would remain secular in the spirit in the next century but the faith of the majority community would prevail over others. As a result of this, the bonds of nationalism and patriotism would be further strengthened. The problems of casteism, regionalism, and communalism would be solved giving rise to better discipline and progress. India would emerge as a world power in terms of economy, industry and military strength. In politics there exist at all. The public would be far more politically and. parties would not be only national parties and regional socially enlightened. The masses would exercise their right to vote with great care and would favor only those parties and candidates who do not indulge in corrupt and undesirable practices. The irresponsible form of politics would have no place at all. Then there would be greater awareness among the people about our rich and ancient culture and heritage. People would be proud of being Indians in the real sense of the term and pseudo-patriots would be exposed and suitably punished. There would be more cohesiveness, unity and integrity than now in the coming century. There would prevail one uniform civil code for all classes and communities.

In the field of education, much of the system would be computerized. Distance education would become more popular, and there would be hardly any illiteracy. The T.V. shall play a more important and bigger role in the spread of education. By means of the latest electronic devices, education will reach the door-steps of most people. People will not be required to reach distant universities and institutions of learning. The medium of instruction would be Hindi or the mother tongue of a student at the school level. English, would remain but would lose much of its present importance. The percentage of failure would be reduced to a great extent and education would be more realistic and work and job-oriented. Because of the increase in general awareness among the people and better economic conditions, exploitation, particularly of weaker sections like women, children, village folk, etc., would decrease to a great extent. The caste barriers would be further removed and there would\ be frequent inter-caste and inter-community marriages. Sex education in schools and colleges would become a routine and an accepted thing. There would be more accepting of free sex, and liberal views would prevail in the matters of marriage, sex, love, and family life. But with the increase in automation, industrialization, and materialism, bonds of the family would be further loosened. The population of the senior citizens and the aged people would increase tremendously. It would create many new problems. The environs of the big cities like Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Bangalore, Madras, etc., would be so polluted that people would have to wear oxygen masks regularly. To solve the crisis of energy, we will have to depend more and more on solar and atomic energy. The conventional sources of energy would be more or less exhausted. Space travel would become common as air travel is today among rich people. Recycling waste products would become a necessity in India of the next century.

There are thousands of things that cannot be visualized at this point in time. Only the coming decades would show the exact shape of things to come. We can just make arguments in broad terms, on the basis of present scientific, technological, social and political developments, about the condition that would prevail in India after 20, 30 or more years.

Essay No. 03

India in The 21st Century

We have stepped into a new century. Talking about the future is always exciting. Man wants to peep into the future to find out what is in store for him and his fellow beings. Man’s curiosity to know about the future and the shape of things and events to come has given rise to such subjects as astronomy, astrology, and palmistry, etc., which try to predict the events to come.

Now, what would be the future of India in the coming years of this century. Can we project and predict the future of India as a nation with some certainty and precision? Are we in a position to predict the conditions that are likely to prevail in future? How would the country look like, say after a decade? These are really very crucial questions. Should we expect a brave new world, full of peace, prosperity, hope, dynamism and health or a world congested, overpopulated, and full of despair, selfishness, polluted and dominated by narrow, parochial and self-seeking politicians? Perhaps, we cannot answer these questions with the desired precision, accuracy and exactness. However, the subject is really thrilling, exciting and interesting. There is no harm in making a guess about the shape of events and things in the coming years.

Our late Prime Minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi. often talked of taking India into the 21st century. He was very optimistic and enthusiastic about the future of India and his faith and optimism were quite well-founded. But, unfortunately, he was not destined to lead the country into the new century. He wanted to shape the destiny of India but did not know about his own tragic and untimely end. It sounds ironical, but in no way does it lessen his faith, hope, optimism and dynamism about the future of the country. Physically he is no more with us but his ideals, optimism, faith, enthusiasm and dynamism are with us. He symbolised the country’s youth and bright future and continues to live in the form of young men and women • of India. What is important is the spirit and it never dies.

Judging from the winds of change sweeping across, a fair and some sure future image of the country can easily be formed. In order to imagine the future image of the country, it is essential that we review the major trends, events and happenings in the past few decades, because future projections cannot be made correctly by ignoring present events and past happenings. The past, the present and the future present a logical time-sequence. They are like links of the same chain.

As a result of rapid and radical advancement in the fields of science, technology, medicine, and agriculture, many changes of far-reaching significance have taken place during the last two to three decades. Atomic energy has been harnessed and space and time have been conquered to some extent. With the help of supersonic aeroplanes, the barrier of sound has been crossed, and now we can travel at tremendous speeds. People and countries have come closer in terms of time and distance and the world looks like one big country, marked by pleasant diversities. Man has landed on the moon, and space laboratories have become a reality. The ominous clouds of the Cold War, threatening world peace and harmony, have receded. The wide use of computers and super-computers has revolutionised our life. In the field of entertainment, television and audio systems have transformed life completely. People have become better aware of issues like family planning, child and woman-welfare and have begun to accept the norm of a small, planned family. General awareness about ecology and the environment is also on the increase. Many diseases, previously regarded as fatal, have now been controlled and eradicated, but diseases like cancer and AIDS have raised their ugly and deadly heads. On the basis of these developments, we look forward to a promising new era, with occasional gloom and despair.

In the coming years and decades, life in India will certainly be more convenient, comfortable and easy but real happiness and contentment will be more scarce. With the increased use of modern gadgets and devices, working, learning, communication and transportation will become easier, quicker, more comprehensive, and less time-consuming. Man will become more and more materialistic, comfort-loving and competitive. Religion will be further pushed into the background and many of the present-day superstitions will be eliminated. People will have more leisure and spare time and so traveling and sightseeing will become more popular. The coming years will bring greater industrial, economical, scientific and technological developments and India will be one of the leading lights in these areas. Consumerism will have rapid growth and there will be many more new luxury items and consumer durables.

Many items, which are now considered a luxury, will not be so then as they will become ordinary things of daily domestic use. Farm technology will be further improved and food production will increase. Consequently, there will be no shortage of food items, edible oils, vegetables and dairy products. Thus, there will be a marked improvement in the living standards of the people in general. They will be comparatively better off than they are at present. Many of the present towns will change into big cities and centres of trade and business.

As far as our population is concerned, it will perhaps surpass that of China in the coming years. At present, our population is over one billion, approximately one-sixth of the world population. Consequently, there will be pressure on our land, water and power resources. Housing and shelter will remain a serious problem. By the year 2020, metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai will become huge urban excrescence as a major portion of each of them will be covered by jhuggis and slums for want of adequate housing facilities. A few decades hence, India will emerge as a more powerful, strong, united and leading nation and, as such, will play a far more deciding and vital role in international affairs, especially in those of the U.N. and other world bodies. In the coming decades, secularism will prevail and people will become more tolerant, appreciative and broad-minded to one another’s religious faiths and way of living. In the matter of marriage, sex and love, there will be an increased liberal outlook and the gap between the two sexes will be further bridged. There will be more frequent cases of separation and divorce. The size of the family will be further reduced and the number of the old and the aged will rise rapidly. In the same proportion, the population of the children will decrease.

Secularism apart, India will remain religious at heart but much of religious observations and formalities will be causalities. The faith of the people will lead to further strengthening of the bonds of nationalism, national integration and unity. The problems of casteism, regionalism and communalism will be solved to a great extent, giving rise to better discipline, progress and a sense of patriotism. Gradually, the regional parties will be erased from the political scene of the country. The public will be more enlightened and aware about their-political and social lights and duties and will exercise far more diligence in the exercise of their votes. People will be proud of being Indians in the real sense of the term and pseudo-patriots along with political gurus, will be exposed. In the coming decades, there will be more cohesiveness, uniformity, unity and integrity than now. The country may even have one civil code for all classes and communities in respect of marriage, etc.

These are some of the broad and rough outlines of the future. On the basis of scientific, technological, social, political and world developments that have taken place in the past, we can only guess. Finer details about what may happen can be left for the future. The 21st century in itself is a very big period and the changes that will take place during these long years will be far more radical, fast, astonishing and unpredictable than those of the last century. Thus, only the coming decades will show the exact shape of things and events to come. There are thousands of things and possibilities which cannot be visualized at this point of time. One thing is certain. The future of our country is bright, hopeful, assuring and such as would inspire confidence, faith and optimism. But we must exert our best to make it doubly sure. Let us resolve to march ahead into the 21st century with confidence, fortitude, hope, courage and determination to face the new challenges of the new century. India as a nation has vast human and material resources at its command to scale new heights and establish new records in space technology, computer science, exploitation of non-conventional energy, the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, genetic engineering, bio-technology, micro-electronics and a host of other related fields of human activity.

Essay No. 04

It would be nice for us if we stopped daydreaming and expecting the India of the 21st Century to be very much better than what it is at the end of the 20th Century. The trend that is obviously visible in all walks of life is neither very encouraging nor very full of hope.

Now let us study threadbare the possibilities in most of the important spheres. Politically the 1998 government has completed its full term. Bus as expected the corrupt brand of policies is still visible. We may not expect a bright future till the corrupt brand of a politician be a finished product though it has toward it some extent.

More than that is not possible in less than ten years because the damage done in fifty years cannot be done away within a magical moment. The trend may be that the new politicians may learn some lessons from the fate of their unruly powerful predecessors and improve their brand. The young politicians may start from good beginnings realizing that, evil, corruption, nepotism cannot last for long, and this feeling will give them the jitters, and they may never indulge in the dirt of politics. Besides the politician, the electorate may also use its own thinking power for this, the trend has become obvious.

The electorate has become aware and alert regarding the misuse of power by the politician and they may never tolerate it in the future. Regarding the multi-party system that has surfaced in India, I suspect that by the first decade of the 21st Century only, this system may be thrown to the winds, and the viability of a multiparty system in India may be scrapped, and a distinct bi-party system may emerge. A multi-party system in a place like India is an experiment in futility, this fact will be soon realized, as the stock of our politicians is the ones to adapt and adjust.

Every individual politician wants his piece of cake and is least bothered for the country he has promised to serve. Since this is the situation on the ground, by the first decade of the 21st Century only, I personally feel that a clear bi-party system could emerge, after some experiments in the adventure of multi-party Governments.

The administration of the Government offices may also be functioning better by the early years of the next Century as the corrupt and anti-work lobby by then may have brought India’s administration to a grinding halt. With the new Government has taken the reins at the end of the 20th Century it may be the lessons of the past, help them to tone up the administration, and help it come out of the woods. The Government may become very efficient and fast and prompt as the sluggish working of previous administrations have got the public come to a point of breakdown and revolt. To uplift the mood of the depressed public, the Government may set for itself a new and strict code for conducting itself, and if this is done, India will be having a wonderful administration

In trade, the 21st Century will certainly see the growth of International trade, and there will also be ample encouragement for our local cottage industries. This will see a positive rise in Indian business and culture. With our national economy taking strides ahead, I can hope that the gap between the Haves and Have Nots in India will be reduced and we may see less poverty in the country.

Socially the 21st Century will be either more depressing than the 20th has been or, if the social attitudes take a somersault, we may once again become a socially homogeneous country. In the 20th Century, the onslaught of Western culture in our society has been well nigh complete, and heartbreaking. Our beautiful family has given way under pressures of western studies, our dresses have become vulgar, our choice of art has been shaped by western choices, in short, and I’d say the murder of Indian society has been complete. Regarding this aspect, the 21st Century has two possibilities, one is, further increase in Westernization in thought and action, in art and culture. The second chance is that realizing the drawbacks and the impact of Westernization, the 21st Century society may come back to our own original Indian social norms. These two chances are visible on the Indian social horizon let’s see what is in store.

The knowledge of Science and Technology will go up in leaps and bounds and I am sure we will not be very far behind any of the progressed countries. We may be the ones to teach the world how to use nuclear science for the benefit of mankind.

After having seen the 20th Century observing the total decline of moral values, the 21st Century may witness a rise or rather the comeback of morality in India. The vagaries of the lack of morality have made the Indians suffer so much, in every sphere that, in the 21st Century they may realize that lack of morality and character have been the real bane of India’s fortunes. If people really start thinking in this direction it could be that the 21st Century ushers in for India a period of high moral standards of individual characters. If this happens India would have learned its lessons of the 20th Century.

With a possible revival of morality and character among Indians, the 21st Century may bring for India its golden period of growth and development. If we scrutinize carefully the drawbacks of the 20th Century, all of the coil down to a basic lack of character. So, if this great quality comes back to us we surely have a century of successes ahead.

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Top ten things to know about india in the twenty-first century.

• India is Like Europe, But Also Not Like Europe

Most Americans have heard of India, but might struggle to describe it. A suitable analogy would be the European Union. The EU is composed of a mosaic of twenty-seven countries that have some things in common, for example, proximity and climate, as well as institutions such as parliament and a currency; but also some dissimilarities, such as language and food. European countries come in all sizes, from Lichtenstein to Germany. In­dia, similarly, is composed of twenty-nine constituent elements known as states, as well as eight union territories that are directly ruled from the capital, New Delhi. Union territories tend to be small, sometimes less than half a million people, while many Indian states are larger than most coun­tries of the world. India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, has over 200 million people, more than the populations of Germany, France, and Spain com­bined. India has a single currency, the rupee, and a national parliament, as well as elected legislatures in each of the states. Over twenty languages are recognized as “official,” including English. Another 400-odd dialects are spoken. Most Indians, like most Europeans, are polylingual and find it normal to switch between languages depending on context. Like Europe, India is enormously diverse while somehow retaining a commonality of feeling that never allows the visitor to forget where they are.

What is very different between the EU and India is the proportion of people to land. India has 1.3 billion people in a territory of some 3.3 mil­lion square kilometers (approximately 1.3 million square miles). The EU includes roughly half a billion people in a region of 4.5 million square ki­lometers (approximately 1.7 million square miles). India is, in other words, a lot more densely populated than Europe. India is also a lot poorer on average than the EU, but has its fair share of billionaires as well (rough­ly the same as Germany’s 114). What is notably different is each region’s demographic profile and gender balance. The average EU person is a for­ty-three-year-old woman, the average Indian a twenty-nine-year-old man. Unlike Europe and the rest of the world, India has many more men than women (115 male babies born for every 100 girls), a grim statistic it shares with only one other country, China. This unequal ratio points to a struc­tural bias against women in India, a reflection of widely held social atti­tudes that still prefer male children over females.

• Not All Indians Are Vegetarians

There is a common impression that most Indians are vegetarians. Far from it. Indians eat all manner of meats, including beef and pork, with mut­ton—the name given to goat meat in India—the most expensive meat in a typical food market. Chicken has become increasingly popular in recent decades, with industrial broiler farms becoming more common, leading to greater supply and lower cost, even if at the expense of taste, as many would argue. American-style fast food restaurants, including the bright red splash of a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, are now common sights in most Indian cities. Of course, for religious reasons, Hindus may choose not to eat beef and Muslims pork. As with linguistic diversity, food habits vary considerably by region. Broadly speaking, Northern Indians prefer wheat, while the south is a rice-dominated area. In the heavily Chris­tian-populated northeast zone of the country abutting Burma/Myanmar and Tibet, pork is extremely popular. In the south, it is not uncommon to cook food in coconut oil, while in (eastern) Bengal, mustard oil is a must in every kitchen. Fish and seafood are widely eaten on the coasts. Each re­gion of India claims to have its own indigenous mango, the most popular fruit in India. Disagreements about which mango is the best variety have torn friends and families apart for centuries. Being “pure” vegetarian was long associated with being upper caste, especially Brahmin. That associa­tion remains true today, even as the ranks of vegetarians have swelled due to modern urban concerns about health, looks, and global peer pressure.

• Curry and Early Globalization

Most people associate Indian food with colorful spices and hot curries. While this is certainly true today, it is worth recalling that before the New World was “discovered,” Indian cuisine did not have the fiery blast that comes with the green chili pepper ( capsicum annuum ). The Portuguese were the first to introduce the chili to India in the sixteenth century, along with other New World vegetables such as potatoes and tomatoes, foods that are now considered absolute staples of Indian cooking. There were always plenty of spices to go around, from pepper and asafetida to gin­ger and garlic, so premodern Indian chefs didn’t lack for options, but the taste and look of the final product would have been quite different as a re­sult. The Portuguese are also responsible, we are told, for linking the name “curry” with Indian cuisine. According to historians, on hearing the Tamil word kari , or sauce, they began to call all Indian food curry, which soon evacuated the word of any precise meaning. Once invented, however, curry powder, essentially a curated mix of dried spices, seems to have traveled rather quickly around the world. An eighteenth-century English recipe for pilau or pilaf (referring to meats cooked together with rice) required the use of cloves, cinnamon, and whole peppers, suggesting that Indian food and its ingredients were well-known and available enough to become part of European home cooking by that time, at least for the well-to-do.

American-style fast food restaurants, including the bright red splash of a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, are now common sights in most Indian cities.

• How Older Indians Think, How Younger Indians Behave

There is a significant generational divide in India today. The division can be dated roughly to 1980, with those born before that date being “older” and those born after described as “younger” for the purpose of this essay. This shorthand captures far-reaching differences in the ways that different generations of Indians think—of themselves, their country, and their pos­sible futures.

Older Indians grew up in a country that was fully engaged in freeing itself from the memory and legacies of colonial rule. Even for those born after independence from Great Britain in 1947, the shadow of colonial rule still fell over the country in numerous everyday ways: in the names of roads and towns, content of school curricula, the legal system, the uniforms of the police and army, and much more. Paths to social mobility were still shaped by colonial mores. For the tiny middle class, status was wrapped up in attending a small number of schools and colleges, living in one of the four major metropolitan areas, and joining a narrow set of exclusive social clubs and professions. Even as the country was presenting itself as a new and different kind of place on the world stage, representing a radical postcolonial sensibility, domestic structures of power still hewed to stan­dards that looked to the past and overseas. The common sense of a natural social hierarchy joined comfortably with an antipopular ethos in the minds of Indian postcolonial elites, justified in terms of a meritocracy legitimated by national examinations and international standards. The state and public service was broadly respected and even admired, although most politicians were probably not considered of the same class as those in the elite civil services who worked for them. Rapid social change and conservative moral discourse went hand in hand. India’s poverty was an embarrassment to this older generation. When they looked overseas, they felt Indian modernity lagged behind, making it their job to catch up to the world in the shortest time possible. Not everyone was sure this could be done.

This older generation has given way to a younger one, just as India’s most popular sport, cricket, has changed radically between 1980 and today. Over this period, cricket, formerly a languid and lengthy (three- to five-day) event for largely male fans broadcast over the radio, transformed into a highly entertaining three-hour thriller played under lights for a global television audience. The extent of change might be compared to the sym­bolic distance between traditional sumo wrestling and the WWE. Need­less to say, the money involved was qualitatively transformed as well. T-20 cricket, as the shortest form of the game is called, is now a multibillion-dollar global business.

During these years, the idea and self-image of India and Indians changed irreversibly as well. Beginning in the early 1990s, India’s world went through a radical change. With the end of the Cold War, long-standing international relationships, especially with the Soviet Union, ended. A staid, state-centric, inward-looking, and risk-averse economic model collapsed. Globalization was the new watchword, and there was no plan in place of how to deal with it. To the surprise of many, India coped remarkably well with this new world order, coming out of the last decade of the twentieth century as a great pow­er in the making. In short order, India had become a global powerhouse in services, especially in information technology-related, entertainment, and pharmaceutical sectors, building a huge generic drug industry that sold cheap medicines to the world. What had changed as well was the attitude of young Indians who now saw the world as their oyster.

The generational transition is epitomized by Mahendra Singh Dho­ni, a virtuoso athlete born in 1981 who would go on to become India’s most successful cricket captain ever. Dhoni was born in a small town in middle India, well outside the metro glitter, to an undistinguished low­er-middle-class Hindu family. His cricketing ability and a bit of luck took him at a young age to the national team, and from that point on, he never looked back. Building on his substantial sporting accomplishments, Dhoni became both hugely wealthy and a national icon who came to represent an entire generation of young Indian men. These were youth who had grown up in second- and third-tier cities, and lacked the kind of cultural capital that would have been necessary for success in earlier generations, includ­ing fluency in English. What they had was a surfeit of ambition and con­fidence, while being secure enough in their vernacular identities to offer a new model of Indian masculinity for the twenty-first century.

Growing up in a country that was booming for the first two decades of their lives, the market rather than politics dominates their imagina­tions. They feel no responsibility for Indian poverty. For this generation, the nation is supreme, while the state is seen to suffer from an acute and permanent case of venality. Nationalism trumps patriotism, and institu­tions are less important than loyalty to individual personalities. There is broad indifference to the collective commitments of the past, especially if these are not also means to wealth and power. This generation believes it belongs to one of the most important countries of the world and fully ex­pects India to become a member of the UN Security Council before long.

When it becomes apparent that India isn’t the best at everything it does—whether every four years at the Olympics or currently with the coronavirus pandemic—it comes as a shock. On every front today— political, economic, domestic, external—the country is facing the most complex crises this generation has ever known, with no end in sight. It is an open question whether young India is up to the challenge.

This generation believes it belongs to one of the most important countries of the world and fully expects India to become a member of the UN Security Council before long. 7

• The World’s Largest Democracy

Indians are fond of describing themselves as the “world’s largest democra­cy.” (They acknowledge the US as the world’s oldest one.) This description is certainly true if we consider the sheer scale of an Indian election—an electorate of nearly one billion people casting votes in over one million polling booths using four million voting machines overseen by eleven mil­lion election officials. No other country even comes close. But when we turn from the enormously impressive election logistics to the quality of In­dian democracy, a different tale emerges. India’s formal democratic record has been almost uninterrupted since the secular republic was announced in 1950, a record that compares very well to most postcolonial states. When the Constitution was passed, many observers criticized contem­porary Indian leaders for expanding the electorate to include all citizens, regardless of educational level or income. But for this leadership, political equality was an irrevocable commitment and a foundational principle of the struggle for independence from colonial rule. Their faith was not be­trayed. India’s population, including the illiterate, poor, and marginalized, took to elections with enthusiasm. Participation has remained consistently between 50 and 70 percent for the last seven decades.

• What Indians Expect from Politics

Although faith in government remains remarkably high, expectations of what government can and will do have changed a lot. If in the past there was an idea that the proper role of government was to act as a brake or regulator of the worst excesses of capitalism and social difference, that view is entirely discredited today. It is widely acknowledged that there is one set of rules for the well-connected and another for everyone else. No one seems to care that politicians inevitably become richer upon being elected while those around them benefit from rent-seeking opportunities that come in the wake of public office. Everyone knows that access to re­sources is directly correlated with the ability to shape outcomes—whether economic, legal, or judicial—to one’s advantage. The government responds with alacrity to those who make the loudest noise, who also tend to be the already-privileged. Public protest is common, but not from those fac­ing the everyday injustices of a deeply unequal and hierarchical society. Strikes, boycotts, marches, and protests are the everyday tactics of the well-established, not excluding professionals such as lawyers and doctors.

At the same time, and dating back to the origins of the republic, there is a continued if weakened expectation that “have-nots” must be cared for by the state. As India has become wealthier overall, welfare payments to the poor have increased in scope and size, eliminating the most egregious outcomes of poverty such as mass starvation. The economist Amartya Sen points out that the practical effects of a democratic system are such that while extraordinary deaths from famine have been eliminated, excess deaths due to the “slow violence” of everyday poverty are still very much in place.

• Miserable Mass Media

A critical institution in the maintenance of a liberal democracy is a free media. In the days when the media meant print—daily newspapers and magazines—journalists used to be highly respected members of the pub­lic sphere. The annals of Indian journalism have no shortage of accounts of governments and public figures being toppled through rigorous and brave reporting. With time and technology, however, two simultaneous trends are visible. One is the proliferation of media outlets—as with else­where, the mix has shifted from print to electronic and digital modes; the number of TV channels has risen to close to 1,000—and the other is the consolidation of what were once multiple media groups serving different regional and linguistic markets into a smaller and more concentrated na­tional oligopoly. This means that while a greater proportion of the Indian population now has access to mass media than ever before (or the reverse, depending on your point of view), the diversity of opinions expressed via these channels has shrunk significantly. TV news is driven by ratings and has become coterminous with entertainment following the Fox News model. What attracts eyeballs are extreme views expressed at top volume, ideally involving scandals joining celebrities with national security and il­licit money. Challenging the government is far less common for fear of retaliation; few would disagree that, when compared to the past, this is now a cowed industry that panders to power.

• Lowering of the High Court

The Indian judiciary, too, has declined in public prestige and standing, al­though it remains a vital last bastion of restraint on executive power. While once justices of higher courts were widely considered paragons of virtue (even if they were not), now even the Supreme Court cannot free itself of the stench of corruption, political expediency, and compromise. The judi­ciary in India reflects society, it does not lead it; just as social norms have steadily coarsened and expectations of public probity plummeted in recent decades, so too has the standing of the judiciary. Money talks everywhere, and nowhere more than in the courtroom, given the high stakes involved. As Indian society has drifted steadily rightward, less tolerant of religious and ethnic minorities and more accepting of an exclusivist majoritarian Hindu identity as the national standard, judicial rulings have followed suit. This only comes as a surprise because of a lingering feeling, drawn from the older generation, that state institutions and the media transcended pa­rochial interests and spoke to society’s better natures. We would have been less surprised had we consulted those long consigned to the margins of Indian society: Dalits, once called Untouchables; Tribals; and Muslims.

• Struggles for Justice

For those who have seen the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement since 2014, beginning in Ferguson, Missouri, and becoming in 2020 the greatest expression of antiracial feeling in the US since the civil rights movement, social movements that seek to mobilize India’s Dalits and Tribals will seem all too familiar. In fact, there are direct connections be­tween these movements dating back to 1972, when radical intellectuals and writers named their burgeoning movement Dalit Panthers, inspired by the example of the Black Panther movement in the US. “Dalit” is the name claimed by the millions of people who are considered to belong to the lowest rung of the social hierarchy: so low that they are considered outside caste, “human disposal machines for the impurity of others,” as one scholar puts it in horrifying language. If Dalits may be compared with African-Americans seeking equality and justice, the condition of Tribals in India is similar to once-sovereign Native American nations repeated­ly dispossessed of their lands by missionaries, colonizers, settlers, and the military. Tribals are descendants of India’s indigenous people, also dispos­sessed and forced into ever-shrinking forest reservations, although their sovereignty has never been recognized in law. Some Tribals have taken re­course to arms in response to their social and economic marginalization, to which the Indian state has reacted with violence of its own.

India may be a secular democracy in name, but it is also an extremely unequal and unfair place to live in if you are not wealthy, from the high­est castes, the upper classes, or a straight man. The historical direction of change has been from pluralism and openness to illiberal authoritarian­ism. To be sure, India’s massive size, diversity, and inefficiency of its se­curity forces make it hard for any government to be effectively and evenly repressive. But for those who confront state power directly, there is very little recourse to the tacit and explicit protections that make the term “lib­eral democracy” meaningful in practice.

Challenging the government is far less common for fear of retaliation . . . this [mass media] is now a cowed industry that panders to power. A Punjabi-Mexican-American couple, Valentina Alarez and Rullia Singh posing for their wedding photo in 1917. Source: Wikimedia Commons at https://tinyurl.com/y5kx5bwf.

• India and the United States

Moving beyond comparison, while Indians are a common sight in the US today, their presence in large numbers is relatively recent, dating back to the revision of US immigration rules in 1965. But the presence of India in the New World is not new. In the early eighteenth century, a generous do­nation from the governor of Madras (now Chennai) would lead to the Col­legiate School in New Haven being renamed Yale University in honor of its colonial benefactor. The Smithsonian Magazine reports that nearly a centu­ry later, an elephant was shipped from India to Salem, Massaschusetts, and eventually sold in New York City for $10,000, a staggering amount for the times. These anecdotes remind us of the regular maritime traffic between the northeastern seaboard of the US and India. No small number of Yankee fortunes were built on the East India trade, which included most famously Indian black tea—for those who remember the Boston Tea Party—but also white Massachusetts ice, which was shipped east to cool the fevered brows and sundowner drinks of British officials and Indian princes. In 1913, the Indian Nobel Laureate and poet Rabindranath Tagore spent some months in Urbana–Champaign visiting his son, who was studying agriculture at the University of Illinois. Even before World War I, Indian immigrants and demobilized Indian soldiers of the British Army began to work in the lum­beryards and agricultural fields of the western US and Canada. Like other Asians, they struggled against legal restrictions on owning property and obtaining full citizenship due to race-based exclusions. One remarkable story of adaptation concerns Indian men who married Mexican women in the early years of the twentieth century; the oldest community of Punjabi– Mexican–Americans is said to be found in Yuba City, California. Similar stories of adaptation can be found on the East Coast as well, dating from the same time. Bengali-speaking merchants and sailors who jumped ship found sanctuary with Puerto Rican and African–American communities in large cities such as New York and Detroit, and as far south as New Orle­ans, creating novel and hybrid legacies for the present that one scholar has called Bengali Harlem.

Today, US Vice President Elect Senator Kamala Harris traces her name and origins to a mother from Chennai and a father from Jamaica. Her her­itage sounds unusual, even exotic, but it isn’t really when seen in the larger context of the long history of relations between the US and India, for now the world’s oldest and largest democracies.

The oldest community of Punjabi- Mexican-Americans is said to be found in Yuba City, California.

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ByTure Latest Articles

Essay on india in the 21st century (300+ words).

It is very interesting to conjecture India’s position during the 21st century. The picture that we visualise in the opening of the 21st century is not of an unmixed blessing, but a mixed fabric of black and white. However, we peer into the future and look ahead of us.

India is reeling under the tremendous pressure of the population explosion. The population of India has mounted up to 1.24 billion (124 crores). If it keeps on increasing at the present 2.5% rate of growth, the country will face a serious problem to provide food and accommodation to this increasing mass of people. Instead of becoming a national asset, such volume of population would become a national liability. More children do not mean more future workers, but more mouths to feed and more unemployment.

Yet we expect a great improvement in the condition of our people. The shape of towns and villages will change beyond recognition. Towns will shoot into the villages and the villages will gradually lose its own traditional character. There will be greater ease in communication too. Space and time will be shortened with telephones and cell phones. Internet arrangements will bring the world at our home and the world would be reduced to a global village. Yet, for spiritual craving, the world would probably turn to India where still lingers spiritualism.

Discover Over 1000 Essay Topics and Ideas

Communal harmony is another point. We hope that people will feel the danger of communal disharmony and try to maintain a balance in a multi-religious state of India. They will refuse to be pawns on the chess board of politics. But, I am afraid, the reservation policy for the scheduled and back-ward classes will continue to spread discontent among the people. The smouldering resentment of the economically backward classes irrespective of castes may burst into a revolt. Democracy will be meaningless to the majority of people below the poverty line. But India will emerge as a super-military power in the 21st century. India and Pakistan will run a race of experimenting nuclear weapons and long-range guided missiles. War tension between India and Pakistan may unfortunately go on increasing but relation between India and Bangladesh is expected to remain rather peaceful.

During the 21st century India will make a great advance in science, technology, agriculture, medicine, electricity, communications, computers etc. We hope that we shall overcome the fatal diseases like cancer or AIDS. The government will undertake a series of plans for economic development for raising the standard of living of the people. But the growth of population may upset all the plans. Yet we hope to fight for a new world—a decent world that will give our youth a bright future and the old age a security.

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What India's extraordinary growth and future can teach global leaders

India and its diverse 1.3bn population can become a $10-trillion economy in the next 15 years Image:  REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

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If the 19th century can be characterized by the rise of industrialization and the 20th century by the expansion of the market economy and globalization, the defining characteristics of the 21st century are dramatic and pervasive transformations and a shift from unipolarity towards multipolarity.

Triggered by disruptive technological change, the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has led to fundamental changes in the nature and structure of the economy. With significant redistribution of the level, location and composition of output, our organizations are more global and interconnected than ever. A hastening erosion of trust in extant political frameworks and institutions is driving human societies to be more isolated and divergent. Concurrently, the ecological challenges and climate crisis have never been more existential. In a nutshell, in a fragile world order, the need for a cohesive leadership arrangement to drive positive change is conspicuous in its absence.

Have you read?

What the private sector can do for india's economic growth, india's women are the secret to a potential economic boom, how can india make sure its growth benefits all citizens.

At the same time as these grave geopolitical and ecological struggles, escalating trade tensions and policy uncertainty have led to a slowdown in investments and business confidence. With global GDP growth in 2019 downgraded to 3.2% with only a modest recovery projected for the next few years and credibility in the existing multilateral rules-based trade system waning, the prospects are worrisome. In fact, with the increasingly strong probability of global growth falling short by at least 1 percentage point from projections, the magnitude of the decline is comparable to the agonizing global recession of the early 2000s.

By contrast, the economic outlook for South Asia continues to be strong. In the past half-century, emerging and developing economies have significantly enhanced their contribution to global output from around 15% to well above 50%. Underpinned by strong domestic demand, private consumption and investment, a growth projection of 7% suggests South Asia’s resilience and strength to not only weather the global slowdown but also to contribute to propelling global growth forward.

Especially noteworthy is the economic outlook of the region’s largest economy, India. With its GDP growth projected to again increase by 7.5% in the next few years , India continues to be one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies. India’s has been a dramatic rise, deserving of the global attention that it has commanded. The stage is set for India to realize its vision of becoming a $10-trillion economy in the next decade-and-a-half and to assist in appeasing the woes besetting the world economy.

Steered by decisive leadership, India is rising to the occasion through a significantly enlarged global profile. India’s commitment to renewable energy through voluntary and ambitious renewable power capacity targets, a lead role in the Paris Climate Agreement negotiations and the International Solar Alliance shows its aspirations of becoming a leader in environment security and climate change mitigation.

India has also expanded its global stature in space exploration through widely celebrated breakthroughs such as its recent lunar mission and its distinction of becoming the fourth country worldwide to shoot down a low-orbit satellite with a missile. India, too, is more involved in global humanitarian efforts and development initiatives, including infrastructure development in Afghanistan, the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Ashgabat Agreement, the Chabahar port and the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway. The Indian Prime Minister has articulated his strong vision for an India-Africa cooperative interest and India’s deepened participation in coalitions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum and the BRICS group demonstrate its growing global influence and appetite for enhanced visibility on a range of global initiatives and multilateral fora.

With half of its population of working age, India has a unique demographic advantage. Climbing to 52nd spot in this year’s Global Innovation Index , India is one of the few countries to have consecutively improved its rank for nine years. Its distinctive demographic advantage, technical prowess and knack for innovation, fused with the leap-frogging opportunities of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, can consolidate its position as a dominant force in global economic, political and strategic affairs.

Simultaneously aware that the quest for becoming a great power must begin at home, India has undertaken groundbreaking structural reforms mirroring its growth ambitions and development priorities. Initiatives aimed at revamping India’s restrictive business regulations have already borne fruit. India’s 65-place leap in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings demonstrates an improved business climate and expounded investor confidence.

In the past decade, India has witnessed a mushrooming of start-ups, innovating across domains such as digital payments, online retail, education and software. The number of Indian unicorns has also risen every year. Furthermore, in the biggest liberalization to occur in single-brand retail in the past decade, the government has recently permitted retailers to sell goods online to Indian consumers before opening brick-and-mortar stores , significantly expanding the domestic market for global players. In addition, the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax has removed tax barriers across states and unified various central and state tax laws, creating a single common market.

Committed to ensuring that its economic achievements correspond with inclusive development, India has also made big strides in social progress. The expansion of the biometric identification system under the Unique Identification Authority of India has streamlined the delivery of government services and made resource disbursement through welfare programmes more efficient. Devising such a database of more than a billion people is no mean feat. In addition, through the financial inclusion programme Jan Dhan Yojana, it has provided bank accounts for 300 million hitherto unbanked people , creating new opportunities for them to access credit and state subsidies and bringing them into the formal economy.

Initiatives such as the Ayushman Bharat for universal health coverage in India, the world’s largest LED programme to improve energy efficiency, a sweeping rural electrification drive and a strong push towards broad-based energy access and security through the Ujjwala and Saubhagya schemes, among others, show India’s ability to devise and implement a reform agenda that balances global aspirations with critical development imperatives at home.

Under the theme, Innovating for India: Strengthening South Asia, Impacting the World , the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit 2019 will convene key leaders from government, the private sector, academia and civil society on 3-4 October to accelerate the adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and boost the region’s dynamism.

Hosted in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the aim of the Summit is to enhance global growth by promoting collaboration among South Asian countries and the ASEAN economic bloc.

The meeting will address strategic issues of regional significance under four thematic pillars:

• The New Geopolitical Reality – Geopolitical shifts and the complexity of our global system

• The New Social System – Inequality, inclusive growth, health and nutrition

• The New Ecological System – Environment, pollution and climate change

• The New Technological System – The Fourth Industrial Revolution, science, innovation and entrepreneurship

Discover a few ways the Forum is creating impact across India.

Read our guide to how to follow #ies19 across our digital channels. We encourage followers to post, share, and retweet by tagging our accounts and by using our official hashtag.

Become a Member or Partner to participate in the Forum's year-round annual and regional events. Contact us now .

Looking ahead, India must continue on its journey toward holistic structural reforms that are conducive to boosting the sustainability and resilience of its economy, while also ensuring that the progress reaches a broad base. It is important that India arms itself with modern infrastructure, social services and the connectivity becoming of a developed economy. It must simultaneously create jobs, wealth and value to accommodate the aspirations of a young and upwardly mobile population and to help it eradicate poverty. Policy solutions inspired by a vision of a regenerative, inclusive and sustainable economy will ensure that the milestone of a $10-trillion economy coincides with a stronger India at the global, national and grassroots level, with ameliorated living outcomes for all.

Achieving that scale of change in a country with more than 1.3 billion people who speak dozens of different languages and dialects and have different customs and cultural practices is monumental. But with its geographic and demographic size and extensive diversity, India has a unique opportunity to shape global agendas. It can establish itself as a role model and inspiration for the world through its response to these opportunities, with a resounding impact on our collective future. India can tap its own sphere of influence and emerge as a global leader by providing the world with replicable and scalable models for solutions to critical global challenges.

A version of this article was first published on https://www.narendramodi.in.

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Short Essay On India In 21st Century

In the 21 century, as India enters the age of computer, we would be able to solve various problems as a result of which India would appear for more glorious than the present state.

After Independence India has been on the move politically towards stability, socio-economic progress, scientific and cultural achievements. The U.N.O also wanted every country to achieve the goal of “Health for All” by the beginning of 21st century.

A number of problems of india, expected to be rooted out speedily after independence, have lifted their ugly heads even after 60 years of independence. Regionalism, separatism, terrorism are on the rise with a fiercing mood.

Unemployment ,population explosion, illiteracy, poverty, health and housing problems appear as the stumbling blocks that we are facing now-a-days. Above all, we bear the heavy burden of population and the sense of cultivating moral values has been eroded. It is a shame for us.

To provide for the basic necessities of such a vast population remains a difficult task, and there is no sign that the problem of food cloths and shelter will be solved by the start of the century. So a large section of the people will enter into the new century with poverty as their bosom friend. Another of her major problems is illiteracy. Since India has not succeeded in making education free for boys and girls ups the age of fourteen, it is unlikely that she will be able to arrest her trend of illiteracy.

Another notable problem is the condition of health of her people. So there is no chance of the fulfillment of the hope of “Health for All” programme even after passing some years of the 21st century. Scientists and technically skilled persons reflected the idea of welfare through proper distribution system. Then the poor will find themselves in the main stream and our policy on globalization and open mark economy. Active participation in the group of nations will open up new issues with the new Indian spirit in a body for advancement and set reliance. Though the Government announces various measures to tackle these problems there is no indication that the century will see proper implementation of those.

India is fast changing. The rapid growth in the field of Information Technology has opened up new avenues of employment.

The present age is the age of technology, electronics and internet. There is presence of technology in every spheres of life of Indians. We cannot spend a day without our mobile phones.

There there is surge in e-commerce marketplaces. People can buy goods from the comfort of their homes. These e-commerce companies are competing with the local business. On one hand, these online companies are sources of employment for many people. On the other, due to stiff competition, the local businesses are finding it very hard to grow their business.

Illiteracy is still a major problem for India. With the introduction of technology, most businesses are looking for educated people with some skill of computer and related technology. Illiterate people are experiencing difficulty in getting respectable employment.

Youth population should also consider joining Vocational Training courses. These courses are designed to develop skill for a specific trade. In the present age of specialization, there is surge in demand for skilled people.

Lets hope the 21st century India will solve the various prevailing problems.

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Essay on India in the 21st Century

The 21st century has witnessed India’s remarkable rise as a global power. With its rich cultural heritage, diverse population, and growing economic prowess, India has emerged as a force to be reckoned with. This essay explores the various aspects of India’s journey in the 21st century, highlighting its achievements, challenges, and the potential it holds for the future.

In terms of economic growth and development, India has experienced significant progress. The country’s GDP has been steadily rising, and it is now one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies. The liberalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s paved the way for increased foreign investment, entrepreneurship, and technological advancements. This has led to the emergence of India as a global hub for information technology, services, and manufacturing sectors.

India’s inclusive growth policies have resulted in poverty reduction and improved living standards for many citizens. Programs like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have provided employment opportunities and social security to millions of rural households. India’s focus on sustainable development has also led to progress in renewable energy, with ambitious targets for solar and wind power generation.

India’s growing economic and military capabilities have bolstered its geopolitical influence in the 21st century. As the world’s largest democracy, India plays a crucial role in shaping regional and global affairs. The country has actively engaged in multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, G20, and BRICS, advocating for issues like climate change, global trade, and counterterrorism.

India’s strategic location in South Asia has positioned it as a key player in the region. It has strengthened ties with neighboring countries through initiatives like the “Act East” policy, aimed at fostering economic integration and connectivity. The country’s diplomatic efforts have also deepened partnerships with major powers like the United States, European Union, and Japan, leading to enhanced trade, defense cooperation, and technology transfer.

India’s advancement in technology and innovation has been a defining feature of the 21st century. The country has become a global leader in information technology, with a thriving software and services industry. Indian companies have excelled in software development, research, and outsourcing, contributing to the digital transformation of businesses worldwide.

Moreover, India has witnessed a digital revolution with the widespread adoption of smartphones and internet connectivity. This has empowered millions of Indians, especially in rural areas, by providing access to education, healthcare, and e-commerce platforms. The government’s “Digital India” initiative has further accelerated the integration of technology in governance and public service delivery.

Despite its progress, India faces several challenges that need to be addressed in the 21st century. One of the most pressing issues is poverty and income inequality. While economic growth has lifted many out of poverty, a significant portion of the population still struggles to access basic amenities and opportunities. It is crucial for the government to focus on inclusive policies, skill development, and social welfare programs to ensure equitable growth.

Another challenge is the need to foster sustainable development. India’s rapid industrialization and urbanization have resulted in environmental degradation and increased carbon emissions. The country must prioritize renewable energy, environmental conservation, and sustainable urban planning to mitigate the adverse impacts of development.

Additionally, India needs to address issues such as gender inequality, healthcare accessibility, and quality education. These areas require targeted interventions and investments to ensure equal opportunities for all citizens, regardless of their socio-economic background or gender.

In conclusion, India’s journey in the 21st century has been characterized by remarkable progress, global influence, and technological advancements. The country’s economic growth, geopolitical standing, and innovation have put it on the path to becoming a global powerhouse. However, addressing the challenges of poverty, inequality, and sustainability remains crucial for India’s continued development. By embracing opportunities and implementing effective policies, India can forge a brighter future for its citizens and contribute to global prosperity and stability.

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Digital India Essay for Students - 100, 200 and 500 Words

The 21st century is a digital era. Technology has revolutionised the way we live. In India, the advent of technology has brought about a new era - the digital era. Digital India is a vision of the Indian government to transform India into a digitally better economy. Here are some sample essays on digital India.

100 Words Essay on Digital India

200 words essay on digital india, 500 words essay on digital india.

Digital India is an ambitious project that has the potential to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Digital India has also opened up opportunities for school students to connect with global educational platforms. This project has enabled students to develop their knowledge, skills and abilities with the help of online resources now available.

Digital India is a mission which aims to make India a digitally empowered society. The government has launched several initiatives under the Digital India mission like Digital India Portal, Digital India Mobile App, Digital India Payment Gateway, e-Governance and the Digital India e-Vidya program.

Digital India is also making a huge impact on the educational sector. It has improved the quality of education and made it more accessible by providing online resources and services. It is a government initiative that aims to make India a global leader in the digital revolution.

Mission Of Digital India

The mission of Digital India is to make all government services available to citizens electronically. It seeks to bridge the technology divide between the urban and rural areas by providing access to digital resources and services. The project also aims to create an environment for increased digital literacy, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Digital India has made it easier for students to access educational resources online. With the help of digital India, students can access online libraries, e-books, online courses, online tutorials and so much more. The initiative has already had a positive impact on the country. It has brought about digital transformation in the areas of banking, education, healthcare, and other services. It has enabled faster, cost-effective and secure access to information and services to citizens.

What Is The Aim Of Digital India?

The aim of the Digital India project is to ensure that all citizens have access to information and communication technology, which will enable them to access government services and participate in the digital economy.

Digital India has made it possible for students to access educational and government services from the comfort of their homes. This has made it easier for students to stay connected with the world and stay up to date with new technology and trends.

Objectives Of Digital India

One of the main objectives of Digital India is to provide digital access to all citizens, especially those from the rural and under-privileged sections of the society. Digital India seeks to create a digital infrastructure that will connect rural areas and provide citizens with access to essential services such as healthcare, education, banking and other utilities.

Digital India also seeks to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. The government aims to create an enabling environment for start-ups to succeed in the digital space. This will be done by providing incentives such as tax benefits, financial assistance and subsidies.

The government also seeks to encourage more people to use the internet. To do this, the government has taken several initiatives such as providing free internet access to rural areas, setting up digital literacy centres, and providing free Wi-Fi access in public places. These initiatives are expected to increase the number of people with access to the internet, which will in turn help to grow the digital economy.

Digital India also seeks to create an e-governance system that will improve the delivery of public services. This will be done by making the government services more transparent and user-friendly.

Advantages Of Digital India

Digital India will enable citizens to access government services online. It will also enable citizens to access online education, healthcare, banking and other services.

The Digital India e-Vidya Program is a special initiative to make quality education accessible to school students. It provides free access to online study materials and video lectures for students which has made it easier for students to access the best education from the comfort of their own homes.

Students can now access healthcare services easily. Digital India has made it easier for students to book doctor’s appointments, check their health records and get medical advice online.

Digital India has made it easier for students to access government services. Students can now access government services such as the Aadhaar card, PAN card, voter ID and many more.

Students can now access social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This has made it easier for students to stay connected with their friends and family and stay updated with the latest news and trends.

Students can access online music streaming sites such as Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora. They can also access streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu. This has made it easier for students to stay entertained and enjoy their free time.

Digital India is an ambitious project that has the potential to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. School students should learn about this project, understand its potential and be part of it – so that they can benefit from its promise of a better future.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

• Construction
• Entertainment
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• Information Technology

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

GIS officer work on various GIS software to conduct a study and gather spatial and non-spatial information. GIS experts update the GIS data and maintain it. The databases include aerial or satellite imagery, latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and manually digitized images of maps. In a career as GIS expert, one is responsible for creating online and mobile maps.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Database Architect

If you are intrigued by the programming world and are interested in developing communications networks then a career as database architect may be a good option for you. Data architect roles and responsibilities include building design models for data communication networks. Wide Area Networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), and intranets are included in the database networks. It is expected that database architects will have in-depth knowledge of a company's business to develop a network to fulfil the requirements of the organisation. Stay tuned as we look at the larger picture and give you more information on what is db architecture, why you should pursue database architecture, what to expect from such a degree and what your job opportunities will be after graduation. Here, we will be discussing how to become a data architect. Students can visit NIT Trichy , IIT Kharagpur , JMI New Delhi . 

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Product manager.

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Operations Manager

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Stock Analyst

Individuals who opt for a career as a stock analyst examine the company's investments makes decisions and keep track of financial securities. The nature of such investments will differ from one business to the next. Individuals in the stock analyst career use data mining to forecast a company's profits and revenues, advise clients on whether to buy or sell, participate in seminars, and discussing financial matters with executives and evaluate annual reports.

A Researcher is a professional who is responsible for collecting data and information by reviewing the literature and conducting experiments and surveys. He or she uses various methodological processes to provide accurate data and information that is utilised by academicians and other industry professionals. Here, we will discuss what is a researcher, the researcher's salary, types of researchers.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software. 

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

Photography is considered both a science and an art, an artistic means of expression in which the camera replaces the pen. In a career as a photographer, an individual is hired to capture the moments of public and private events, such as press conferences or weddings, or may also work inside a studio, where people go to get their picture clicked. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous career opportunities in photography. With the boom in advertising, media, and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option for many Indian youths.

An individual who is pursuing a career as a producer is responsible for managing the business aspects of production. They are involved in each aspect of production from its inception to deception. Famous movie producers review the script, recommend changes and visualise the story. 

They are responsible for overseeing the finance involved in the project and distributing the film for broadcasting on various platforms. A career as a producer is quite fulfilling as well as exhaustive in terms of playing different roles in order for a production to be successful. Famous movie producers are responsible for hiring creative and technical personnel on contract basis.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Individuals who opt for a career as a reporter may often be at work on national holidays and festivities. He or she pitches various story ideas and covers news stories in risky situations. Students can pursue a BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication) , B.M.M. (Bachelor of Mass Media) , or  MAJMC (MA in Journalism and Mass Communication) to become a reporter. While we sit at home reporters travel to locations to collect information that carries a news value.  

Corporate Executive

Are you searching for a Corporate Executive job description? A Corporate Executive role comes with administrative duties. He or she provides support to the leadership of the organisation. A Corporate Executive fulfils the business purpose and ensures its financial stability. In this article, we are going to discuss how to become corporate executive.

Multimedia Specialist

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Process Development Engineer

The Process Development Engineers design, implement, manufacture, mine, and other production systems using technical knowledge and expertise in the industry. They use computer modeling software to test technologies and machinery. An individual who is opting career as Process Development Engineer is responsible for developing cost-effective and efficient processes. They also monitor the production process and ensure it functions smoothly and efficiently.

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

Information Security Manager

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

ITSM Manager

Automation test engineer.

An Automation Test Engineer job involves executing automated test scripts. He or she identifies the project’s problems and troubleshoots them. The role involves documenting the defect using management tools. He or she works with the application team in order to resolve any issues arising during the testing process. 

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India in the 21st Century

What Everyone Needs to Know

A focused and accessible introduction to modern India by award-winning author Mira Kamdar, India in the 21st Century addresses the history, political and social structures, economic and financial system, and geopolitical landscape of a country set to play a critical role in how the world evolves in the coming decades.

In a concise question-and-answer format, Kamdar addresses India’s history, including its colonial legacy and independence movement; the political and social structures in place today; its rapidly growing economy and financial system; the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century and India’s place in global politics; and the environmental concerns faced by the country, among other topics. She explores India’s contradictions and complications, from its worringly narrow politics of patronage to its willingness to censor information by banning books and controlling internet content. At the same time, Kamdar celebrates the merging of India’s multicultural landscape and deep artistic and intellectual heritage with the dawning of the Information Age and the expansion of mass media, which have made it one of the world’s 21st-century cultural powerhouses.

With clarity and balance, Kamdar brings her in-depth knowledge of the country and eloquent writing style to bear in this focused and incisive addition to Oxford’s highly successful What Everyone Needs to Know series.

Listen to a podcast of the Carnegie Council’s interview with Mira on India in the 21st Century.

• Ian Bremmer
• Sonia Faleiro
• Sagarika Ghose
• Adam Roberts
• Sumit Ganguly

“India in the 21 st  century is at a crossroads—and the path it decides to take will have an impact far beyond its own borders. A book as ambitious as the country it covers, Mira Kamdar does us all an important service by writing this excellent volume.” – Ian Bremmer , President of Eurasia Group and author, Us versus Them: The Failure of Globalism

“This deeply researched and beautifully written book is a vital gateway into modern India.” – Sonia Faleiro , author of  Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars

“A comprehensive detailed and rich account of India’s history, society, and politics that is both incisively written and rigorously researched.” – Sagarika Ghose , distinguished Indian journalist and author of  Indira: India’s Most Powerful Prime Minister

“Mira Kamdar, an astute observer of India, has produced an authoritative yet succinct introduction to a continent-sized country. She draws on India’s rich history and its scientific, humane, and religious traditions to provide brisk and clear-eyed assessments of India’s current affairs. As India grows, its global influence is rising too. Newcomers and old India hands alike will find this to be a valuable guide to an immense, fast-changing country.” – Adam Roberts , author of  India: Superfast Primetime Ultimate Nation

“This concise book is a most useful primer for those interested in the history, politics, economics and society of contemporary India. It is written in a lucid, cogent style and is laden with pertinent information about this complex and often ill-understood country. Those seeking a quick but reliable understanding of where the country stands and is headed will benefit significantly from this work.” – Sumit Ganguly , Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana University, Bloomington

Essay on “India in The 21st Century” for School, College Students, Long and Short English Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12, College and Competitive Exams.

India in The 21st Century               

At the dawn of independence, India had to face stupendous problems. The first day Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and his colleagues.,s were gall and wormwood to As a result of the partition, a large number of people reached India from the areas demarcated as Pakistan. They had to be rehabilitated. The assimilation of some states like Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir created problems. But Vallabhai Patel, the Home Minister, tackled them deftly and intrepidly.

When the British left India, the condition of our economy was miserable. For many years, they had been exploiting our resources. They had no desire to ameliorate the lot of Indians.

We started economic planning in 1951 and Nine Five Year Plans were implemented. The Tenth Plan is now being implemented. As a result of these Plans, we have been able to achieve good progress in several fields.

The problems we have to solve remain gigantic. We have not been able to eradicate starvation, malnutrition,illiteracy, and unemployment, etc. froze our country. According to a UNICEF report, nearly 10,000 children die every day because of malnutrition. India’s malnutrition is the most disturbing in the world. The report says, “Chronic daily famine goes on.” One out of every forty-five women runs the risk of dying during pregnancy or child-birth. The population grows fast, which hinders the economic development of the country. Those living below the poverty line come to about 360 million. The number of dowry-deaths in some states like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra is increasing. Female illiteracy is a very serious problem except in Kerala. There are 350 million illiterates in the country. The number of child prostitutes exceeds three lakh. In the report of the UNICEF, India figures in the list of countries known as “sex tourism destinations.” The privatization started by the government has reduced the chances of the weaker sections in getting employment. In government service and government companies these sections get reservation. But the private companies do not give reservation to these sections. To enable them to get employment in private companies the government should amend the Employment Exchange (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act of 1959. So far the government has not decided to amend it. A UNICEF report published in 1993 ranked India 50th in primary education among a total of eighty-seven developing countries.

Corruption has become deep-rooted. Most of our politicians arc not sincere. They are very good at feathering their nests. Those who have influence, embezzle as much money as they can. Such people often escape punishment.

Because of the various problems mentioned above, we don’t think India will be prosperous in the 21th century. The rate of India’s growth in technology in the 20th century was only 8%. If India is to catch up with the world’s major industrialised countries, she needs a much better economic growth, about nine times higher. Those who expatiate upon the huge amounts of money that are spent on the development of the country forget that the fruits of progress have been monopolised by a few privileged persons. There is no magic or incantation by which the problems besetting us can be solved in a jiffy. Life will be irksome and onerous for the majority of the people of India in the 21th century.

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Modern Indian History: From about the middle of the eighteenth century until the present – significant events, personalities, and issues

Last updated on January 6, 2024 by Alex Andrews George

Modern Indian history refers to the period of Indian history beginning in the middle of the 18th century, following the collapse of the mighty Mughal Empire , and continuing through to the present day.

This period is characterized by the rise of nationalist movements, the struggle for independence from British colonial rule, and the formation of the modern nation-state of India.

Key figures in modern Indian history include Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sardar Patel.

The period has also seen significant economic and social changes and the rise of India as a major player in the global economy.

Also read: Delegated Legislation

Table of Contents

Modern Indian History: From the Mughal Empire to Independence and Beyond

Modern Indian history covers a wide range of events and developments, from the decline of the Mughal Empire and the rise of British colonial rule to the Indian independence movement and the challenges faced by the newly independent nation.

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The decline of the Mughal Empire

The middle of the 18th century marked the beginning of the decline of the Mughal Empire (Early Mughals) in India, which had been a dominant political and cultural force for centuries.

This period saw the rise of regional powers, such as the Marathas who began to challenge the Mughal rule. The British East India Company too tried to gain control of large parts of India through a series of military conquests and economic manipulation.

Wish to know more? Read: India in 1750 – Decline of the Mughal Empire, Rule of Later Mughals, and Emergence of Successor States

The emergence of the British as the central controlling authority

During the 19th century, the British established a firm hold on India. The British started implementing their policies in India. The British used India as a colonial market which resulted in a significant ‘Drain of Wealth’ from India to the United Kingdom. The British policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ created tension among communities in India and affected its unity and integration. However, some of the British measures like the creation of a centralized bureaucracy, the introduction of Western-style education, and the expansion of infrastructure, such as railways and telegraph lines gave India a modern outlook.

Wish to know more? Read: The British Expansion in India – East India Company, Presidencies, Governor-generals, and Battles

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Dissatisfaction against the Foreign rule

Unlike the Mughals, the British never integrated completely with the Indians. Many Indians were not happy under foreign rule and white supremacy. The Indian nationalist movement began to take shape in the late 19th century. Leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal called for greater Indian self-rule.

Wish to know more? Read:

• The Changes introduced by the British in India
• Popular Uprisings and Revolts against the British
• Socio-Religious Movements in India

Nationalist Movements and Independence

However, it was Mahatma Gandhi who truly galvanized the Indian people and led the country on the path of non-violent resistance against British colonial rule. With the support of millions of Indians, Gandhi’s campaigns of civil disobedience and non-cooperation forced the British government to negotiate with Indian leaders and eventually grant independence in 1947.

Wish to know more? Read: India’s struggle for independence: The Indian Freedom Movement

Building of a new nation under Nehru

The period following independence saw the country under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. Nehru implemented policies of planned economic development and industrialization, which led to rapid economic growth and social change in India. However, Nehru’s focus on socialism and state control also led to inefficiencies and slow growth in certain sectors.

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Wars with Pakistan and China

India’s relations with Pakistan, which was formed as a separate country for Muslims, have been marked by conflict and tension, including multiple wars and ongoing disputes over the region of Kashmir. India has also faced political instability, with frequent changes in government and a rise in regional, religious, and caste-based politics.

Economic Liberlisation and Globalisation

In the 1990s, under Prime Minister P.V Narasimha Rao and his finance minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, India adopted economic liberalization policies, leading to a significant increase in economic growth and foreign investment. This also led to a rapid expansion of the middle class and significant improvements in living standards for many Indians.

Significant progress in spite of challenges

India has continued to grow economically and politically in the 21st century, with a rising global profile and increasing influence in international affairs. The country has also made significant progress in areas such as technology, space exploration, and renewable energy. However, India still faces many challenges, including poverty, inequality, and communal tensions.

Significant events in the Modern Indian History

There have been many significant events in modern Indian history from 1750 to 1947. One of the most important events during this period was the British colonization of India, which began in the 18th century and lasted until the middle of the 20th century.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Indian Mutiny, was a major event that marked the beginning of the end of British East India Company rule in India and led to the British Crown taking direct control of the country.

The Non-Cooperation Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi in the 1920s, the Salt Satyagraha in 1930 and the Quit India Movement in 1942 were some of the key events in the Indian independence movement. These events led to a growing sense of nationalism among Indians and ultimately led to the country gaining independence from British rule in 1947. This was a significant event not only for India but also for the entire subcontinent, as it led to the creation of Pakistan as well.

Another important event in Indian history was the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Gandhi was a key leader in the independence movement and his death had a profound impact on the country.

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 and 1971, the economic liberalization of 1991, the Pokhran nuclear test of 1998, the Kargil War of 1999 and the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008 are some of the other notable events in modern Indian history.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

Also known as the Indian Mutiny or the First War of Independence, this was a major rebellion against British colonial rule in India.

Birth of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885

The Indian National Congress, a political party which became the primary voice of the Indian independence movement, was founded in 1885.

The partition of Bengal in 1905

The partition of Bengal in 1905 by the British government was an attempt to weaken the growing nationalist movement through the ‘Divide and Rule’ policy. Many Indians opposed this.

The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919

The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919, where British troops killed hundreds of unarmed Indian civilians, was a turning point in Indian history and increased the resentment towards British rule.

Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920

Led by Mahatma Gandhi, this movement was a major campaign of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance against British colonial rule.

The Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930

The Salt Satyagraha in 1930 led by Mahatma Gandhi, was a peaceful protest against the British salt monopoly and became a symbol of resistance to British rule.

The Government of India Act 1935

The Government of India Act 1935 was passed, which aimed to give Indians more representation in government but was widely criticized for falling short of true self-government.

World War II

The forced involvement of India in World War II put a heavy burden on the economy and increased resentment towards British rule.

The Quit India Movement in 1942

The Quit India Movement in 1942, was a mass civil disobedience movement called by Mahatma Gandhi for immediate independence of India, it was one of the most aggressive movements against British colonial rule.

The Indian Independence Act of 1947

This act passed by the British parliament granted independence to India and Pakistan on 15th August 1947.

Partition of India in 1947

In 1947, British India was partitioned into the independent nations of India and Pakistan, with a large-scale population exchange of Hindus and Muslims.

India-China War 1962

The war fought between India and China in 1962 over the disputed border region resulted in a Chinese victory.

The Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s

The period of increase in agricultural production in India in the 1960s and 1970s was due to the introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation facilities.

Indian Nuclear Program in 1974

In 1974 India successfully detonated a nuclear device, becoming the 6th nuclear weapons state in the world.

The Emergency in 1975

In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India, suspending civil liberties and democratic institutions.

The assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1884

Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India was assassinated by her own bodyguards in 1984.

Economic Liberalization in 1991

In 1991, under Prime Minister P.V Narasimha Rao and his finance minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, India adopted economic liberalization policies.

The Mumbai Bombings in 1993

A series of bombings in Mumbai in 1993, orchestrated by organized crime groups, resulted in the deaths of over 250 people.

Rise of Right-wing Politics from the late 1990s

From the late 1990s, India saw the rise of right-wing, Hindu nationalist politics, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Kargil War of 1999

A conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999, fought in the Kargil district of Kashmir, resulted in an Indian victory.

The Gujarat Riots of 2002

In 2002, Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in the state of Gujarat, resulting in the deaths of over 1000 people, mostly Muslims.

The 26/11 Mumbai Terror Attacks in 2008

A series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008, carried out by a Pakistan-based militant group, resulted in the deaths of over 160 people.

The Anna Hazare Movement in 2011

The movement led by Anna Hazare in 2011, demanded the implementation of the Jan Lokpal Bill, a proposed anti-corruption law.

The 2014 General Election

The BJP led by Narendra Modi emerged as the single largest party in the general elections, leading to Modi becoming the Prime Minister.

Demonetization in 2016

In 2016, the Indian government demonetized the 500 and 1000 rupee notes, effectively rendering 86% of the cash in circulation invalid.

The abrogation of Article 370 in 2019

In 2019, the Indian government revoked the special status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, sparking widespread protests and criticism from various political parties and human rights organizations

The COVID-19 Pandemic

India was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with a lot of cases and deaths.

Significant Personalities in Modern Indian History

There have been many significant personalities in modern Indian history who have played a crucial role in shaping the country.

Mahatma Gandhi

Considered the “Father of the Nation,” Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian independence movement through non-violent civil disobedience and is considered one of the most influential figures in Indian history.

Jawaharlal Nehru

India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru played a key role in shaping the country’s foreign and domestic policies following independence.

Sardar Patel

Known as the “Iron Man of India,” Sardar Patel played a key role in the integration of the princely states into the Indian Union following independence.

B. R. Ambedkar

An Indian jurist, economist, politician and social reformer, Ambedkar was the main architect of the Indian Constitution and champion for the rights of Dalits (formerly known as “untouchables”) and other marginalized communities.

Subhas Chandra Bose

A prominent Indian nationalist leader, Subhas Chandra Bose was a key figure in the Indian independence movement and advocated for a more aggressive approach to achieving freedom from British rule.

Rajendra Prasad

India’s first President, Rajendra Prasad played a key role in the drafting of the Indian Constitution and in the early years of the Indian Republic.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

A prominent Muslim leader, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was a key figure in the Indian independence movement and served as India’s first Education Minister following independence.

C. Rajagopalachari

A freedom fighter and one of the first leaders of the Indian National Congress, Rajagopalachari served as the last Governor-General of India and later as the Chief Minister of Madras state.

Bhagat Singh

Bhagat Singh was an Indian revolutionary socialist who was influential in the Indian independence movement, he is considered to be one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement, and is often referred to as Shaheed Bhagat Singh, the word “Shaheed” meaning “martyr” in Arabic.

Indira Gandhi

India’s first female Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was a powerful political figure who implemented policies of economic development and industrialization, but also faced criticism for authoritarianism and human rights abuses.

Rajiv Gandhi

The son of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi served as Prime Minister of India and was responsible for introducing several economic and technological advancements in the country.

V. P. Singh

The 7th Prime Minister of India, Singh was a leader of the Janata Dal party and is remembered for his efforts to address issues of caste discrimination and corruption.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

A former Prime Minister of India, Vajpayee was a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and played a key role in shaping India’s foreign policy.

Manmohan Singh

India’s first Sikh Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh served two terms as Prime Minister and is credited with implementing economic liberalization policies that led to significant growth in the Indian economy.

Narendra Modi

The current Prime Minister of India, Modi is a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has implemented a range of economic and social policies during his time in office.

Major Issues in the Modern Indian History

Modern India witnessed many problems and issues. The major issues in the history of modern India include poverty, inequality, caste discrimination, communal tensions etc. Most of these issues are still prevalent in India.

(1) Colonialism and the Drain of Wealth

The impact of British colonialism on India , including the exploitation of resources and the suppression of Indian culture and identity, was a major issue in modern Indian history.

(2) Communal Tensions and Religious Violence

India has a diverse population made up of many different religious and ethnic groups. Communal tensions and religious violence, particularly between Hindus and Muslims, have been recurring issues in modern Indian history.

(3) Caste Discrimination

India’s caste system , which has traditionally determined a person’s social status and occupation based on birth, has been a major issue in modern Indian history. Discrimination and violence against lower castes, particularly Dalits (formerly known as “untouchables”), have been widespread.

(4) Poverty

Despite significant economic growth in recent decades, poverty  remains a major issue in India. Millions of Indians still live in extreme poverty.

(5) Inequality

There is a wide gap between the rich and the poor.

(6) Political Instability and Corruption

India has seen frequent changes in government and political instability, with a rise in regional and caste-based politics. Corruption has also been a major issue, with many politicians and bureaucrats being accused of corrupt practices.

(7) Separatist movements

India is a diverse country. Many regions have their own distinct cultural and linguistic identities. Separatist movements in many states/regions in India have been a major issue in modern Indian history.

(8) Human rights violations

The suppression of civil liberties and democratic institutions, violence against marginalized communities, and extrajudicial killings are reported in India.

(9) Environmental degradation

India’s rapid economic growth has led to a significant increase in pollution and environmental degradation, with issues such as deforestation, water pollution, and air pollution becoming increasingly severe.

(10) Political Instability

The 1990s and 2000s saw a rise in regional and caste-based politics. This resulted in coalition politics and political instability. Even though not without criticism, the popularity of right-wing politics resulted in a stable majority government in India after 2014.

(11) India-Pakistan Conflicts

The relationship between India and Pakistan , which have a long-standing dispute over the region of Kashmir, has been a major issue in modern Indian history. The two countries have fought several wars, and tensions between them remain high.

(12) India-China Conflicts

India and China engaged in war in 1962 over territorial disputes and conflicts, which resulted in a Chinese victory. There are ongoing border disputes in the Himalayan region.

(13) Internal Security Issues

Internal security issues in India include a range of challenges that affect the country’s stability and safety. Some of the major internal security issues in India include Insurgency , Terrorism , Naxalism, Cybercrimes etc.

In conclusion, modern Indian history is a multifaceted story of political struggles, economic development, and social change.

From the decline of the Mughal Empire to the rise of the nationalist movement, from the struggle for independence to the challenges of building a modern nation-state , the history of India is a story of a people’s determination to shape their own destiny.

Also read:  Modern Indian History Books and Authors

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Article contents

The indian novel in the 21st century.

• Amardeep Singh Amardeep Singh Lehigh University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.414
• Published online: 26 February 2018

The Indian novel has been a vibrant and energetic expressive space in the 21st century. While the grand postcolonial gestures characteristic of the late-20th-century Indian novel have been in evidence in new novels by established authors such as Vikram Chandra, Amitav Ghosh, and Salman Rushdie, a slate of new authors has emerged in this period as well, charting a range of new novelistic modes. Some of these authors are Kiran Desai, Aravind Adiga, Githa Hariharan, Samina Ali, Karan Mahajan, and Amitava Kumar. In general, there has been a move away from ambitious literary fiction in the form of the “huge, baggy monster” that led to the publication of several monumental postcolonial novels in the 1980s and 1990s; increasingly the most dynamic and influential Indian writing uses new novelistic forms and literary styles tied to the changing landscape of India’s current contemporary social and political problems. The newer generation of authors has also eschewed the aspiration to represent the entirety of life in modern India, and instead aimed to explore much more limited regional and cultural narrative frameworks. If a novel like Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) took its protagonist all over the Indian subcontinent and indexed a large number of important historical controversies in the interest of broad representation, Padma Viswnanathan’s The Toss of a Lemon (2008) limits itself to a focus on a single Tamil Brahmin family’s orientation to issues of caste and gender, and remains effectively local to Tamil Nadu. There is no central agenda or defining idiom of this emerging literary culture, but three major groupings can be identified that encapsulate the major themes and preoccupations of 21st-century Indian fiction: “New Urban Realism,” “Gender and Secular History,” and “Globalizing India, Reinscribing the Past.”

• globalization
• world literature
• South Asian literature
• postcolonial India
• national allegory
• mass market fiction

The Indian novel has been a vibrant and energetic expressive space in the 21st century . While the grand “postcolonial” gestures characteristic of some of the most influential 20th-century Indian novels have been in evidence in new novels by established authors like Vikram Chandra, Amitav Ghosh, and Salman Rushdie, a slate of new authors has emerged in this period as well, charting out a range of new novelistic modes. In general, there has been a move away from ambitious literary fiction in the form of the “huge, baggy monster” that led to the publication of several monumental postcolonial novels in the 1980s and 1990s (Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children [ 1981 ], Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy [ 1993 ], and Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance [ 1995 ] being three cases in point). Such novels are still being published—two noteworthy examples might be Chandra’s Sacred Games ( 2006 ), and Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy ( 2008–2015 )—but increasingly the most dynamic and influential Indian writing is exploring new novelistic forms and literary styles. Amit Chaudhari once described the “large, postmodernist Indian English novel” as pursuing a “mimesis of form, where the largeness of the book allegorizes the largeness of the country it represents.” 1 Another version of this idea might be Fredric Jameson’s much-debated “national allegory” concept. 2 Admittedly, not all Indian novelists writing in English even in the 1980s and 1990s aspired toward the baggy nationalist allegory; Chaudhuri himself is a case in point. Still, in the most exciting new Indian fiction published since 2000 , the newer generation of authors has eschewed the aspiration to represent the entirety of life in modern India, and instead aimed to explore much more limited regional and cultural narrative frameworks. There is no central agenda or defining idiom of this emerging literary culture—and that is in some ways the point—though three major groupings take up some of the major themes of Indian literature of the early 21st century : “New Urban Realism,” “Gender and Religion,” and “Globalizing India, Reinscribing the Past.” To be clear, these are loose groupings introduced that help describe some important new trends in Indian fiction. In actuality, most texts have elements of more than one of these thematic areas, with some (for instance, Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness ) straddling all three.

The focus here will largely be on novels written in English, for reasons that will be explored in greater detail in the note on language below. Also, it seems important to state that the emphasis here is on Indian novels, rather than Indian diaspora fiction. Thus, diaspora-oriented fiction by writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri or Chitra Divakaruni is not our concern in the present essay; the primary interest is in contemporary novels that are set in India, and that can be seen as contributing to the conversation about Indian literature occurring within India in some way. That said, it seems salient to note that here no analytical distinction is made between writers who are based primarily in India and those who are based abroad. Thus, because they are set entirely in India, books like Padma Viswanathan’s The Toss of a Lemon ( 2008 ) or Chandra’s Sacred Games should be considered “Indian” novels even if their authors live in the United States.

First, a brief section on language (which seems essential in the highly linguistically complicated universe of Indian literature), and the growth of domestic Indian markets for fiction, which has led to the realignment of the Indian publishing industry.

A Note on Language

India has about twenty different literary languages. The linguistic limitations of critics, including the author of the present essay, are likely to be an issue in most literary studies of Indian literature, which cannot be understood as a singular national literary tradition in the manner of the European traditions. Rather, Indian literature must be understood as internally comparative , and any analysis that claims to represent it in its entirety (and, to be clear, the present essay is not making that claim) must be comparative. All that said, English remains the dominant language for Indian literature, at least in terms of the economy of public prestige. Writers in Indian languages frequently complain that their works remain unknown outside of India, unreviewed, and largely unread by the country’s most educated readers. In a recent collection of short stories, Hindi writer Uday Prakash made his complaint about the secondary status of Hindi literature palpable: “When the English were here, it was English that made us into slaves. Now that the English are gone, it’s Hindi that’s turned us into slaves.” 3

Thanks to colonialism, a large number of Indians speak English, and English is widely taught in schools. However, even optimistic assessments suggest that approximately 10 percent of India’s population (more than 100 million people) has some knowledge of the English language, though it is likely that only a small minority of those English-speakers have enough proficiency to be readers of English-language literature. 4 Accurate data to quantify the size of different linguistic literary markets operating in India is also lacking. While there are no hard numbers regarding publishing sales in India—nor is there an official, nationwide “bestsellers list” that crosses linguistic boundaries—the pulp fiction market in such languages as Hindi and Tamil is believed to be much larger than the domestic market for English-language writing. However, much Hindi pulp fiction is sold quite cheaply; an English-language novel might be sold in prestige chain bookstores like Crosswords for ten or even twenty times the price of a work of Tamil or Hindi fiction. It is fair to assume that writers like Prakash (an author of serious literary fiction in Hindi) are not receiving the six-figure advances that writers like Arundhati Roy or Vikram Chandra have been known to get from western publishers.

Several writers in Indian languages have been influential with Indian critics in recent years, including the aforementioned Prakash (Hindi), Geet Chaturvedi (Hindi), Vyomesh Shukla (Hindi), and Vivek Shanbhag (Kannada). Several of these writers have been at least partially translated into English, with notable translations of Prakash ( The Girl With the Golden Parasol [ 2003 ] and Walls of Delhi [ 2008 ]) and Shanbhag ( Ghachar Ghochar [ 2017 ]) appearing in recent years.

Even within English, the language of Indian fiction has been changing in recent years. While earlier postcolonial fiction incorporated italicized words from Indian languages sparingly (and often with supplementary glossaries), many writers in the post- 2000 generation of Indian English fiction use a version of English that is much closer to the version of Indian English spoken in contemporary India—with a frequently intense sprinkling of terms and ideas from Indian languages that are presented matter-of-factly and without annotation. Moreover, writers Amitava Kumar and Aravind Adiga have written with considerable self-consciousness and sophistication about the challenge of achieving authenticity while writing in English. In Kumar’s novel Home Products (published in the United States as Nobody Does the Right Thing ), the protagonist Binod Singh begins his career as a Hindi-language journalist and struggles to make the transition to English, even as he is only too ready to bask in the prestige offered by access to India’s elite, English-speaking world. After making the jump to English, Binod finds that everyday life in rural, Hindi-speaking northern India does not seem to register for him in the same way in English as it did when he wrote in Hindi: “Nevertheless, while writing entirely in English, Binod found that he could not talk very easily about villages and small towns. He lacked the idiom to express his feelings directly about harvests or heavy rains that led to flooding, the excitement and then the numbing that followed the news of another caste massacre.” 5 The suggestion is that while English may be the medium of choice for Kumar and Adiga, one has to be self-conscious about its limits as a representational tool for the so-called real India. The growing heterogeneity of Indian-English voices and idioms is not necessarily an unambiguously good thing for India’s other literary languages; it also seems to have developed alongside the decline of the prospect of any serious contestation of English as India’s dominant literary language.

While an earlier generation of postcolonial Indian authors often complained that they needed the status of western publication to really break through and gain a broad readership and interest amongst Indian readers, the presumption of western publishing dominance is beginning to shift. The domestic Indian publishing industry continues to gain steam, with growing numbers of new authors being published each year independent of their status or connection to the West. While earlier it was routine for an Indian author to aim for first publication in London or New York, the most commercially successful new Indian writers (i.e., Chetan Bhagat) are increasingly finding interest from western publishers after they have already established themselves as popular brands in India itself.

Far and away, the author most identified with the growth in the domestic Indian publishing market is one likely to be totally unknown in the west, Chetan Bhagat. In the 2000s, Bhagat published seven popular novels and two nonfiction books. Several of the novels have either been produced as commercial Hindi films; in some cases, Bhagat himself was involved in the screenplay. One Night @ the Call Center ( 2005 ) takes a prominent feature of globalizing India—the Internet-based call centers that were set up by multinational corporations in urban centers largely to service the needs of western consumers—and uses it as a framing device to explore the troubles of a group of young Indians. Other Bhagat novels set on college campuses have made the generational focus of his fiction even more direct ( Five Point Someone [ 2004 ] and 2 States [ 2009 ]). These novels have been notable for Bhagat’s willingness to take on various social issues of importance to metropolitan readers (cross-regional romance in 2 States , the problems of stress and hazing in Indian universities in Five Point Someone , the problem of religious intolerance in The 3 Mistakes of My Life [ 2008 ]), generally packaged as entertainment for the masses).

Bhagat is well aware that his success has had more to do with the tastes of the masses than with India’s cosmopolitan critics (“The book critics, they all hate me,” he quipped to the New York Times in 2008 ). 6 The scale of his success—one statistic indicates that he has sold more than twelve million books—is orders of magnitude greater than that of the most commercially successful writer of serious literary fiction in recent years, Aravind Adiga. 7 Adiga’s novels and short story collections have been considered publishing successes, though his success within India has followed the Rushdie-Roy model in that is has been a consequence of his status as a Booker Prize–winning author respected by western critics. Adiga’s The White Tiger sold 200,000 copies after Adiga won the 2008 Booker Prize, but his subsequent collection Between the Assassinations had a much smaller initial print run. 8

Since 2000 , there has been a rapid expansion of genre fiction in the Anglophone Indian fiction market. While pulp fiction has always been part of fiction written in Indian languages, genres such as science fiction, fantasy, and the military/espionage thriller were underserved, especially for prestige-oriented consumers of English-language fiction. With the rise of a new generation of writers like Samit Basu (the Gameworld Trilogy ; Turbulence [ 2012 ]; Resistance [ 2013 ]), there has been a rapid growth of interest in domestic science fiction. Basu’s later novels are particularly noteworthy in that they rework the conventions of the western superhero story for Indian readers. As Basu put it in an interview on Resistance : “the American superhero story is usually about protecting and preserving the world, with the villain as the agent of change, but I saw no reason to apply that to the Indian subcontinent, where the status quo is really not something that calls for preservation.” 9 Fantasy has also become quite popular among English-language Indian readers, with the emergence of Amish Tripathi (see his hugely popular Shiva Trilogy [ 2010–2013 ]), and Ashok Banker (the Ramayana Series 2003–2010 ). Finally, writers with strong journalistic credentials have also tried their hand at military and espionage fiction oriented specifically towards male readers; one thinks of Aniruddha Bahal’s Bunker 13 ( 2003 ) and Tarun Tejpal’s The Story of My Assassins ( 2009 ).

Alongside the growth of genre fiction, the 2000s have seen the emergence of a large market in graphic novels. Some of these follow the trend towards superhero narratives (and indeed, several authors in the genre fiction market have also published comics), often with a nod toward Indian mythology, mentioned with reference to genre fiction above. Alongside more popular entertainments (comics) a number of graphic novels with a more literary sensibility have also emerged, including Amruta Patil’s Kari ( 2008 ), and Vishwajyoti Ghosh’s Delhi Calm ( 2010 ). Vishwajyoti Ghosh also edited a collection of graphic Partition narratives, This Side, That Side: Restorying Partition ( 2013 ).

There is no doubt that the market of Indian fiction in English has been evolving in recent years, and there are good reasons to expect it to continue to evolve. The steady growth in the number of English-language readers in India, the advent of mass-market Indian authors like Bhagat, and the proliferation of genres in recent years, suggest that there are reasons to be optimistic. However, the advent of digital marketplaces, widespread piracy, and the increasing pervasiveness of a middle-class culture increasingly addicted to social media and digital devices leave some uncertainty regarding the future prospects for authors, publishers, and booksellers in India.

The New Urban Realism

The new urban realism in Indian fiction features a highly realistic style that gives precedence to local details and often an emphasis on regional cities like Patna or Hyderabad, rather than national metropolitan centers (i.e., Delhi and Mumbai). The style also tends to feature an encounter with themes of criminality, violence, corruption, and an open-eyed acceptance of liberal Indian hypocrisy (especially in an era of simultaneous wealth accumulation and urban slum growth) and double standards around topics such as caste and religious biases. The starting point for the burst of writing that emphasized this style might well be a nonfiction book, Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found ( 2004 ). That book, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 , caused a sensation both among western readers and readers in India. Mehta’s ability to get forthright accounts of police-targeted killings (“encounters”), Bombay gangsters, sex workers, corrupt politicians, and the implication of Bollywood movie stars and producers in all of it set loose a flood of interest in this type of material. Many of the authors we associate with the New Urban Realism are also interested in the tension between state violence and various forms of religious radicalization that feed terrorism. In some ways, the New Urban Realism might be the Indian analogue to “post 9/11 fiction” in the British and American publishing worlds. Finally, it seems important to acknowledge that the New Urban Realism can be seen as a way for a new generation of authors to differentiate itself from what came before; the subgenre generally eschews fanciful elements such as the old magic realism of Rushdie or the preciosity of Roy’s God of Small Things ( 1997 ). While the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire was most directly an adaptation of Vikas Swarup’s Q&A ( 2005 ), the producers and screenplay writers of that hit film have freely admitted that they were also thinking of Maximum City in their depiction of Mumbai street crime. Intriguingly, while the over-the-top reception of Roy’s first novel set it up as a text that more recent novelists might position themselves against, Roy’s most recent novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness ( 2017 ), might actually be seen as participating in a form of urban realism.

Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize–winning The White Tiger encapsulates the trend towards the new urban realism (though it also can be read as a novel of globalization). Adiga has a typically complex personal history that speaks to the globality of his approach to modern India: He was born in Chennai, raised partly in Australia, and studied at Columbia and Oxford Universities. He worked in India as a journalist for several years, and has indicated that his travels, especially to rural India, were what inspired him to write The White Tiger . This novel playfully uses a first-person conceit to follow the rise of a poor man of low-caste background from his modest upbringing in a rural part of the “backward” state of Bihar (described in Adiga’s novel as the “Darkness”) to a very wealthy and powerful situation in metropolitan Delhi—and eventually the tech hub that is today’s Bangalore.

Some critics have noted that the method of Adiga’s novel, with its polished style and its play on American “get rich quick” self-help books, might in fact replicate the very marginalization of rural and impoverished areas of Indian society that the novel seems to be questioning. While Adiga’s account of globalizing modern India is precise and carefully marked, his accounts of the “Darkness” tend towards the abstract. As Amitava Kumar noted in his critique of the book, there is little in the novel’s account of rural Bihar that reflects the protagonist’s supposed intimate connection to it. 10 Another critic, Sanjay Surahhmanyam, has questioned the sleight-of-hand that has allowed Adiga to put forward a first-person narrative authored by an individual who, the novel tells us, isn’t really fluent in English: “We are meant to believe—even within the conventions of the realist novel—that a person who must really function in Maithili or Bhojpuri can express his thoughts seamlessly in a language that he doesn’t speak.” 11

Another line of criticism that overlaps with Subrahmanyam’s could be made regarding the novel’s sometimes fraught relationship to narrative realism. To wit, in a passage early in the novel, Adiga’s protagonist Balram Halwai seems remarkably self-conscious about his uneasy belonging in modern India: “Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never allowed to complete our schooling. Open our skulls, look in with a penlight, and you'll find an odd museum of ideas.” Many readers have noted that this first person account of seems psychologically implausible. Arguably, no one who was “half-formed” in the way described in the passage above would be capable of actually realizing it and articulating it in this way. Such a person could not be at once defined by his ad hoc grasp of the world and self-conscious about it.

However, critics such as Sarah Brouillette have argued that The White Tiger ’s metafictional critique of the get-rich-quick genre should deflect any concerns about psychological realism. 12 If anything, Adiga’s Balram Halwai is a caricature constructed to make a sociopolitical point about India’s “dark side”: the masses of poor and uneducated who are effectively colonized by the English-speaking elites, who travel around India’s big cities behind dark-tinted windows, invulnerable in their air-conditioned “eggs.” India’s elites, Adiga wants to show, can misbehave with impunity (some of the plot events seem to be inspired by certain very public scandals involving the corruption of the justice system that would have been immediately legible to middle-class Indian readers in the first decade of the 2000s). In short, though Adiga’s protagonist is a servant, this is really a novel about the misbehavior and fragile authority of the ruling class, not about the subaltern.

Alongside Adiga’s novels (his more recent novel, Selection Day [ 2016 ], continues the exploration of class and urban life, with a pair of cricket-playing brothers in a Mumbai slum), a number of other writers have emerged to explore the new urban realism. Uday Prakash, in his Hindi short stories, is extraordinarily attentive to the everyday lives of working-class people often invisible to English-language writers. His suffering protagonist in the short story “Walls of Delhi” ( 2008 ), for instance, notes the city’s rapid gentrification will likely lead to his own disappearance from the scene: “The poor, the sick, the street corner prophets, the lowly, the unexceptional--all gone! They’ve vanished from this new Delhi of wealth and wizardry, never to return, not here, not anywhere else. Not even memories of them will remain.” 13 Another Delhi-based urban realist (in English) is Karan Mahajan, whose novels Family Planning ( 2009 ) and The Association of Small Bombs ( 2016 ), explore social issues and politics in the city. Family Planning is a light and comic coming-of-age novel that works the disjunction between the broken socialist legacies of Indian government bureaucracy (represented by the protagonist’s parents—who with thirteen children seem utterly incapable of “family planning”) and the globalist and cosmopolitan tendencies of the younger generation on the rise. The Association of Small Bombs is more ambitious, exploring the effects of the bombing of a public marketplace on a group of survivors, including a Muslim boy, Mansoor, whose two Hindu friends were killed in the attack, and Deepa and Vikas Khurana, the parents of the boys killed. In a parallel narrative, Mahajan follows the point of view of Shaukat “Shockie” Guru, the Kashmiri militant who made the bomb that killed the Khurana children. Shockie is a young man of modest means who is motivated more by a desire for revenge for past Indian government atrocities against Kashmiris than he is by religious zeal. He is preoccupied with his mother’s failing health as well as the poor pay he receives from his domestic and foreign bosses. Mahajan is not so much interested in exploring the inner psychology of a terrorist; this terrorist, for the most part, refuses introspection with regard to the human costs of his actions. Mahajan interlaces raw and poignant details about Shockie’s everyday life alongside matter-of-fact reportage about his bomb-making, seemingly humanizing a terrorist as a (dangerously) thoughtless participant in a vicious cycle of violence.

Vikram Chandra’s massive doorstop of a book, Sacred Games ( 2006 ) is the product of meticulous research conducted by the author over seven years; it was released in India as well as the United Kingdom and the United States with considerable fanfare and excitement. In the end, the difficulty of Chandra’s prose and the sheer length of the book proved too much for many readers, and Chandra’s novel has seemingly made much less of an impact on the culture than that other monumental work of Indian English fiction, Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy ( 1993 ). Chandra’s book shares with Maximum City and The White Tiger a deep preoccupation with the centrality of violence in everyday life in urban India. Chandra’s setting is the urban Mumbai police department, where a police officer, Sartaj Singh, is reaching his breaking point about both his faltering personal life and his commitment not to accept bribes. He is brought in to investigate the death of an extremely violent and dangerous gangster named Gaitonde with links to a global criminal underworld as well as a terrorist plot involving a nuclear bomb to be set off in central Mumbai. The dominant ethos is a kind of amoral survivalism, which leads Sartaj Singh to make ethical compromises in order to succeed in his investigation: “We are good men who must be bad to keep the worst men in control. Without us, there would be nothing left, there would only be a jungle.” These sentences perfectly encapsulate the ethical framework of the new urban realism; some version of the sentiment they express could quite easily be found in many other books.

While the genre of the New Urban Realism tends to be dominated by male writers, some women novelists also might be seen as writing in this space, especially Samina Ali. But the most important figure to enter into this space is Arundhati Roy, whose 2017 novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , has a definite emphasis on urban life and adult perspectives that were less evident in her earlier The God of Small Things , a novel that had a decided atmosphere of tragic pastorality and a focus on the experiences of young children. Much of Roy’s new novel is set in Delhi, and sensitively explores the life and culture of the Hijra (transgender) community. Another major plot takes the novel into the politics of Kashmiri secessionism and the intensely repressive state response to that movement. But even as much of the middle part of Roy’s novel is set outside of Delhi, its major characters all have a strong connection to Delhi. The emphasis on political violence, the urbanized aesthetics, and the sense that moral judgment in contemporary India is hopelessly vexed—Roy suggests, in an echo of Chandra, that we are all complicit in unspeakable violence—all support The Ministry of Utmost Happiness as an instance of the urban realist aesthetic.

Gender and Religion

The founding principle of secularism—defined, in distinctly Indian terms, as equal treatment toward all religious communities—has been in crisis in the Indian public sphere since the late 1980s. At the center of many of the fraught public debates is the status of women in Indian religious communities. One of the first serious controversies involved Shah Bano, a Muslim woman who had been divorced by her husband under Muslim personal law; the emerging Hindu right took an interest in her case, though secularists saw their involvement as a self-serving gesture designed to put pressure on the minority Muslim community. Subsequently, a prolonged campaign from the Hindu right led to the disruption of the razing of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December 1992 , followed soon thereafter by a wave of bombings in Bombay (Mumbai), and subsequent religious riots that left hundreds dead. Another terrible incident of communal violence occurred in Gujarat in 2002 , an event that continues to have ramifications into the present moment. Despite that intense social and political focus, there has not emerged a new body of fiction in the 21st century that deals primarily with issues of religious tolerance and intolerance, though many novels (including several already mentioned) deal with these topics in some way. By contrast, quite a number of late 20th-century texts did centrally take on the topic of religious violence with an emphasis on the status of women; novels like Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan , Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines , and Mukul Kesavan’s Looking Through Glass dealt with gendered communal violence specifically with respect to the Partition of the Indian subcontinent.

That said, since 2000 , a number of novels have been published that bring a particularly feminist sensibility to the secularism debates. In some ways, these novels are all written in the shadow of Arundhati Roy’s groundbreaking The God of Small Things ( 1997 ), which was acutely sensitive to the pervasiveness of caste even across religious boundaries in its account of caste violence in a Keralan Christian community. One notable example of such a book written under the rubric of gender and secular history might be Padma Viswanathan’s The Toss of a Lemon , which explores the lives of a series of Tamil Brahmin women, starting with the protagonist’s child marriage at the age of 10 (in 1896 ), and proceeding forward as she deals with young widowhood as well as various forms of caste bias directed at friends and family.

Samina Ali’s Madras on Rainy Days ( 2004 ) was not reviewed as widely as some other novels, but it is noteworthy for several reasons: it documents the isolation of women in the contemporary Indian Muslim community, while also marking the failure of the state to protect their rights in the face of ongoing problem of discrimination against Muslims. Moreover, Ali explores the flaws in the traditional patriarchal system pertaining to women (including Triple Talaq, arranged marriage, and the overreliance on traditional medicine when modern medicine is much more effective at ensuring women’s health and bodily integrity). Ali’s protagonist is a young woman named Layla, whose family is rooted in the cloistered environs of Old City, Hyderabad, one of India’s oldest and most conservative Muslim enclaves. The city was settled more than five hundred years ago by the Qutb Shahi kings, and remained an independent small kingdom for nearly 200 years, when it was conquered via a siege by the all-powerful Mughal Empire. 14 While the Muslim section of Old City has declined a good deal since its Imperial glory days, it remains a formidable neighborhood—with large mansions and a massive, six-mile wall surrounding the area. Within Old City, it is not uncommon to see women in Burqas or to hear the Azan, or call for prayer, from several different Mosques. It is also common to find the tenets of Islamic Sharia—as sanctified in Indian Civil Law by the Muslim Marriage Act—still very much in force.

Ali definitely aims to use her novel to make a feminist argument about the challenge of finding feminist agency in the context of a strongly patriarchal minority community, but importantly, many of the agents of repression in the novel turn out to be women. Ali’s Layla has been raised partly in the United States before returning to Hyderabad after her divorce. Layla’s mother wants to make sure her daughter’s future isn’t compromised by her own personal situation—so she arranges Layla’s marriage without ever publicly acknowledging that she is in fact divorced herself, as that would ruin the family’s reputation. As is common in many stories about the transmission of conservative patriarchal values, it is the women in Layla’s family—first her mother, then her mother-in-law—who take it upon themselves to present a façade of total respectability to the rest of the community.

Another novel that brings a feminist sensibility together with a focus on the secularism debate is Githa Hariharan’s In Times of Siege ( 2003 ). Hariharan’s protagonist, Professor Shiv Murthy, is a professor of medieval Indian history at a correspondence university in New Delhi. Shiv finds himself in hot water when the Hindu right picks up on a series of lessons he’s written on a 12th-century reform figure named Basava (also spelled Basavanna). Basava was a critic of religious orthodoxies in his day, but also a bit of a religious prophet himself. He is credited with starting a sect, the Veerashaivas (Warriors of Shiva), but he is nevertheless held up by some Indian secularists as an early example of a critic of Brahminical authority and religious dogma in general. Despite Basava’s radical heterodoxy, some contemporary Hindu nationalists have embraced him as one of their own.

The core of Hariharan’s novel is the unlikely transformation of a middle-aged academic from an upper-caste Hindu background into a secularist activist. Shiv’s lectures at the university, Hariharan informs us, are a bit slanted towards the progressive, secularist interpretation, and a loud group of critics (the “Itihas Suraksha Manch,” or “History Protection Platform”) publicly calls for an apology, a revised lesson, and a more “balanced” syllabus. The Chair of the department and the Dean are spooked by the national media attention, and attempt to strongarm Shiv to revise the lesson and sign the apology. While Shiv’s typical response to such a demand would be to instantly capitulate, his attraction to a young female student from another university leads Shiv to a newfound courage and secularist commitment. Meena is a campus radical from a more prestigious university, and her presence in his life completely transforms Shiv’s sense of his role as a historian, leading him to aggressively resist the demands of the History Protection Movement. Hariharan’s take on Basava leans postmodernist: the final truth about this 12th-century figure’s relationship to religion will never be definitively known, but the lack of closure, she suggests, can actually be a lesson for the always polarized, ideologically volatile contemporary moment.

The emergence of a growing LGBTQ literature, especially since 2000 , includes Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman ( 2003 ), which features a woman in a conventional marriage who finds herself involved with another woman, and Sandip Roy’s Don’t Let Him Know ( 2015 ), in which a same-sex desire triangle involving a group of married men and women unfolds over forty years. Neither of these novels directly deals with gendered religious violence, though Kapur’s novel does revolve around a married protagonist who gets involved with a Muslim man that leads to a political awakening of sorts. Amruta Patil’s graphic novel Kari also explores a related set of themes, albeit with a superhero twist. Finally, Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness has broken new ground with respect to the depiction of transgendered people in Indian fiction.

Globalizing India, Reinscribing the Past

Engagement with globalization has permeated quite broadly into Indian fiction since the early 1990s, and several of the novels described could very well also be understood with reference to globalization as well ( The White Tiger , for instance, is deeply interested in the topic). But while the theme is now commonplace, the conceptual territory entailed is not necessarily so simple.

Some writers have opted to explore the impact of globalization via an aesthetic of acceleration and cultural simultaneity: everything is changing and all establishments and traditions are being overturned at the root. Some of Salman Rushdie’s work after Midnight’s Children seems relevant to mention here, especially The Satanic Verses , with its embrace of hybridity and displacement. Indeed, in his essay from Imaginary Homelands published soon afterwards, Rushdie described his novel with a credo that very well might be that of the globalization aesthetic more broadly: “ The Satanic Verses celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs.” 15 More recent novels in this vein are Hari Kunzru’s Transmission ( 2005 ) and Rana Dasgupta’s Tokyo Cancelled ( 2005 ). These novels, Dasgupta’s especially, are so thoroughly invested in establishing a kind of global chic that they seem almost homeless (the only space present in the frame narrative that binds the various episodic shorts in Tokyo Cancelled together is an international airport).

Against a presentist, deterritorialized globalism, since 2000 a number of Indian novelists have been exploring an aesthetic that melds the theme of globalization with a deep attention to place, and the ways in which history—ancient and modern—continues to exert itself in the contemporary moment. Here, hybridity is occurring, but so are strong forces of reaction, nationalist assertion, and cultural retrenchment. Rather than breathlessly celebrating globalization as an era when everyone and everything comes together, this new set of novels attempts to find a way out of the impasses and disjunctions that continue to keep us apart.

One highly successful example of a novel that perfectly exemplifies the global in the local is Kiran Desai’s Booker Prize–winning novel, The Inheritance of Loss ( 2006 ). Desai’s novel is set in the town of Kalimpong, in the Himalayan mountains (near the border with Bhutan). The primary characters are a group of various displaced Indians from other parts of India who have relocated to this area, many of them with global connections in their pasts, and locals who sometimes view the outsiders with suspicion. Sai, the primary protagonist, has been educated for years in Europe before returning to India to live with her grandfather, Judge Jemubhai Patel. The Judge had his own history abroad as a young man in England, and is now in many ways trapped in a kind of nostalgic Anglophilia that reminds the reader of the ways the legacy of British colonialism continues to impact life in India’s present day. Even the family’s cook has global connections; his son Biju is living in the United States and working in the food service industry in New York, where his prospects are severely limited by his immigration status. Sai’s love interest in the novel, Gyan, is part of the indigenous Gurkha ethnic community which resents the economic and political dominance of Hindi-speaking Indians from the plains in their region. As the various competing constituencies in the plot come together, Desai seems to be making a point that even in an era of globalization local identities and the personal histories that go with them remain paramount. And yet we are all intimately connected, as Sai realizes in a meaningful meditation towards the end of the novel: “Never again could she think there was but one narrative and that this narrative belonged only to herself, that she might create her own mean little happiness and live safely within it” (Kiran Desai, Inheritance of Loss ).

The inscription of the past in stories with a global scope might very well be the signature of one of India’s most accomplished novelists, Amitav Ghosh. It is a method he initiated in a highly influential nonfiction work, In an Antique Land , and then expanded in his novel The Glass Palace . In the 2000s, he has produced some of his most accomplished writing in this vein with The Hungry Tide and the Ibis Trilogy .

The Glass Palace ( 1996 ) is virtually an epic of southeast Asia—it simultaneously tells the story of: the Indian National Army during the Second World War; the advent of modernity in Burma, including especially the role of the rubber and teak trades in British colonialism; and the plight of Indian migrant workers in places such as Malaysia at a time of widespread displacement and general chaos. Each of these parallel subplots is essential to the novel’s major conceptual plot, and the presence of each is the product of considerable research on the part of the novelist. Through juxtaposition, Ghosh suggests a number of compelling ties between Indian Bengal and the rest of Southeast Asia. Overall, in The Glass Palace Ghosh makes a major claim for unifying modern Southeast Asian history—a profoundly integrated Indian Ocean Basin. The Hungry Tide , in contrast, is geographically a bit narrower—the main action of the story is limited to the Sunderban islands in the Bay of Bengal, and perhaps by extension Bengal itself. Ghosh’s novel explores the plight of displaced peoples—here specifically a group of refugees from Bangladesh who found themselves in a confrontation with the Indian state in 1979 . The other conceptual question is how humans share a complex and dangerous ecosystem with animals (here dolphins and tigers).

The environmental theme in The Hungry Tide serves as an important conceptual bridge between the global and local. The Irawaddy dolphins are being studied by Piyali Roy, a marine biologist of Bengali descent who discovers some strange behavioral quirks among dolphins in a tide pool while visiting the islands on a grant. The Bay of Bengal is also one of the only habitats where Bengal tigers continue to live in the wild. They are zealously protected by various international environmental groups (who apply economic pressure on the Indian and Bangladeshi governments to maintain the tiger habitats by military force). But in the name of a global priority—namely, tiger preservation—local human lives are threatened, as the tigers routinely maul and often kill islanders. Though there are the obvious modern devices that might be used to protect the islanders, the state allows local deaths to continue in the interest of a highly sought—even commodified—global environmental reputation. In the Sunderbans, Ghosh argues, human lives are valued lower than those of tigers as global economic forces and international institutions make local suffering invisible.

Alongside the more social and political critique of borders and national identity that permeates The Hungry Tide , the islands themselves are in a flood plain, and their precarious status is a figure for the possible harms that could follow from climate change. In the novel, the land itself is inconstant—subject to sometimes radical alterations as a result of late summer storms. Whole islands are washed away by the cyclones that sweep in with huge tidal surges; thousands of human beings and animals routinely die in these storms, which may get worse as climate change continues to accelerate. Global interests impinge on life in the Sunderbans in ways that are sometimes quite direct (the NGO-driven ban on killing tigers) and sometimes unthinkably vast and abstract.

Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy ( 2009–2015 ) is an ambitious experiment in exploring the connections between the global network of migration and the flow of capital and commodities in a historical context. The implicit argument of the series might well be that the British Empire connected India to an idea of globality in the early 19th century , through seagoing vessels like the eponymous Ibis , a former slave ship now used in Ghosh’s series as a cargo vessel in the opium trade and, in Sea of Poppies ( 2009 ), in the movement of indentured workers from India to other parts of the Indian Ocean basin. Ghosh’s series features an international and multiracial cast of characters, including a biracial American, Zachary Reid; a poor Indian woman from a rural part of Bihar who is attempting to escape an untenable living situation (an opium-addicted husband who drugs her and then allows her to be raped by her brother); a Frenchwoman brought into service as a governess for a wealthy family in Bengal; and a dispossessed Bengali prince, among others.

Globality is also very much in evidence in what might be the defining feature of the series, namely, Ghosh’s use of various slangs, patois, and pidgins amongst his various characters. One version of this is an inventive pidgin spoken amongst the “Lascars” who are taken on board when the Ibis’ s regular (English-speaking) crew die off from illness early on in the story. The Lascars are a group of sailors from all over the Indian Ocean basin and southeast Asia, and they communicate with one another and others on the ship in a pidgin that is part Hindi (“so muchee buk-buk and big-big hookuming”) and partly universal Portuguese ship pidgin (“No sabbi ship-pijjin”), with elements from Chinese and other Asian language thrown into the mix as well. Another patois that appears in the series is the more familiar “Hobson-Jobson” mix of Hindustani and English spoken by the established Anglo-Indian population that, by 1839 , has a quite firm grip on the country it rules. Interestingly, the Anglo-Indians who employ this hybridized mode of speech do so deliberately—choosing it over committing fully to Indian languages. At one point, Zachary Reid is told by the pilot of a river schooner to drop “just a little peppering of nigger-talk mixed with a few girleys. But mind your Oordoo and Hindee doesn’t sound too good: don’t want the world to think you’ve gone native.” In the second and third installments of the series, River of Smoke ( 2011 ) and Flood of Fire ( 2015 ), Ghosh takes his characters to new settings, including the Fanqui-town in Canton (Guangzhou), China, the primary destination for much of the opium being brought into China by the British in the years before the Opium Wars, and Mauritius, where a new hybrid culture and language emerges that is partly influenced by the indigenous community (speaking Kreol) and partly by Hindi, Bengali, and Bhojpuri-speaking laborers from India.

Discussion of the Literature

Many of the best critics of South Asian literature are novelists themselves. The best might well be Salman Rushdie; his Imaginary Homelands laid much of the conceptual groundwork for the scholarship and analysis that has followed. 16 Another helpful novelist-critic who has been exploring the framing of the Indian novel after Rushdie is Amit Chaudhuri; his Clearing a Space: Reflections on India, Literature, and Modernity opens up a way of thinking about Indian literature after jettisoning the pretense of national allegory. 17 A good starting point for the debate about authenticity in Indian literature post- 2000 might be the two essays on The White Tiger , Amitava Kumar’s essay in Boston Review , 18 and Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s “Diary.” 19 Of course, these essays are reworkings of an earlier essay dealing with authenticity by another novelist, Vikram Chandra’s “The Cult of Authenticity.” 20

While by and large the best sources to consult with respect to Indian literature are usually the serious literary reviews ( The New Yorker , New York Review of Books , London Review of Books ), some excellent academic scholarship has appeared in recent years. One starting point might be Mrinalini Chakravarty’s In Stereotype: South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary , particularly chapter 3, “Slumdog or White Tiger? The Abjection and Allure of Slums.” 21 Also recommended is Ulka Anjaria’s comprehensive anthology, A History of the Indian Novel in English , though only later chapters of that text deal with the issues covered here in depth (see especially Priya Joshi’s “Chetan Bhagat: Remaking the Novel in India” and Shameem Black’s “Post-Humanitarianism and the Indian Novel in English.”) 22 On the question of secularism and gender, a notable book is Priya Kumar’s Limiting Secularism: The Ethics of Coexistence in Indian Literature and Film . 23 For a general introduction to late 20th-century South Asian literature that is accessible to undergraduates, Paul Brians’ Modern South Asian Literature in English can be quite helpful. 24

Further Reading

• Anjaria, Ulka . A History of the Indian Novel in English . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
• Brians, Paul . Modern South Asian Literature in English . Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.
• Brouillette, Sarah . Literature and the Creative Economy . Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2014.
• Chakravorty, Mrinalini . In Stereotype: South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary . New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
• Chaudhari, Amit . Clearing a Space: Reflections on India, Literature, and Modernity . New York: Peter Lang, 2008.
• Chandra, Vikram . “The Cult of Authenticity” Boston Review . February 1, 2000.
• Cooppan, Vilashini . Worlds Within: National Narratives and Global Connections in Postcolonial Writing . Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2009.
• Dharwadker, Vinay . Cosmpolitan Geographies: New Locations in Literature and Culture . New York: Routledge, 2000.
• Kumar, Amitava , ed. World Bank Literature . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
• Kumar, Priya . Limiting Secularism: The Ethics of Coexistence in Indian Literature and Film . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
• Mishra, Pankaj . Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
• Rushdie, Salman . Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991 . New York: Penguin, 1992.
• Sanga, Jaina . South Asian Literature in English: An Encyclopedia . Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004.
• Vadde, Aarthi . Chimeras of Form: Modernist Internationalism Beyond Europe, 1914–2016 . New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.
• Varma, Rashmi . The Postcolonial City and Its Subjects . New York: Routledge, 2011.

1. Amit Chaudhari , Clearing a Space: Reflections on India, Literature, and Modernity (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 114–115.

2. Fredric Jameson , “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism,” Social Text 15 (Autumn, 1986): 65–88.

3. Uday Prakash , The Walls of Delhi: Three Novellas , trans. Jason Grunebaum (New Delhi: Seven Stories Press, 2016).

4. Aarti Dhar , “ Despite Big Leap, India’s English Proficiency Is Just Moderate: Survey ,” The Hindu , October 27, 2012.

5. Amitava Kumar , Nobody Does the Right Thing (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 9.

6. Donald Greenlees , “Investment Banker Becomes Best-Selling Author in India,” New York Times , March 14, 2008. Available online .

7. Suneera Tandon , “ Q&A With Chetan Bhagat ,” Quartz India , October 12, 2016.

8. Jason Burke , “ Mills and Boon Answer Call of India’s New Middle Class for English Novels ,” The Guardian , March 3, 2010.

9. Zac Boone , “ Samit Basu Talks Turbulence , Unleash the Fanboy , August 24, 2013.

10. Amitava Kumar , “ Bad News: Authenticity and the South Asian Political Novel ,” Boston Review (November/December 2008).

11. Sanjay Subrahmanyam , “ Diary ,” London Review of Books 30, no. 21 (November 6, 2008).

12. Sarah Brouillette , Literature and the Creative Economy (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2014).

13. Prakash, The Walls of Delhi , 2.

14. Toby Howarth , The Twelver Shi’a as a Muslim Minority in India: Pulpit of Tears (London: Routledge, 2005).

15. Salman Rushdie , Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991 (New York: Penguin, 1992), 394.

16. Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands .

17. Amit Chaudhuri , Clearing a Space: Reflections on India, Literature, and Modernity (New York: Peter Lang, 2008).

18. Amitava Kumar , “Bad News: Authenticity and the South Asian Political Novel,” Boston Review (2008).

19. Sanjay Subrahmanyam , “Diary,” London Review of Books (2008).

20. Vikram Chandra , “The Cult of Authenticity,” Boston Review (2000).

21. Mrinalini Chakravarty , In Stereotype: South Asia in the Global Literary Imaginary (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

22. Ulka Anjaria , A History of the Indian Novel in English (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

23. Priya Kumar , Limiting Secularism: The Ethics of Coexistence in Indian Literature and Film (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008).

24. Paul Brians , Modern South Asian Literature in English (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003).

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Essay on India

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Essay on India in 150 words

Essay on india in 200-300 words, essay on india in 500-1000 words.

India, a diverse and culturally rich country located in South Asia, is renowned for its vibrant festivals, ancient heritage sites, and diverse landscapes. With a population of over 1.3 billion people, India is a melting pot of religions, languages, and ethnicities. It is a secular nation that upholds democracy and freedom. India has made significant contributions to art, literature, science, and philosophy. Despite challenges, it has achieved progress in various fields, including technology and economic growth. As the world’s largest democracy, India’s cultural richness, traditions, and hospitality attract tourists from around the world. With a young and dynamic workforce, India is emerging as a global player in innovation and entrepreneurship. India’s resilience, cultural heritage, and growing influence continue to captivate the world, making it an important player on the global stage.

India, known as the land of diversity, is a country of rich culture, history, and traditions. It is located in South Asia and is the seventh-largest country by land area. India is renowned for its vibrant festivals, ancient heritage sites, and diverse landscapes, ranging from the majestic Himalayas to the serene backwaters of Kerala.

With a population of over 1.3 billion people, India is a melting pot of different religions, languages, and ethnicities. It is a secular country that upholds the principles of democracy and freedom. India has made significant contributions to art, literature, science, and philosophy throughout history.

Despite its challenges, India has achieved notable progress in various fields, including technology, space exploration, and economic growth. It is the world’s largest democracy and has a parliamentary system of government. India’s cultural richness, traditions, and hospitality attract millions of tourists from around the world each year.

In recent years, India has emerged as a global player, contributing to the world economy, science, and technology. It is home to a young and dynamic workforce that is driving innovation and entrepreneurship.

In conclusion, India is a country that embraces diversity, celebrates its rich cultural heritage, and strives for progress. With its vast landscapes, ancient history, and vibrant culture, India continues to captivate the world. The resilience and spirit of its people, coupled with its growing influence, make India a significant player on the global stage.

Title: India – A Tapestry of Diversity, Heritage, and Progress

Introduction :

India, a nation located in South Asia, is a land of rich cultural heritage, diverse traditions, and breathtaking landscapes. With a population of over 1.3 billion people, India is known for its vibrant festivals, ancient history, and varied cuisines. This essay explores the multifaceted aspects of India, including its rich cultural tapestry, historical significance, economic growth, and contributions to the world. From the majestic Himalayas in the north to the serene backwaters of Kerala in the south, India’s beauty and diversity captivate the hearts of millions. Let us embark on a journey through the vibrant and enchanting land of India.

Cultural Heritage

India’s cultural heritage is as vast and diverse as its geographical expanse. It is a melting pot of religions, languages, and customs. The country is home to numerous religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Each religion has its own unique rituals, traditions, and festivals, contributing to the colorful tapestry of Indian culture. Festivals like Diwali, Eid, Holi, Christmas, and Durga Puja are celebrated with great enthusiasm and are a reflection of India’s religious diversity.

Historical Significance

India boasts a rich history that spans thousands of years. It has been the birthplace of several ancient civilizations, including the Indus Valley Civilization and the Maurya and Gupta Empires. The country has been the center of learning and trade for centuries, attracting scholars, explorers, and traders from around the world. The Mughal Empire, known for its architectural marvels like the Taj Mahal, left a lasting legacy on India’s history. The British colonial rule in India and the subsequent struggle for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi shaped the modern history of the nation.

Economic Growth

India has experienced significant economic growth in recent years. It is one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies and has become a prominent player on the global stage. The country has embraced economic liberalization, attracting foreign investments and fostering entrepreneurship. India’s information technology industry, pharmaceutical sector, and service industries have flourished, contributing to its economic prosperity. However, challenges such as poverty, income inequality, and unemployment persist, highlighting the need for inclusive growth and sustainable development.

Contributions to the World

India has made remarkable contributions to various fields, including science, literature, arts, and spirituality. Ancient Indian scholars made significant advancements in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Indian literature, such as the Vedas, Ramayana, and Mahabharata, continues to inspire and influence people worldwide. Indian art forms like classical music, dance, and cinema have gained international recognition for their richness and beauty. Spiritual traditions like yoga and meditation have transcended borders, offering tools for holistic well-being.

Unity in Diversity

India’s strength lies in its unity amidst diversity. Despite its linguistic, religious, and cultural differences, the people of India have come together as a nation. The Constitution of India, adopted in 1950, upholds the principles of democracy, secularism, and unity. The diverse fabric of Indian society is reflected in its official languages, Hindi and English, and the recognition of regional languages. India’s unity in diversity is celebrated through cultural exchange, interfaith dialogue, and the promotion of national integration.

Future Challenges and Opportunities

India faces a range of challenges, including poverty, environmental degradation, healthcare disparities, and social inequality. Addressing these challenges requires concerted efforts in education, healthcare, sustainable development, and social welfare. However, India also presents immense opportunities for progress. With a young and dynamic workforce, a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit, and a growing middle class, India has the potential to achieve inclusive growth, technological advancements, and social transformation.

Conclusion :

India, with its diverse cultures, historical significance, economic growth, and contributions to the world, stands as a shining example of unity in diversity. The nation’s cultural heritage, ancient history, and rapid development reflect its resilience and potential. As India continues its journey toward progress and prosperity, it must embrace sustainable development, address societal challenges, and build an inclusive and equitable society. India’s beauty, traditions, and people leave an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of those who explore its captivating tapestry.

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Zakir Husain Delhi College (Evening)

University of Delhi

Since its earliest formative years, the Indian novel has been preoccupied with the thematic of the nation, its formation, its articulation and its narration. Early novels like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Anandamath , Tagore’s Home and the World and Raja Rao’s Kanthapura set the initial trends in the modes of allegorizing the Indian nation. Along its long trajectory, over the twentieth century, the literary form managed to permeate almost all the languages of the Indian subcontinent, picking up other thematics such as the anti-colonial struggle, gender, caste and class concerns, communal, regional and ethnic questions. Even while being ostensibly focused on these concerns and questions, the Indian novel in English remained largely centred around the ideations and elaborations of the Indian nation. As the first nation-republic, installed in 1950, began to transform, irrevocably, in 1991 under global and domestic imperatives, the corollary cultural impacts and their cultural products, such as the Indian novel, were also bound to transform. The Indian nation emerged anew as an interesting subject where writers from various social, political and economic groups vied with each other to present and represent the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’ India. In other words, the post-1991 India which laid the foundations of twenty-first century India produced a newer version of the Jamesonian ‘national allegory’, as much as it had been produced pre- and post-1947. It is this post-1991 ‘national allegory’ that the proposed conference aims to investigate. Understanding the manners in which the post-1991 Indian novel addresses the issues and questions of Indian representations (to the home and the world), both from nationalist and decolonial as well as postcolonial points of departure is to form the anchor of the conference. To this end, the conference invites scholarly research papers in English on how the nation has been discussed, imagined, represented and narrated in the works of English language writers located within or outside India. Therefore, without placing a limitation, it is encouraged to bring the works of such writers to the fore who have followed the generation of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, VS Naipaul, Vikram Seth, Rohinton Mistry, Jhumpa Lahiri and such others. This may include Arvind Adiga, Chetan Bhagat, Jeet Thayil, Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Manu Joseph and their contemporaries. The papers may include but may not be limited to the following topics:

Indian nation in the Indian novel in the twenty first century

Neo-nationalism/national self-assertion in the Indian novel

Postcolonialism versus decolonialism in the Indian novel

Return the white western gaze in the twenty-first century

Cognising neo-orientalisms and neo-imperialisms

Indian literary subjectivity in the twenty-first century

Abstracts of 300-350 words along with a brief bionote may be sent to [email protected] by 18th February 2024.

The acceptance will be notified by 21st February 2024. Full papers may be submitted up to 5 days prior to the conference.

Registration fee and the payment process will be shared upon acceptance.

Episode 2037: Elliot Ackerman on the danger of mercenaries and the value of national service Keen On

Elliot Ackerman has an intriguing essay in this issue of Liberties Quarterly on the use and abuse of mercenaries throughout history. Linking the history of the British in India, the US in Afghanistan and Russia in contemporary Ukraine, he ask what it means when mercenaries replace regular soldiers to fight supposedly “national” wars? It’s not usually good news, he suggests, arguing that for America to remain both a militarily and morally great power in the 21st century, it should consider reestablishing national service for all citizens, irrespective of gender, class or race. ELLIOT ACKERMAN is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Halcyon, 2034, Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, as well as the memoir The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan, and Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize among others. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and Marine veteran who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

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