books category archive

Mother Pious Lady – Making sense of Everyday India is a candid look at middle class India, the superficial external changes which hide how some things still remain the same. In the chapter “Global Dreaming” he writes about how the difference in the opinions of the directors , professors of IIMs and the alumni of the IIMs.  The alumni of the IIMs who were very well placed in high paying jobs wanted to build the IIMs as a global brand, but the directors and professors who had access to limited resources were more realistic.  There is a significant difference between the hype and reality, and it is important to distinguish between the two.  Most chapters in the book are less than three pages, making this book an easy read. 

Mother Pious Lady – Making sense of Everyday India

By Santosh Desai

Pages: 380

Published in 2010 by Harper Collins Publishers India

The stories of 20 social entrepreneurs are covered in the book “I have a dream” by Rashmi Bansal. She profiles each entrepreneur, his or her life as well as the ups and downs of their business. Of particular interest is the story of Desicrew a rural BPO in which “work from home” is discussed. It is said that it will not work as people are not disciplined and do not have enough exposure or infrastructure. Desicrew does work outsourced from other clients, so delivery deadlines are important.
If you have your own monetization methods, deadlines can be very flexible.

Other interesting stories are those of Akanksha, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Pipal Tree and Mirakle Couriers
This book offers a glimpse of the various opportunities for social entrepeneurship available in India today.

Book: I have a dream by Rashmi Bansal

Pages : 337

Publisher : Westland

The book Mass Media and Society – Issues and Challenges by K.B.Datta studies the evolution of media over a period of time. It covers radio, television and the print media. The book has a chapter on the evolution of the free press, but notes how ownership in increasingly concentrated amount fewer publishers compared to ownership patterns a few years ago and the high costs involved today. It also notes the main factors which encourage the media to support the dominant power interests like state censorship, high entry costs, corporate ownership, advertiser influence, mass markets, public relations firms .  The book mainly focuses on the mass media in USA and UK

Book: Mass Media and Society by K.B.Datta

Pages : 286

Publisher : Akansha Publishing House, New Delhi, India

One of the biggest disadvantages (and advantages) of having an online business is that you do not really have to interact personally or meet any one face to face to grow your business. Since it is nearly ten years since I was able to quit my job, and this book is an interesting read on conditions for working women in the last decade.  This book focuses mainly on the popular career choices for women – software, journalism , call centres, entertainment industry.  One of the widely used terms in the book is that she earns a good salary or earns well, but no numbers are provided.

The other thing is that the author comments on the lack of women CEOs in the software industry, there are a lot of women software engineers at the entry level, but few to none at the top level. When you work in any company which you do not own, you always have to live up to some one else’s standards. Being a female entrepreneur is difficult in India, even more so if you are single with little family support. And very few  women have the guts to sacrifice almost everything to grow their business.
The book also has stories of women who are educated, earn well but are still trapped in unhappy marriages due to family pressures.

Unbound, Indian Women @ Work

by Gita Aravamudan

Publisher : Penguin Books India , 2010

Pages : 214

The Indian Media

The book “The Indian Media – Illusion, Delusion and Reality” was delivered to me after I made 2 unsuccessful attempts to purchase it earlier. It contains a compilation of essays written by more 30 journalists on a variety of issues such as Environmental issues, Culture, Business and ethics, coverage of scams, broadcasting in India. In the choice for news, Print versus Television by Alok Mehta , there are interesting statistics like the total number of registered newspapers in India was 55780 and the total circulation these newspapers was 142 million.(these are likely to be 2005/2006 figures) .

In Media, Business and Ethics,  Sucheta Dalal writes that in India, companies and even government agencies, control journalists who dare to tell the truth through a combination of exclusion, character assassination or complaints. If you are an online publisher or blogger, this is particularly important and is a reflection on the freedom of the press in India .
The Press and Proprietors , though written by Prem Bhatia in March 1994, is still relevant today as it looks at the tradeoff between profits and the influence the media has.

A good read, I wish I had read this book a year or two ago.

 The Indian Media – Illusion, Delusion and Reality
Essays in Honour of Prem Bhatia
Edited by AshaRani Mathur

First Published 2006
Second Impression 2007
Published by Rupa & Co.

Law of Defamation & Malicious Prosecution – Civil & Criminal  by V.Mitter, Eleventh Edition

A  short review on Law of Defamation & Malicious Prosecution – Civil and Criminal  by V.Mitter, Eleventh Edition is posted elsewhere.

” From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation – The Challenge for India”  studies why despite having second largest population in the world, India is not a source of major innovation. It examines the government support, industrial and social factors which have lead to the growth of innovation in hi tech  countries like USA, Israel, Taiwan , Japan and Korea. Though the software industry has grown rapidly in the last decade, it basically a service industry and the wealth generated has not been used for developing new products . Also most Indian businesses are family owned ,so if the owners have limited expertise in technology, they are unlikely to invest large amounts in it.

A lot of innovation involves experimentation and failure, and in Indian society failure is not condoned.  There is little collaboration between large and small Indian companies, because large companies often do not treat the smaller company fairly (from personal experience with a few exceptions). The author also comments on the inability of Indian companies to recognise technical expertise in Indians who have lived and worked in India however good they may be ,they believe that only foreigners/ foreign returned are the best.

Book: From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation by Rishikesha T Krishnan

Pages : 197

Publisher : The Utpreraka Foundation, Bangalore, India

“Billions of Entrepreneurs – How China and India are reshaping their futures and yours”  compares the economic growth of China and India. While most of the India story like Infosys and ICICI bank  is familiar to a person staying in India, it notes how the importance given to technical excellence in China has resulted in the development of the infrastructure of the country. It provides insights on the banking system in China, state control / holding patterns in companies and corruption levels. It  shows how China has increased its influence in South East Asia, especially Burma (Myanmar) while many of the Indian origin people in that country have left. Most news reports carry information on China’s high economic growth rate, but this book helps you understand how the Chinese economy actually works.  

Book : Billions of Entrepreneurs  – How China and India are reshaping their futures and yours by Tarun Khanna

Pages: 351

Publisher : Penguin Books India , 2009

The book Maximum City ,Bombay Lost & Found covers the many aspects of  Bombay (now Mumbai) such as the riots of 1992 -93, the film industry, the diamond merchants, the runaway poet and a Jain family taking Diksha (with backup insurance in place) . Though many aspects of the city have changed in the last decade, this is perhaps the most well researched book on the city I have read.  The writer has spent a lot of time speaking to and observing the life of the people he has written about. The writer spent his childhood in the city and has a network of relatives in the city, and captures the changes in the city over the last 3 decades (except the last decade).

The book is very well written, and is broken into chapters for each aspect of the city. A good read if you want a glimpse of Mumbai in the 1990’s.

Review : Maximum City ,Bombay Lost & Found by Suketu Mehta

Pages: 584

Publisher : Penguin Books India , 2006

In Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, the author documents his travel throughout the country and his encounters with people from different backgrounds and aspirations. He brings out the contrast in cultures in the different parts of the countries when he writes about how the Deccan Herald carried an article on how the state government was planning to set up new libraries in Shimoga and Bhadravati and how this would not be newsworthy in some other parts of the country.

The book also covers one of the major problems foreign women and  women in India face when they step out of their homes (which is rarely written about), you always have to be on “red alert”, so a woman’s perspective is always different, especially while travelling . He meets some famous people like Mary Roy, the famous litigant and many not so famous people , but each one of them has an interesting story to tell. This book was written in the 1990’s, a lot has changed since then, but it is still an interesting read. 

Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, Travels in Small Town India by Pankaj Mishra

Pages: 273

Publisher : Picador India, Revised edition : 2006