‘The next decade belongs to India’: Meet the winners of rising power’s economic boom

As Indians head to the polls, here are the entrepreneurs and influencers who have risen up alongside the country’s surging economy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As Indians head to the polls in a massive ongoing nationwide election, much attention has focused on the country’s explosive growth under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. During his past decade in office, India’s fast-growing economy has become the world’s fifth largest as the country woos foreign investors and embarks on a massive infrastructure transformation, spending billions on new highways, ports, airports and railways. While not everyone has benefited and income inequality has deepened — millions still live in sprawling slums and youth unemployment has soared — Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are widely expected to win another five-year term and push forward that economic expansion. That’s partly because many in the world’s most populous country, especially among the younger generation, share a common belief: India is on the rise. More than 40% of India’s 1.4 billion people is under 25: a massive, tech-savvy and mostly English-speaking labor force, with their eyes set on the future. Like millions of migrants from across the country, many of them are drawn to the country’s financial capital Mumbai, full of aspiration and ambition. And it’s stories like these that inspire them.