Reviews and Buzz
Reviews of Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century
The Telegraph: Imagining India - Ideas for a New Century
Kenan Malik, 7 May 2009
“There are many difficult issues over which Nilekani skates. The key to ensuring that economic growth creates a more equal society, he argues, is to ensure access to resources for all, but does not explain how this might be possible, especially in an already deeply divided society.
He notes that the opening of markets is replacing caste struggles with class conflict, yet never addresses the consequences of such conflict. There is, however, a bracing optimism about Nilekani’s analysis that vaults over such quibbles and which can only be welcome in this age of doom and gloom. What is most striking about the ideas now transforming India is that they challenge not just the old India, but also the contemporary West. It is the West that now fears the population bomb, decries economic growth, deplores consumerism, and frets about urbanisation. India is confronting the West in more ways than one.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Nature: A billionaire’s vision for India
L.K. Sharma
“Nilekani is critical of the early quasi-socialist policies of planned development, state-run enterprises and industrial licensing that stifled initiative and kept entrepreneurs and the economic growth rate shackled. But he is not handcuffed to dogma. Nor does he spare private enterprise from criticism. He agrees that it was the legacy of those socialist policies that brought the country certain advantages when it decided to take the path of economic liberalization in the 1990s. His own business has drawn on the pool of talent directly nurtured by the state.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
BusinessWeek: Imagining India - In pursuit of prodigious potential
Steve Hamm, 9 April 2009
“The Good: A rich, insightful look at today’s India through the eyes of a business leader
The Bad: It’s aimed at Indian readers, but it’s full of cultural intelligence
The Bottom Line: Executives with a global scope should get their hands on a copy”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Organiser: Ideas for imagining a better India
M. V. Kamath, 15 February 2009
“The point is that Nilekani talks of what is readily available. The massive research that he has apparently effortlessly put in allows the facts and figures adduced to speak for themselves. We don’t have to go through cumbersome reports prepared by successive Planning Commissions. Reading Nilekani gives us enough material to set up sustainable planning. His book is an education in itself. Importantly, it is reader-friendly and unpretentious. It is as if he is sitting in his drawing room discussing everyday problems with his unnamed reader on what has gone wrong in our country and what can be done to set things right.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
SAST Wingees [Blog]: Imagining India
Sukumar Rajagopal, 5 April 2009
“Nilekani’s ability to put ideas in perspective is worth appreciating. For example, in the chapter titled “The Phoenix Tongue”, he explains how English became the key language in Southern India, thanks to Tamilnadu’s vociferous opposition to Hindi imposition and the embracing of the English language by the South Indians. [I am also of the view, that if not for the anti-Hindi agitations, the whole of India would have abandoned English completely foreclosing the rise of the Indian IT/BPO industries which are now the engines of the Indian economy. By the same token, the Hindi belt states, by abandoning English, could not participate in the IT/BPO industries and prosper. I hope the Hindi/Tamil and other local language chauvinists take note of Nilekani's points].”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
CS Monitor - Is India ready for global leadership?
Vijaysree Venkatraman, 1 April 2009
“One novel idea central to this book: In billion-strong India, the masses are a valuable asset. People represent human capital, Nilekani writes. With investments coming in, they constitute a dynamic pool of workers and consumers who can catalyze growth.
In the popular imagination, India is still an ancient land. But the median age of an Indian citizen is now 23. As the median age of citizens in developed countries inches into the high 30s, India is just getting ready to cash in on its demographic dividend.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Globe and Mail - Can India become the next great power?
David M. Malone, 3 April 2009
“A cumulatively rather repetitive formula is at work in virtually all of the chapters: The author has an opinion, he quotes various authorities (Indian and foreign) in support, and provides a number of useful facts and figures to buttress his case. Incidentally, the Indians quoted are much more interesting than the foreigners, the latter too often Davos dross.
These minor critical observations are, however, heavily outweighed by the author’s commitment and integrity, the strength of the arguments he advances and by the importance of his subject: India is projected in coming decades to surpass China in population, although it lags behind China considerably in the economic sphere, largely because of serial failures of government performance throughout the country. Further, whether India’s growing population turns out to be a boon rather than a bomb will depend critically on the quality of education its young people receive, and the prognosis for that must be guarded at best.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Time Magazine: A Manifesto by the Bill Gates of Bangalore
Lauren Bohn, 23 March 2009
“While painting India’s potential with broad rhetorical strokes, Nilekani achieves an impressive breadth nonetheless. He sketches an overwhelming list of sociocultural hurdles from the political legacy of Nehru-era socialism to education, the deeply entrenched caste system, and urbanization. But his reliance on platitudes and wide-eyed optimism is cogent only to a point: the hows are lost in the dust of repetitive hopeful declarations (’a different type of moment seems to be upon us’).
The entrepreneur-cum-intellectual’s salvo on the power of ideas is only convincing if such initiatives like universal health care and education cease to be continually and fatally stalled. Until then, such optimism will continue to be shouted down by the piercing shrieks of India’s present challenges.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Economist: The Bangalore Enlightenment
19 March 2009
“Like Mr Friedman, the author has talked to everybody. But he (and his research assistant, Devi Yesodharan) also appear to have read everything. He begins each chapter with a beautifully curated history of the idea he is exploring. He unearths such gems as Indira Gandhi’s aside to a visiting writer, while she waved to an adulatory crowd: “Do get me some more of those cashew nuts. You have no idea how tiring it is to be a goddess.” Or the doctor whose 350,000 sterilisations made it into the Guinness book of records. It is hard not to be impressed by an author who alludes to Milton on one page, then turns to the charms of the National Municipal Accounting Manual on another.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Daily Beast: The book on India
Prashant Agrawal, 19 March 2009
“Reading through the book, one begins to understand the profound effect ideas have had in changing India. I grew up in the US, where the view of the Indian narrative was simple: India is a poor, socialist country that has a pro-Soviet tilt but declares itself non-aligned. India was lumped together with Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. Today, India is paired with China, and is seen as a rising superpower and a potential tech giant. No doubt, swaths of India are poor. But many Indians are being lifted out of poverty and many are moving into the global middle class. This transformation didn’t happen overnight.”