India is everywhere: Indian studios produce animated features and special effects for Hollywood movies; Indian software manages our health records; and Indian customer-service centers answer our calls. A country of English speakers and a free-market democracy, with the youngest population on Earth, India is not only the fast growing market for the next new thing, but a source for the technological innovation that will drive the global economy.

Yet India is also in a race against time to bring the benefits of the 21st century to the 800 million Indians who live on less than $2 per day. And it must do so in a way that is environmentally sustainable and politically viable on a scale never before achieved. If India succeeds, it will not only save itself, it may save us all. If it fails, we will all suffer. As goes India, so goes the world.

Like China, Inc., Planet India captures and catalyzes the growing interest in this rising power. With in-depth research, interviews, and provocative analysis, Mira Kamdar offers a penetrating view of India and its cultural and economic impact on the United States and the world. From Bollywood to the Indian diaspora to India's effect on global politics, she reports on the people, companies, and places shaping the new India. Kamdar examines the challenges India faces while celebrating India's tremendous vitality and the opportunities this Asian democracy has to shape its own and all of our destinies.