Together, the two volumes review the economic history of India from Independence to the current period and then go on to make forecasts about the future of the Indian economy and its role in the World. The objective is not criticism for the sake of it. Throughout the focus is on policy and institutional reforms to solve identified policy mistakes and problems. Volume I shows that there have been two phases in India's economic history. The period of socialist stagnation, till the end of the seventies, in which India's growth rate was among the lowest in the World and poverty increased despite professions of socialism. The second period of market reform starting in 1980s walted us to the top of the growth sweepstakes and led a sharp and continuing decline in poverty. The book shows how India is poised to become a global power in the next 15 to 20 years, and why India is likely to become, over the next 30 years, the third pole in the emerging tripolar world of the 21st century.