The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone

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In his critically acclaimed previous work, India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond, Shashi Tharoor, one of India's most respected writers and diplomats, traced the country's history from late colonial times through its first fifty years of independence. Interest in the subcontinent has never been greater, and this new work offers precious insights into this complex, multifaceted land, which despite its dazzling diversity of languages, customs, and cultures remains more than sixty years after its founding the world's largest democracy. Tharoor describes the vast changes that have recently transformed this once sleeping giant into a world leader in the realms of science and technology, a nation once poverty-stricken that now boasts a middle class of over 300 million people-as large as the entire population of the United States. In his characteristic lucid prose, Tharoor discusses the strengths and weaknesses of his rapidly changing homeland in five areas-politics, economics, culture, society, and sports. Artfully combining hard facts and statistics with opinion and observation, he takes a fresh look at the world's second most populous country. Book jacket.