Forty-three chapters

Twelfth in 2004, fifth today: the boom that India Shining only promised.

A quarter of a billion people lifted above the extreme-poverty line.

Child deaths before five fell from one in thirteen to one in thirty-eight.

From one Indian in fifty online to seven in ten, on the world's cheapest data.

Reserves up fivefold, a top-five stock market and a landing near the Moon's south pole.

An ID, a bank account and instant payments for almost everyone.

Highways, rail electrification, airports and metros built at record pace.

From 3 to 162 gigawatts of solar in twelve years.

Open defecation fell from six in ten Indians to fewer than one in fourteen.

Forty crore people without power in 2004; almost none today.

The 5th largest economy, yet 143rd of 191 in income per person.

Record harvests and free grain, but one child in three is stunted.

The economy grew fivefold; the share spent on health shrank.

Nearly every child is in school; fewer than one in four can read.

India grew rich in services and skipped the factory floor.

Phones and bank accounts reached women. Paid work did not.

Faster highways, more deaths: about 485 a day in 2024.

A solar superpower breathing some of the dirtiest air on earth.

Toilets were built; the sewers and treatment plants behind them were not.

Targets declared met before independent surveys agreed.

The top 1% hold a larger share of income than at any time in a century.

Growth reached states, castes, tribes and faiths at very different speeds.

Everyone pays GST on soap; only 2.8 crore pay income tax.

Digital transfers closed old leaks, but the corruption score has barely moved.

An ambitious disability law, and most disabled Indians never even counted.

Children who enter school but leave, or stay and learn little.

Fast growth, while the share of adults with a job fell.

A young, connected, underpaid workforce set to triple this decade.

Ageing at $2,400 a head, where Japan and Korea were six times richer.

Water per person down two-thirds, aquifers emptying in the north-west.

Surplus rice and wheat; imported dal and cooking oil.

All wastewater, from kitchens to factories, and how little of it is treated.

Green cover rises on paper while satellites count lost forest.

A hotter India costs the poorest the most work and income.

Equal economies in 1982; China three times larger by 2004.

India's fastest growth, and the gap with China still widened.

Three companies are each now worth more than India's annual output.

Heat, crashes, dirty air and malnutrition, priced as a share of GDP.

How much wellbeing each rupee of growth actually bought.

Close the gaps in nutrition, health and learning with steady money.

Labour-intensive work that farm workers and women can take.

India can build; now it must run and maintain what it builds.

Count commutes, clean air and reading as often as GDP.