The concept of the millennium encompasses a sense of progress and the hope for a
better future. Pursuing this notion, the present collection of essays edited by
Romila Thapar, and accompanied by her introduction, explores the challenges
before twenty-first-century India in its quest for a democratic and just
society.
Globalization and the revolution in information technology provide a new context
to the problems faced in contemporary times by Indians. But will globalization
ensure rapid economic growth and development in the face of low literacy, rising
population, the gradual withdrawal of the State from social commitments and the
hesitant formation of a responsible civil society? Will imitation westernization
and the