India today is a republic of tots, a very crowded nursery in a graying world. One in three of its 1.1 billion citizens are under the age of 15, making them the world’s future workers, consumers, artists, rebels. The median age is 23. Growing up in the era of liberalization, the ambitions of the young are reshaping India from the inside – from movies, fashion and insurgencies to ideas of sex, caste and freedom. Never before in human history has one nation had so many young. Never before has India faced such stark economic, political and moral challenges.

Somini Sengupta was born in Calcutta, raised in Canada and California and returned to India as the first Indian-American bureau chief for The New York Times in Delhi. Currently on sabbatical from The Times, she lives in Delhi, where she is raising a toddler and during naptimes, writing a book about contemporary India. She is a 1988 graduate of UC Berkeley.