This definitive guide to independent India takes us through the events and personalities that have shaped India in the seventy years since 1947. Starting with Independence Day, it covers the decades in which the subcontinent saw the rise of democracy, its metamorphosis from an economy driven by selfsufficiency to one propelled by the economic reforms of the 1990s, and the concurrent liberalization, privatization and globalization that boosted India's growth rate. It also marks the transition from the era of single-party dominance to that of coalition politics and to identity-based politics. Arranged chronologically, India since 1947 covers a wide range of topics, from the Green Revolution, the Five-Year Plans, the infamous Emergency and the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party as a major political force to the beginning of television in India and the launch of its space and nuclear programmes. A separate listing of the events leading up to Independence, interesting factoids on various aspects of modern India and a detailed index further enhance the appeal of the book.