non fiction category archive
Law of Defamation & Malicious Prosecution 0
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.
Review: From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation by Rishikesha T Krishnan 0
” 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
Review : Billions of Entrepreneurs by Tarun Khanna 0
“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
Review: Maximum City, Bombay Lost & Found by Suketu Mehta 0
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
Review: Butter Chicken in Ludhiana by Pankaj Mishra 0
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
Review: The Caged Phoenix by Dipankar Gupta 0
The book , “The Caged Phoenix – Can India Fly” is another realistic look at India today. The author has used his field studies in factories and villages to find out the actual extent to which poverty has declined and finds that it is still widespread.
He says ” The Indian affluents like to believe that they are not just a world apart from the grime around them, but in fact , world class”. Another interesting discussion on perception vs reality in India . The distance between the elite and the poor is so large, that they have no empathy for the millions who work for them and contribute to their wealth. He contrasts India with Europe and England where the Whig aristrocrats went out of their way to devise policies to protect the poor and improve their condition. He believes that India can grow only if the government can efficiently deliver health, education and other public goods.
The Caged Phoenix – Can India Fly – by Dipankar Gupta
Publisher : Penguin Books India
Pages : 322
Review : Games Indians Play by V.Raghunathan 0
The book Games Indian Play – Why we are the way we are looks at the possible reasons why Indians are individually hardworking and intelligent, but as a nation, a large section of the population remains illiterate , lives below the poverty line and public infrastructure is poor.
Some of the features of Indians which are discussed in the book include low trustworthiness, lack of self regulation and sense of fairness ( not the Fair and Lovely kind), mistaking talk for action . He uses game theory to find the reasons behind this behaviour . He narrates several incidents where Indian businessmen out to make the quick buck, lose out in the long term. The “crab in a bucket” syndrome makes difficult for an individual to excel however good he or she may be, when every one around trying their best to pull the person down. Western countries like USA, Germany, France, Asian countries like China, Japan and Korea appreciate talent and hard work to a much greater extent, which is why they are economically so advanced.
Games Indians Play – Why we are the way we are by V.Raghunathan
Pages : 170
Publisher : Penguin Books
Review : The Great Indian Middle Class by Pavan K.Varma 0
The book ” The Great Indian Middle Class” looks at the evolution of the Indian middle class from the pre Independence era till date. The author notes that Jawaharlal Nehru , the first prime minister of India was modern, had a scientific and rationalist outlook and did not care much for religious rituals.
However, in recent years as people have become wealthier and acquired more materialistic goods like consumer gadgets, many of them have also become less modern in some ways, blindly spending time and money on irrational activities. He notes that an educated middle class person will publicly denounce some of the harmful traditions like dowry , but will privately do exactly the opposite. In the chapter ” Inner Landscape” , he notes that “The young in the middle class are even more susceptible to blindly imitating the West than their parents were”, which is very true.
He concludes by noting that a nation will not be considered great or a superpower if only a small section of its society is wealthy, but when it also treats its poor and vulnerable with care and concern. This book gives a very realistic glimpse of Indian society society, shorn of all the hype and gloss.
The Great Indian Middle Class by Pavan K.Varma
Pages : 243
Publisher : Penguin India
Review : Wise & Otherwise by Sudha Murty 0
This is a collection of 50 short stories which reflect the good, bad and ugly facets of human nature. Most of the stories are 2 to 3 pages long, but provide glimpses of society today.
One thought provoking story is “The truth about women” , Page 144 , where she reflects that though women have equal rights on paper, in reality their status is different in India and harassment from narrow minded men is common. She also notes that in countries where women are truly treated fairly and with respect are those which also enjoy the high per capita income.
Wise & Otherwise by Sudha Murty
Pages : 224
Publisher : Penguin books
Review : Connect the Dots by Rashmi Bansal 0
If you read the news and reports in the mainstream media, being an entrepreneur in India is simple – have a good product or service at a competitive price, do some marketing. But the ground realities are very different, there is no shortage of companies (especially the bigger ones) who will try to destroy your business by spreading false rumours and using every dirty trick in their book to harm you.
“Connect the Dots” has stories of 20 Indian entrepeneurs who have built their business . While she covers the usual things like the finances, branding, product, marketing, the best part of the book are the underhand methods companies use to damage / destroy their competitors. Dirty tactics may work for commodity products , but unhappy people are unlikely to produce results if it involves innovation or research. A good read for any one who is planning to or has become an entrepreneur after a corporate job and has no family business background or support.
Connect the Dots by Rashmi Bansal
Pages : 305 (excluding photographs)
Publisher : Eklavya Education Foundation