"It's so damn exciting," says R A Mashelkar, the dynamic Director General, CSIR Council of Scientific & Industrial Research. "The change that is taking place is so huge. It's a great time to be an Indian and to be in India."

What will India be like in five years time? If everything goes according to plan -- in India that's an extremely big if -- the Indian economy should have undergone a transformation.

At one level, the changes will be one of scale -- the economy will simply be much bigger than it is currently. At another India should, truly, have become a knowledge economy and an even bigger player than it is today on the global stage.

..... Is this too rosy a picture of India's future? Obviously, in an uncertain world anything can -- and often will -- go wrong. There can be political upheavals and riots and the suchlike.

But there's more confidence than ever before. Says Mashelkar: "I can confidently predict that if India plays its cards right, by 2025, it can become the number one knowledge production centre of the world."