Computational sciences in the India region are going through an exciting time. While India has always had significant strength in theoretical computer science (CS), in recent years it has developed substantial presence and maturity in other, more applied areas of CS such as hardware and computer architecture, data science and artificial intelligence (AI), and cyber-security. Alongside pure research, there has been a significant push toward lab-to-field projects and technology transfer and deployment, creating broad impact to the region and beyond. Significant efforts have been made on the democratization of education through online courses, enabling the vast population to learn from a relatively limited number of available experts. All these activities have continued to bolster India's already strong IT industry and been a factor in the huge increase in the number of startups (under 1,000 in 2016 to over 60,000 in 2022a), with the number of unicorn startups reaching 100.b

We are pleased to introduce the India Region special section to Communications' readers. The Indian subcontinent has a population close to 1.8 billion, and is unique due to its diversity of people, cultures, spoken languages, and wide disparities in socioeconomic conditions. The region plays an important role in the global computing landscape with its highly trained manpower, software companies, and top universities that produce students that not only serve local needs, but move around the world and have global impact. We developed this special section to mirror all these facets. Last year, we publicized the plans for the special section and made an open call for contributions through ACM member channels and the ACM India website.