For a nation that has one of the highest growth rates in the world, India is plagued by poverty and corruption. Sixty years after Independence, India accounts for around 36 per cent of the world’s poor. The deepening fault lines between the haves and the have-nots have given rise to skewed development and widespread discontent. William Nanda Bissell, managing director of the successful Fabindia chain, believes India’s poverty is a direct result of its poor management by ruling elites who have mastered the art of winning elections but have no interest in the deeper issues of governance. He argues that economic development that consumes large amounts of natural resources and generates enormous pollution is not a luxury available to countries that are beginning their development now. Instead, he proposes a radical new paradigm for development that delinks consumption from quality of life while strengthening the natural environment in the process. The central themes of Making India Work echo the ideas and beliefs that underpin the Constitution of India; but they venture beyond the hackneyed phrases of development to focus on strategies which can, Bissell believes, end poverty in India in five years. Hard-hitting and provocative, this book is a result of Bissell’s journeys across rural and urban India, offering unique solutions to the challenges confronting its people.

An article in the Harvard Business Review once said that the most valuable skill for the 21st century manager is the ability to work across cultures. Around the world, it is increasingly recognized that an understanding of a country's work culture plays a significant part in success at one's job. Every group of people has subtle drivers of behaviour, values and beliefs, an understanding of which could help you navigate your way around the workplace. Indians are no exception. We have some innate strengths that we seldom take credit for. Like the uncommon capacity to deal with ambiguity and to think on the fly; the emphasis we place on forming and sustaining relationships at work; and the willingness to go beyond the call of duty as we see our jobs as an extension of our personal lives. And then there are traits that may confuse the uninitiated at first and need some getting used to - such as saying 'yes' to an assigned task when we actually mean 'no', our flexible attitude to time, and the famous Indian head wag. Based on extensive interviews with corporate leaders - Indians as well as expatriates and repatriates, who offer insider and outsider perspectives on the psyche of the Indian in the workplace - How India Works is a guide to the cultural nuances and complexities of working in India. It will make your life in office a little easier.

How can India become a great country once again, is the question explored in this book. In the past, India had significant achievements in science, technology, mathematics and business. A failure to build robust institutional networks of information and trust and indifference of the state to business communities, brought all that crashing down within a generation. Many of these historical patterns persist till today. The ability to create wealth has everything to do with such networks. There was never any shortage of innovation in India. What was lacking was the ability to learn from their own experience. The building of learning networks and a learning ecosystem that could be used by people to leverage success – this is what is needed to unlock the huge talent pool that India possesses. This book addresses young, educated and aspiring Indians in different walks of life who are interested in contemporary issues relating to nation, society and economy. It puts forward some solutions to the problems that India faces. It would be of interest to anyone who would like to know how history can teach us to re-write the Indian growth story and to re-build a great nation. The book could also be used as reading material for students of history, political science, public administration, business administration, in under-graduate and post-graduate classes. Please note: This title is co-published with Manohar Publishers, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

The world stands so dazzled by India’s meteoric economic rise that we hesitate to acknowledge its consequences to the people and the environment. In Churning the Earth, Aseem Shrivastava and Ashish Kothari engage in a timely enquiry of this impressive growth story. They present incontrovertible evidence on how the nature of this recent growth has been predatory and question its sustainability. Unfettered development has damaged the ecological basis that makes life possible for hundreds of millions resulting in conflicts over water, land and natural resources, and increasing the chasm between the rich and the poor, threatening the future of India as a civilization. Rich with data and stories, this eye-opening critique of India’s development strategy argues for a radical ecological democracy based on the principles of environmental sustainability, social equity and livelihood security. Shrivastava and Kothari urge a fundamental shift towards such alternatives—already emerging from a range of grassroots movements—if we are to forestall the descent into socio-ecological chaos. Churning the Earth is unique in presenting not only what is going wrong in India, but also the ways out of the crises that globalised growth has precipitated.

A commercial company established in 1600 to monopolize trade between England and the Far East, the East India Company grew to govern an Indian empire. Exploring the relationship between power and knowledge in European engagement with Asia, Indian Ink examines the Company at work and reveals how writing and print shaped authority on a global scale in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Tracing the history of the Company from its first tentative trading voyages in the early seventeenth century to the foundation of an empire in Bengal in the late eighteenth century, Miles Ogborn takes readers into the scriptoria, ships, offices, print shops, coffeehouses, and palaces to investigate the forms of writing needed to exert power and extract profit in the mercantile and imperial worlds. Interpreting the making and use of a variety of forms of writing in script and print, Ogborn argues that material and political circumstances always undermined attempts at domination through the power of the written word. Navigating the juncture of imperial history and the history of the book, Indian Ink uncovers the intellectual and political legacies of early modern trade and empire and charts a new understanding of the geography of print culture.

‘An insightful view on the origin and evolution of Indian corporates’ – N.R. Narayana Murthy The story of corporate India is linked to managing agencies, an organizational form dominant in the subcontinent from 1875 until its abolition in 1970 that allowed entrepreneurs to promote diverse companies while exercising disproportionate control over cash flows. This is the definitive economic history of Indian companies through the lens of managing agencies, whether controlled by goras or desis. ‘An informed analysis of the ways of Indian business’ – Sanjaya Baru ‘A fascinating history of the precursors of corporate India’ – K.V. Kamath ‘A very timely perspective and a delightful read’ – Ashok S. Ganguly

For almost half a century, the Miss India competition has been a prominent feature of Indian popular culture, influencing, over time, the conventional standard for female beauty. As India participates increasingly in a global economy, that standard is gradually being shaped by forces beyond the country’s borders. Through the unexpected lens of the 2003 beauty pageant, Susan Dewey’s Making Miss India Miss World examines what feminine beauty has come to mean in a country transformed by recent political, economic, and cultural developments.

Long plagued by poverty, India's recent economic growth has vaulted it into the ranks of the world's emerging powers, but what kind of power it wants to be remains a mystery. Our Time Has Come explains why India behaves the way it does, and the role it is likely to play globally as its prominence grows.

A history of the colonial tea plantation regime in Assam, which brought more than one million migrants to the region in northeast India, irrevocably changing the social landscape.

India will be the world's most populous country by 2024 and its third largest economy by 2028. But the size of our population and a sense of historical greatness alone are insufficient to guarantee we will fulfil our ambition to become a global power. Our approach to realize this vision needs more than just planning for economic growth. It requires a shift in attitudes. In Making India Great, Aparna Pande examines the challenges we face in the areas of social, economic, military and foreign policy and strategy. She points to the dichotomy that lies at the heart of the nation: our belief in becoming a global power and the reluctance to implement policies and take actions that would help us achieve that goal. The New India holds all the promise of greatness many of its citizens dream of. Can it become a reality? The book delves into this question.