Infrastructure is a critical element in economic development, but it is much more. Infrastructure has an important impact on shaping state/center relations (and by extension on the related notion of national identity), on the role of private and public capital in funding and managing infrastructure development, on the formation of social classes, and on national interests (and by extension relations with neighboring states). Because these issues address sensitive political questions, this is a political economy course that will focus heavily on how and why decisions are reached on infrastructure issues and on the impact of group interests. Our case studies will be drawn from the South Asian states, especially India, the largest and by far the wealthiest of them, and it is committed to spending at least one trillion dollars on infrastructure over the next five years. We will focus on three very important aspects of development: energy, water and transportation. There is no prerequisite for this class, though taking the course on Comparative Political and Economic Development of South Asia, taught each year in the first semester, would be helpful.