India has just celebrated sixty-four years of independence. But is our country truly free? Is the maturity of a nation measured by the number of years in existence or by the development in its society? And whose development are we talking about? Ten leading luminaries from the field of politics, literature, media, art and culture, management, defense, and public administration raise these questions and try to answer them through their own specialized domains.



Organized around two broad themes-"inclusion of the excluded" and "education for the marginalized" Bridging the Gap offer an exposition to the range of inequalities and challenges in different fields of social engagement, and open up possible ways of addressing these concerns. The contributors discuss inclusiveness and marginalization in the contemporary social contexts, their diverse dimensions, and interlinkages with various sources of social inequalities including caste-, class-, and gender-related factors.