India is hot. Its meteoric rise as an economic power with a growing number of millionaires and billionaires is a great success story. Not quite. Politically, India has gone from its Nehru-inspired non-alignment to aligning itself with Washington. Its priorities mirror its mentor's. 19% of the country's budget goes to the military while education gets about 5% and public health a scant 1%. Journalist Praful Bidwai writes, "We are a poor country and we are spending like crazy on guns while 77% of Indians live on less than 20 rupees [50 cents] per day." They have little access to clean water and electricity. The contrasts and contradictions are sharp and widening between the rich who live well-lit lives of opulence and the indigent who are literally in darkness. From Assam to Jharkand and from West Bengal to Andhra Pradesh, the dispossessed are rebelling and resisting.

Arundhati Roy is an author, lecturer and activist. Her book, The God of Small Things won the prestigious Booker Prize. The New York Times calls her, "India's most impassioned critic of globalization and American influence." She is the winner of the Lannan Award for Cultural Freedom. Her latest books are An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire and The Checkbook & the Cruise Missile, with David Barsamian.