The new India has a high-tech, highly skilled economy growing at an incredible 9 percent each year. Its universities are churning out thousands of highly qualified science and computer graduates working in software, biotechnology, and engineering firms in metropolitan India. Yet underneath the glittering surface of the boom lie some ugly realities of modern-day India.

The film follows a well-known Indian journalist who questions the social stability of the economic giant. In urban centers there are still millions of homeless who live on the pavement as they have for the last thirty years.

In rural areas, where three quarters of the population lives, the poverty is more hidden. Farmers are deeply in debt because they cannot overcome the imbalance between the high cost of farming and the low minimum prices the government sets for their crops. Hundreds of thousands of desperate farmers have been driven to suicide. M.S. Swaminathan, the founder of India's original Green Revolution predicts a violent uprising if millions of farmers become landless

Another volatile issue is the widespread discrimination against the Muslim minority which numbers 150 million. Hindu nationalism is on the rise and Muslims struggle for employment and are excluded from buying property. And within the Hindu society the caste system remains a barrier separating the rich and the poor. Despite the government's attempt at affirmative action in education and employment, the age-old discrimination against the untouchables or dalits continues. They are condemned to a life of servitude

India's economy is powering ahead. The ultra rich live behind electrified fences in self-contained communities away from the degradation, poverty, and despair of the rest of India.

"This DVD will be useful to generate multidisciplinary class discussions about a range of social issues but more specifically about economic development, inequality, distribution of resources, and social justice.Recommended."
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