VITALITY OF INDIA: A Regional Perspective

A nation-state derives identity and sustains progression through its vitality. Conceptualizing, identifying and measuring vitality is therefore of utmost importance. The present book attempts a look at the vitality of India in time-space perspective. This vitality is found grounded in the strength and salience of its constituents. Using the country’s sub-national units of states and union territories as the bedrock of analysis, the vitality has been referred to the critical parameters of the quality of governance, economic dynamism, management of multi-culturalism and flow of diaspora, among other things. Not to be missed is the rise of middle class. It has emerged as the most powerful vitality differentiating indicator of various parts of India. This is also the integrative ingredient of the whole at present. Drawing upon a rich database, an index of vitality has been created for each of the states. A series of essays define the format of the book wherein each parameter is made to stand the test of its contribution yet is not isolated from the context. The effort is to capture all such realities of India through a search for spatial variations in vitality of India. The book should be of great interest not only to students and scholars of social sciences in general and of geography in particular but also to the policy makers.