The Making of India : Gamechanging Transitions by Akhilesh Tilotia

"The old ways have got to be made irrelevant in such a comprehensive manner that they cease to remain relevant."

A brilliant book comes to an end and leaves so much to remember and ponder.

The Making of India, Kotak Securities 

I came across the book, in a talk which Arun Shourie delivered for its launch. Various sets of people, whether in policy making, students and general readers will find it of great help. The book is written in form of themes(not crude chapters) and is packed with a lot of data, its analysis, explanations on myth busting(eg. the issue of land) and most importantly a slew of macroeconomic concepts to make things very understandable. There were numerous occasions where privatization as an idea seem to be inevitably brought to the notice(in form of case studies) like private firms entering hybrid-seeds production, private firms entering distribution of water utilities(in Nagpur) etc but there was nothing as an ideological baggage and everything got substantiated with convincing arguments and data. I really liked the way the book is written, not much heavy baggage of ideology or cynicism of Indian economy. Straight, to the point prescriptions and a clear reading of changes that are sweeping our society. The book focuses mainly on the areas of 'economics' and 'governance' (not to be read as government) so it does miss covering a few extra areas like Health, Education, Energy etc. But whatever it brings out is A-grade content. The Chapter on Urbanization, E-Governance and Agriculture added a lot of analytical weight to this book.

The Book was born out of an in-house research headed by the author at Kotak Securities primarily as an aid to the understandings of investors(abroad and national).

Rating: 7/10