Books​ Reviews

Fuelled by a surge of migration to cities, India’s growth appears to be defined by urbanisation and by its growing and prosperous middle class. It is also defined by progressive and liberal young Indians, who vote beyond the constraints of identity, and paradoxically, by an unchecked population explosion and rising crimes against women. However, data-journalism pioneer Rukmini S draws on nearly two decades of on-ground reporting experience to piece together a picture quite different from the prevailing narrative. By combing through a mountain of data available on India – which unfortunately continues to remain opaque, hard to access and harder yet to read – Ms Rukmini marshals this information alongside probing interviews with experts and ordinary citizens, to see what the numbers can tell us about India. As she interrogates how data works, and how the push and pull of social and political forces affect it, she creates a blueprint to understand the changes of the last few years and the ones to come.