At the start of his career as sub-collector of Parvathipuram sub-division in north-coastal Andhra Pradesh way back in 1974, Subbarao learnt—the hard way—that tribal development requires more than enthusiasm; it requires, most of all, an understanding of poverty. Nearly forty years later, in 2013, as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India in the midst of a fierce exchange rate crisis, Subbarao learnt—once again the hard way—the harsh challenges of emerging economies in an unequal world. ...

A visionary's bequest to the nationOn the way from Delhi to Jaunpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh lies the dusty town of Badshahpur. Even in this nondescript settlement, people receive money via mobile transfer from family members working in distant cities. There are computer-training centres offering diploma courses in Bhojpuri, Hindi and English. Badshahpur is an example of India's numerous remote towns that have skipped basic literacy and landed straight into the age of digital liter...

India and its market are highly complex and even the native people face challenges in understanding it; leave aside the foreigners. India is a highly heterogeneous country with marked differences in everything, including business. It is quite usual for people to get perplexed and puzzled by the diversity of India and the variations existing in its market.A proper understanding of the history, culture, and society of a country is a pre-requisite for achieving success in doing busine...

Making a Difference comes as a handy guidebook for IAS aspirants in the country. The preface is by Yogendra Narayan, a retired IAS officer and also the ex-chief secretary of U.P. The introduction is about the challenges and opportunities of IAS as a career. It also includes everything from the motives to join the IAS to the written exam to the personality test to the training required. The book also talks about the myths and realities about the IAS - interesting sections include questions ...

An economist's perspective on the nuts and bolts of economic policymaking, based on his experience as the Chief Economic Adviser in India.In December 2009, the economist Kaushik Basu left the rarefied world of academic research for the nuts and bolts of policymaking. Appointed by the then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, to be chief economic adviser (CEA) to the Government of India, Basu—a theorist, with special interest in development economics, and a prof...

'Few people know more about India's financial system than Dr Y.V. Reddy. And even fewer have the authority that he commands.' - Raghuram Rajan, former RBI governor'If America had a central bank chief like Y.V. Reddy, the US economy would not have been in such a mess.' - Joseph Stiglitz, economist and Columbia University professor'One among the brightest intellectuals living in India today...the most eminent central banker of the last decade across the world.' - P. Chidambar...

India may widely be acknowledged as one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, but how can this vast, diverse and heavily populated nation sustain growth prospects? Game India offers a decisive answer.Through chapters, at once ambitious and engaging, it outlines seven key unrealized opportunities India can pursue to remain a leading player on the world economic superhighway: solar power; an enviable coastline and waterways; milk; agriculture; a huge population...

Well-known economists and policy makers look at the Bihar model of development and discuss the challenges ahead During the 1990s, Bihar's development failed to benefit from the acceleration in India's economic growth, principally because of a steep decline in the already low standards of governance. this changed dramatically after November 2005, when The Nitish Kumar government came to power. Within a short time, major initiatives were launched in improving governance, infrastructure, educ...

Concise, accessible, and indispensible, Doing Business in 21st-Century India is the perfect primer for anyone who's long on enterprise, short on time, and eager to profit from this fascinating new market.By now, you probably know that India has the second-fastest growing economy in the world. That the spending power of its middle class is rapidly increasing and its population is eager to acquire Western conveniences. And that new opportunities abound in it...

Twenty-seven years in service and fifty-three transfers: that's an average of six months in each posting. Meet the forever-in-transit man of the Indian bureaucracy, Ashok Khemka. The IAS officer shot into the limelight in 2012, when he cancelled the mutation of a land deal between realty major DLF and a company which belonged to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra. With the Congress party in power, most people called it a suicidal move. But, true to his reputation for...

In 1998, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam published a book that was ahead of its times and went on to become a bestseller. It was called India 2020 and proposed that India could soon be one of the top five economies of the world, even though, back then, the nation had set off a series of nuclear tests and was facing worldwide sanctions. A new government had taken charge, and the economy was going through a tough time. It was not the best of times to predict that India had it in her to get on the fast tr...

8 November 2016 was a black swan event in Indian history. At one stroke, 86 per cent of the currency in circulation was demonetized, causing confusion, chaos and endless misery to the common Indian. While the Modi government claimed that it was the silver bullet that India needed to eliminate many of its longstanding problems such as black money, corruption, tax evasion and terror funding, the months that followed proved it otherwise. The return of 99.7 per cent of the banned 500 rupee and...