India is a lower middle-income country1 with a population of 1.3 billion, a GNI per capita of $1,680, and the
world’s seventh largest economy (World Bank, 2016a). It is also the world’s largest democracy (BBC, 2017a),
with a multiparty parliamentary system and a robust free press (Pylee, 2003). Since achieving independence
from Britain in 1947, India has grown from a low-income South Asian country to the “fastest growing economy
in the world” (World Bank, 2017a, n.p.) with a 2016 GDP growth rate of 7.1% (World Bank, 2016a). Life
expectancy has increased, from 41 years in 1960 to 68 years in 2015 (World Bank, 2016a), agricultural output
has expanded (World Bank, 2016b), and poverty has fallen, from 53.9% of the population living below the $1.90
a day poverty line in 1983 to 21.2% in 2011 (World Bank 2016a).