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7 West Patel Nagar,

New Delhi-110008. Rs. 550.

The first chapter “Planet India” brings out the penchant of Indians to “Use, re-use, re-cycle but never throw away.” This is linked with learning to economise on scarce resources. As he rightly puts it, “Umbrellas, cooking stoves, car batteries, old radios: India had and has a flourishing repair industry for everything! Like the water pump doubling as a people moving engine, every artifact was open to multiple uses and to ‘multi-utilitarianism’.” Herein lies perhaps the secret of “frugal engineering” of India which now enchants the global auto makers!

The rise of the Indian consumer market and the accompanying entrepreneurship to tap this has been well brought out in the chapter “Here and now”. In contrast, the chapter that follows “There and Then” is a bit laboured defence of the earlier approach consisting of “Plethora of controls-on production, consumption and every aspect of life” of the government in the 1960s and 1970s.

The ushering in of changed policies in the early 1990s as a result of the balance of payments crisis and dismantling of the “License Raj” is well depicted. In the chapter “Modern Times”, the author terms the 1990s as “the gap years” when the rural-urban divide widened. He states that compared to China where almost half the workforce in agriculture shifted to industry, agriculture still employs 60 per cent of the workforce in India.

On top of this, the agricultural growth itself has slackened. As it is aptly put, the contrast was simply too strong: “One India was riding a housing and automobile boom on the back of cheap consumer credit, while another India was being forced into suicide because it couldn’t pay back its loans.”

The rise of IT and outsourcing is interestingly brought out in the chapter “Mind over matter”. Not to leave behind the rising manufacturing competence, he brings out India’s growing strength in this area, though captains of industry were rather sceptical at the beginning about the effects of globalisation.

The author’s well-known significant contributions to India emerging as a prime force in the WTO negotiations have been interestingly presented under “The Challenge of Global Trade”. He makes a very convincing argument against the farm subsidies of the advanced countries, while they want the developing countries to do away with it!

India’s earlier lack of attention to its education, health and infrastructure building which is hurting it dearly now, has been subtly conveyed. Of course, the author does not deem these as “self created obstacles” of the government and its failure to address them in time.

While he has eulogised the resilience of Indian democracy, the cancer of corruption which is permeating every part of the society, eating into its vitals, hardly finds a mention! Also the social tensions that are simmering below the surface between the haves and the have-nots and the felt need to address them before they become unmanageable deserve mention.

The author outlines his vision of India in 2020, which is indeed a rosy one. With his demonstrated competence as an effective voice of the developing nations, his own personal experiences in global negotiations make interesting reading. His learnings with humility have been well brought out in a suave manner.On the whole it is a very well-crafted piece of work. Convincing examples abound, knit with engaging personal episodes. It is indeed a deftly woven tapestry of the myriad strengths of India, giving vivid accounts of interactions with prominent political personalities of the contemporary world and quotations from leading thinkers. Written very lucidly, it makes for racy reading and can adorn the bookshelf of every proud Indian around the globe.

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