Imagining India is a book you can not leave unread and i finished it in less than 24 hours. Its a book about the failure of Nehru's Fabian policy and evolution of brand India, about the problems and challenges that India has to face in order to become a develop nation in coming decades and finally its a book about the young Indians who without any significant help from Indian government created a much publicized and best selling brand "India".
Nandan Nilekani talks in details about the initial economic policies of India regarding creating a state controlled industries in order to create a true socialist state. These all policies although were very romantic but all got punctured during during two oil crisis of 1973 and 1991. The depleting foreign exchange reserves forced India to open up its market in 1991 and from then onwards Indian has never looked back. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
No one has believed in 1960 that India could do that better, in those desolate years India had to rely on foreign aids even for food and India used to consume 1/4th of the US food grain production. In these last 40 years we have made a great progress in almost all the sectors of modern civilization.
This book along with my other favourite Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat is in a way a tribute to Indianess. In 18th century our contribution in world trade was 20% and we were the most open market in the world. Time has come to take back that seat :).
I dont want to sign off as Cassandra but my favourite lines "Miles to go before we sleep".
Highly Recommended (8/10)
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