The essays emerging out of the Round Table: 2013, one of the academic discourses of the Indian Anthropological Congress delve into aspects of plurality, future of cultures and cultural changes and heterogeneity. They examine the nature of early anthropology and trace the course followed by Indian anthropology that has searched for its own identity. They take up challenges facing anthropology today like the need to work for knowledge that would be instrumental in preserving human freedom and for a critical consciousness which will empower people to fight hegemonic forces. Referring to scholarly views, it explores the tension between particularism and universalism; humanity in the era of globalisation; and the concerns of tribals and other marginalised communities and their rights to their future and, in this context, the dilemmas of contemporary economic development.