Imagining India  -   Ideas for the New Century

Imagining India - Ideas for the New Century

Product ID: 25549

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Author: Nandan Nilekani
Publisher: Penguin/Viking
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 531
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780670081967

Description

Since the early 1990s, India has witnessed great social, political and cultural change. As the world’s largest democracy, it’s most diverse nation and one of its fastest growing economies, India is now, sixty years after Independence, universally regarded as an emerging superpower. In this sweeping and comprehensive book, one of the country’s finest and most dynamic minds examines the central ideas that have shaped modern India, and offers an original perspective on our past, present and future.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who has been a key player in India’s growth story, points out that the country’s future rests on more than simply economic growth; it also depends on reform and innovation in all sectors of public life. Looking closely at India’s recent history, he examines the ideas and attitudes that have evolved with the times and contributed to the country’s progress, as well as those that keep us shackled to old, unproductive and fundamentally undemocratic ways.

He discusses how India’s early socialist policies, despite good intentions and astonishing idealism, stifled growth and weakened our democracy; how, contrary to received wisdom, the country’s large and overwhelmingly young population has now become its greatest strength; how information technology is revolutionizing not just business but also governance in the everyday life of a vast majority of Indians; and how rapid urbanization is transforming both society and politics.

He also gets to the heart of charged debates about caste politics, labour reform, infrastructure, higher education, the English language in India and the role of the state in a globalized world where the wealth of big corporations exceeds that of some nations. And as he does this, he asks the key questions of the future: how will India as a global power avoid the mistakes of earlier development models? Will further access to the open market continue to stimulate such extraordinary growth? And how will this growth affect- and be shaped by- the country’s young people?

India is in the middle of a huge transformational process, Nilekani argues, and only a safety net of ideas-from genuinely inclusive democracy to social security, from public health to sustainable energy-can transcend political agendas and safeguard the country’s future.

COMMENTS

‘What makes Nilekani unique? For me it comes down to one phrase: great explainer…It was his insight that the global playing field was being “leveled” by technology that inspired me to write the book The World is Flat…In this era of mounting complexity – with more people, systems and products entwined in a bewildering web of global networks-explaining is an enormously valuable skill. And it explains why, if you sit outside his office for a day, you notice that half the people going in are employees looking for instruction or customers looking for deals; the other half are politicians, journalists and ministers from around the world looking for an explanation of what it all means.’
-THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, TIME

Contents

Introduction
NOTES FROM AN ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR

PART I : INDIA RE-IMAGINED

INDIA, BY ITS PEOPLE

FROM REJECTION TO OPEN ARMA
The Entrepreneur in India

THE PHOENIX TONGUE
The Rise, Fall and Rise of English

FROM MANEATERS TO ENABLERS

HOME AND THE WORLD

THE SEEPENING OF OUR DEMOCRACY

A RESTLESS COUNTRY

IDEAS IN PROGRESS

S IS FOR SCHOOLS
The Challenges in India’s Classrooms

OUR CHANGING FACES
India in the City

THE LONG ROADS HOME

ERASING LINES
Our Emerging Single Market

MOVING DEADLINES


PART III: FIGHTING WORDS

IDEAS IN BATTLE

THE SOUND AND THE FURY
Our Biggest Fights

JOSTLING FOR JOBS

INSTITUTIONS OF SAND
Our Universities

A FINE BALANCE


PART IV: CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR

IDEAS TO ANTICIPATE

ICT IN INDIA
From Bangalore One to Country One

CHANGING EPIDEMICS
From Hunger to Heart Disease

OUR SOCIAL INSECURITIES

THE FOREST FOR THE TREES
India’s Environment Challenge

POWER PLAYS
In Search of Our Energy Solutions

THE NETWORK EFFECT

CONCLUSION

THE AWAKENED COUNTRY

NOTES
A TIME LINE OF KEY EVENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INDEX