Ever since the British East India Company began exploiting India's riches, India has feared business development--especially foreign business development.

FORBES: India Takes Two Steps Back

Americans regularly brewed Twinning's tea for a while in the 1700's, but then, in 1773, the British government passed the Tea Act, a measure designed to give an advantage to the British East India Company.

NPR: Tea for You and Me

Throw together all the output from Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Wall Street and Tin Pan Alley, and you have a commercial empire that would have been the envy of the British East India Company or Cecil Rhodes.

ECONOMIST: America and empire

India had become steadily more difficult for Britain to rule and without India, British hegemony in the Middle East, deemed a core national interest until the disaster of Suez in 1956, was increasingly unsustainable.

ECONOMIST: The British empire: Pondering the past | The

The British Crown consequently took control of India from the East India Company and reorganized the government to address many of the tensions that led to the rebellion, which included granting greater religious tolerance and integrating Indian members of the higher castes into local governments.

NPR: Lucknow Is For Lovers

The uprising was ruthlessly put down, but the shock it provoked in London brought about the dissolution of the East India Company and the establishment of the British Raj.

NEWYORKER: Globish For Beginners

In the east, China disputes the McMahon Line, agreed by British India and a Tibet then under British rather than Chinese sway.

ECONOMIST: Banyan