Right now its 12:15pm (Friday) in India and 11:45pm (Thurs) in the States. My dad asked me to find out why India and a few select countries are on a "special" half hour tme zone that deviates from the standard 1 hour difference. I read that while time zones are based on lines of longitude, some lines are drawn to avoid populated areas or to follow borders. Some countries don't want to be divided into several zones, India included (For more info click here.) It makes sense I guess, India is too big to divide itself into two time zones. It still makes it hard to figure out what time it is back home!