The paper aims to analyse three questions which arise naturally in examining India’s closer engagement with the world economy in the last two decades. First, how has it evolved and what is its extent? Second, what is its impact on India? Third, what is its impact on the world? Evolution and Extent: For four decades after independence, India’s economic policies had a marked autarkic bias and by 1990 it had become one of the most closed economies in the world. A major goal of the historic reforms launched in 1991 was to reintegrate the country into the global economy, and there has been a progressive move in this direction Effect on India: In post-independent India, many sceptical voices made dire predictions about the effects of opening up, such as deindustrialisation and destabilisation of the economy, and impoverishment of the people. After opening-up, these alarming prophecies did not materialise. Undesirable features of India’s development, such as inadequate poverty alleviation despite rapid growth, have domestic causes and are not the result of globalisation. Effect on the World: India’s effect on the world economy is growing but has to be seen in the context of China’s simultaneous rapid rise. It is very likely that on all the major contentious global economic issues such as exchange rate coordination, trade liberalisation, and climate change mitigation, global action will have to involve the participation of China and India. For good or ill, China and India will matter in the 21st century both for each other and for the world.