"I am an Indian analyst and I can add some perspective to this post. To describe it simply, in essence, Diwali can be looked at as a combination of Christmas, 4th of July and Thanksgiving, in addition to a host of Indian traditions around food, family, friends and goodwill. While families that celebrate Diwali light a lot of firecrackers, the timing cannot be assumed to be coincident to the timing of this picture. In addition, it is highly unlikely that entire cities and towns would have been lighting firecrackers of the same color (blue/red, etc.), much less cities adjacent to each other, at the time of this picture. Hence, I can conclude that this picture has nothing to do with firecracker colors. Now, coming to the hypothesis around population growth. The most populous states in India are what you see as the northern blue area in the picture and the unlit part under it, primarily because of how backward these states are compared to the rest of the country, in terms of family planning and education. So, the lights cannot refer to the population explosion. The white lights correspond to the more developed, industrialized and higher per capita income areas of the country (even though parts of them are agriculture-driven). Based on my experience and the order of the different colors showing up on the map, I would propose that they signify factors such as industrialization and per capita income, where the size of the marker correlates to the degree of prosperity. In other words, the more well-lit the area, the more prosperous it is. @Rashmi: The Vedas encourage everyone to keep questioning the logic behind everything. If you don't question the logic behind what you are doing, you are likely to fall into the trap of being superstitious instead of being religious."

"I am an Indian analyst and I can add some perspective to this post. To describe it simply, in essence, Diwali can be looked at as a combination of Christmas, 4th of July and Thanksgiving, in addition to a host of Indian traditions around food, family, friends and goodwill. While families that celebrate Diwali light a lot of firecrackers, the timing cannot be assumed to be coincident to the timing of this picture. In addition, it is highly unlikely that entire cities and towns would have been lighting firecrackers of the same color (blue/red, etc.), much less cities adjacent to each other, at the time of this picture. Hence, I can conclude that this picture has nothing to do with firecracker colors.   Now, coming to the hypothesis around population growth. The most populous states in India are what you see as the northern blue area in the picture and the unlit part under it, primarily because of how backward these states are compared to the rest of the country, in terms of family planning and education. So, the lights cannot refer to the population explosion.   The white lights correspond to the more developed, industrialized and higher per capita income areas of the country (even though parts of them are agriculture-driven). Based on my experience and the order of the different colors showing up on the map, I would propose that they signify factors such as industrialization and per capita income, where the size of the marker correlates to the degree of prosperity. In other words, the more well-lit the area, the more prosperous it is.   @Rashmi: The Vedas encourage everyone to keep questioning the logic behind everything. If you don’t question the logic behind what you are doing, you are likely to fall into the trap of being superstitious instead of being religious."