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Middle of Diamond India

Middle of Diamond India

National Renaissance through Participation and Enterprise

Shashank Mani
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Middle of Diamond India proposes a revolutionary idea – that India has long ignored its largest and most talented segment, citizens in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 districts, its Middle.

The book reveals the hidden stories of those in its Middle who have been ignored owing to their location and language. By examining India’s revolutionary past, its culture, its citizens, its innovators, and its spirit, the book illuminates this Diamond shaped India.

Replete with characters, anecdotes, insights, research and accounts of an annual pilgrimage on a special train-Jagriti Yatra, and an enterprise ecosystem established in Deoria district, the book outlines a new vision of India focussed on its rising Middle. It proposes a Banyan Revolution over the coming twenty-five years of Amrit Kaal, using the tool of enterprise or Udyamita that can ignite a national renaissance.

The book argues that by recognizing and awakening the entrepreneurial vitality of those in small towns and districts, we can create meaning for millions of citizens and define a new modernity for India.

Imprint: India Viking

Published: Sep/2023

ISBN: 9780670100194

Length : 456 Pages

MRP : ₹699.00

Middle of Diamond India

National Renaissance through Participation and Enterprise

Shashank Mani

Middle of Diamond India proposes a revolutionary idea – that India has long ignored its largest and most talented segment, citizens in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 districts, its Middle.

The book reveals the hidden stories of those in its Middle who have been ignored owing to their location and language. By examining India’s revolutionary past, its culture, its citizens, its innovators, and its spirit, the book illuminates this Diamond shaped India.

Replete with characters, anecdotes, insights, research and accounts of an annual pilgrimage on a special train-Jagriti Yatra, and an enterprise ecosystem established in Deoria district, the book outlines a new vision of India focussed on its rising Middle. It proposes a Banyan Revolution over the coming twenty-five years of Amrit Kaal, using the tool of enterprise or Udyamita that can ignite a national renaissance.

The book argues that by recognizing and awakening the entrepreneurial vitality of those in small towns and districts, we can create meaning for millions of citizens and define a new modernity for India.

Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback

Shashank Mani

Shashank Mani is the founder of the Jagriti Yatra and the Jagriti Enterprise Centre - Purvanchal (JECP). The Jagriti Yatra is an annual fifteen-day train journey, the world's largest entrepreneurial one, to the four corners of India in the company of 500 young leaders. The JECP focuses on enterprise led development in Eastern UP.


With a B. Tech from IIT Delhi, and an MBA from IMD Lausanne Shashank has worked in both corporate and government sectors as a strategist and visionary, serving on the $5 Trillion committee of the commerce ministry. A ghumakkad at heart and a public man of action by temperament, he has circled India fifteen times on the Jagriti Yatra, energizing 7,500 leaders in the process.


A doting father, a proud husband, a friend and guide to the people of Deoria, Shashank lives and works in his ancestral village Barpar in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. He is developing his region through Udyamita, a definition of enterprise aimed at invigorating local economy and society.

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