India lives in a state of extremes. It is the world's largest democracy with the biggest Muslim population outside
of Indonesia. Many of the world's finest scientists and writers come from its universities, and some of the globe's poorest residents live in its cities. We find India, so far away from the United States, a difficult place to understand: a democracy created by an icon of non-violence and now governed by leaders with the power to launch a nuclear attack. India offers lessons and cautionary tales that demand our attention. In the spring of 2003, the Graduate School of Journalism launched a five-year reporting project to better understand a country that has too long been ignored.