No matter how great the achievements of ancient civilization were, only in India (as in China) the thousand-year connection of times, generations and culture was never interrupted. Perhaps this explains the inexhaustible interest of foreign and Russian researchers in India for several centuries. During the Soviet era, indologists focused on the modern economic and political problems of the ancient country, its history in modern times. Although these works bear the imprint of the prevailing communist ideology, even the current reader cannot fail to be struck by how deep layers of Indian reality became the subject of analysis, how solid and diverse sources were used by scientists at that time.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union came the decline of fundamental science and Oriental studies as one of its areas. When researchers with a huge amount of knowledge and experience are paid pennies by the state, it became incredibly difficult to prepare for publication and publish a work that required many years of painstaking work on sources, and especially research "on the spot, in the field".

Fortunately, Oriental studies and Indology in particular have managed to survive and gradually adapt to our realities. Serious work in India is not uncommon again. And what is particularly remarkable is that it became possible to publish a work not on any one important problem of Indian reality, but to create a work that gives a generalized picture of the achievements and difficulties faced by a huge country, tells about its spiritual traditions and great history. This kind of small encyclopedia is called the reference and analytical publication " India Today "(Moscow, Ariavarta-Press, 2005, 592 p. with Fig.). It was written by the staff of the Center for Indian Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The publication is useful not only for those who study India or just want to learn something about it. It provides food for thought about the development paths that our country has chosen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. After all, Russia and India began to implement economic reforms at about the same time - in the very beginning of the 1990s. Naturally, there is a need and even a need to compare the experience of these transformations. Their direction was similar - towards market freedom, private entrepreneurship, greater openness, and internationalization of the economy. However, although India's economy was a market economy before the reform and significantly better than the Russian economy, which was prepared for "liberalization" and internationalization, India did not go for a total dismantling of the public sector and state regulation system, the authors note. - India continues to maintain planning, including five-year plans (although they are increasingly indicative of private sector benchmarks). The main planning bodies - the Indian Planning Commission and the state Planning Commissions-are also preserved.

There is also no general privatization of enterprises. The approach to privatization is characterized by greater gradualness and caution."

Strict requirements are imposed on buyers of state-owned property. Buyers cannot be those who have been charged with national security-related issues, or those who have been charged or convicted by judicial or regulatory authorities under other articles. "In general, unlike in Russia, the privatization process in India is much less politicized. It does not have the character of a mass campaign and is by no means total. An individual approach is shown to each enterprise. In almost all cases, the majority of shares remain in the hands of the state."

The scope and forms of foreign investment are still regulated. Indian residents are not allowed to take out capital from the country, and the amount and conditions of attraction of borrowed funds by legal entities and individuals abroad are subject to strict state control.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? The authors, adhering to the reserved intonation inherent in a reference and analytical publication, do not give a direct answer. But the subtext is obvious: gradualness is preferable to a decisive breakdown of the established order. It is tempting to conclude that it is precisely this cautious approach to reform that has enabled India to accelerate its economic development over the past decade and a half. However, this issue is debatable. It is not without reason that the current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, who initiated the reforms that began in the 1990s, and other officials emphasize in their speeches that it was the consistent and decisive liberalization of the economy that enabled the country to make a leap forward.

As can be seen from the speeches of the Prime Minister and First Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission M. S. Aluvilia, last year the economy grew by 7%, and in the current and subsequent years it can reach 8% growth rates. This will mean that in the near future, India will become the third largest economy in the world after the United States and China.

The prospect is dizzying. Many politicians and commentators in the United States and Western Europe are now talking about it. The authors of "India Today" do not touch on this topic. But from the materials presented in the book, it follows that there are huge obstacles in the way of India's transformation into a modern power. These are, first of all, "problems of poverty and overpopulation, the potential of which has accumulated over the past centuries."

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