James Crabtree is a columnist at Foreign Policy, the executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia, and the author of The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age.
Yogi Adityanath (C), Uttar Pradesh's new chief minister, attends his swearing-in ceremony in Lucknow on March 19, 2017.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing party on March 18 picked a controversial firebrand leader to head India's most populous state, where it won a landslide victory last week. After an hours-long meeting with local BJP legislators, senior party leader M. Venkaiah Naidu announced 44-year-old Yogi Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh's next chief minister.
/ AFP PHOTO / SANJAY KANOJIA (Photo credit should read SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP/Getty Images)
In this photograph taken on September 7, 2016, an Indian man works at a call center of TravelKhana in Noida.
Passengers on India's vast railway network have long complained of the terrible food on offer to sustain them on long journeys, but now all that is changing thanks to a slew of new services bringing fast food to your seat. / AFP / CHANDAN KHANNA / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: 'India-Lifestyle-Transport-Food', FEATURE by Bhuvan BAGGA (Photo credit should read CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/Getty Images)
Indian residents queue to try to withdraw money from an ATM in New Delhi on November 8, 2016.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced late November 8 that 500 and 1,000 ($15) rupee notes will be withdrawn from financial circulation from midnight, in a bid to tackle corruption. "To break the grip of corruption and black money, we have decided that the 500 and 1,000 rupee currency notes presently in use will no longer be legal tender from midnight ie 8 November, 2016," Modi said in a special televised address to the nation. / AFP / CHANDAN KHANNA (Photo credit should read CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/Getty Images)
