The world is discovering India, and India the world. Both are enriched by the experience. Almost every week another big multinational company joins the rush to set up operations there, attracted by the country’s affordable brainpower and the growing sense that it is on the move.

Within India, the international success of its precocious software and outsourcing industries has had an impact far beyond their still modest contribution to economic output. It has taught a whole generation to embrace, not cower from, the challenge of globalisation and exposed the national psyche to the shockingly novel concept of ‘can do’.