Ancient palaces dot India's landscape and wealth is the country's new mantra. But for those at the lowest rung of society - the 'untouchables' - life has not changed much since 3 AD when the thinker Manu established the caste system. See Broken People, Broken Promises.

Bollywood always caught them young in India but now Bollywoods rambunctious musicals are playing to packed houses across the globe. And this is changing the way the world looks at, interacts with, and even invests in India. Chinese pop-culture is going through a similiar renaissance. See The New Soft-Powers

The historic Jame, or Friday mosque rises over Delhi. India's preference of sweeping post-partition religious tensions under the carpet instead of working to reconcile them has backfired. Since 1989 India's Hindu right BJP has stoked these old wounds to catapult itself into power. See India's Calculated Ethnic Violence.

The Kolis were Bombay 's sole inhabitants of Bombay when the area was first captured by a Portuguese captain, Heytor de Silveira, in 1528. Still sailing their Arabian dhows , or fishing boats, in a city now made up of people from every part of India, the Koli's continue their ancient life, seemingly unperturbed by the world that has risen around them. See 24 hours in Bombay