Why has there been so little awareness of poetry in English by contemporary Indian poets as opposed to contemporary Indian fiction in English?
Poetry has always been on the backburner for mainstream publishers. It is supposedly not good for business, i.e. it does not make money. But poetry lists in any mainstream publishers are supposed to add to the prestige of the house.

It is ironic that it does as very few of them have a serious poetry list in India. Penguin has a very good list of translated poetry of the ancient and medieval times (and some modern) in their Classics list. HarperCollins by far are the market leaders in this genre. Sadly, OUP has shut their list down a good while back. No one else (among the mainstream publishers) touches poetry. Thank God for literary small presses, magazines and online webzines, and for reading circuits, festivals and poetry meets where poetry thrives.

Literature students in the country are often exposed only to a limited pantheon of Indian poets writing in English. Could this volume change that?
Absolutely. I think this anthology will change the way students and literature lovers alike will think about poetry that Indians are writing in a significant way. I am already getting a lot of feedback from various academics all over the country — there is a serious interest in that community. Many of them have ordered the anthology for their college/university libraries, put it on their course reading lists, and some of them are currently writing review-essays on the book. So it is definitely a positive sign on that front.