India, Oct. 18 -- Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian's book A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey on India's political economy will be released on October 24. Kapur (DK) is currently the Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Subramanian (AS) is a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and India's former Chief Economic Adviser. Edited excerpts from an interview on the book:

This is perhaps the first joint attempt by a political scientist and an economist to write a political economy treatise on India. Both of you have shown a mirror to the peers in your respective disciplines. One of you has written ...