In this collection of essays, edited and with an introduction by Romila Thapar, fourteen of India's foremost scholars and specialists in various fields explore the challenges that lie before twenty-first century India in its quest for a democratic and just society. Globalization and the IT revolution provide a new context to the problems faced by contemporary India. But will globalization ensure rapid economic growth and development in the face of low literacy, rising population, and the gradual withdrawal of the State from social commitments? Will imitation westernization, and the consumerism that comes with it, further a just society? What are the strains that democracy will be subjected to in the empowerment struggle by marginalized groups, and the growing social and economic disparities that are often accompanied by violence and terrorism? How will India's multiculturalism be affected by the upsurge of various identities and of exclusionist nationalism? Will the family as an institution be transformed to enhance gender justice? Will new technology ensure the autonomy of the media? Can the mauling of the Indian landscape be halted? before India in the early decades of this millennium.