Ed Luce of Financial Times reviews Nandan Nilekhani's book on India. It is worth a read in its entirety. You should also see Nandan's own presentation here.
"Nandan' efforts", writes Ed Luce, "have produced one of the best and most thought-provoking books on India in years. Few Indian, or indeed Western, businesspeople would be capable of drafting such a dispassionate and self-critical account of their country’s prospects. And perhaps no other Indian public intellectual could write across so many disciplines -- politics, economics, finance, education, the environment -- with as much clarity and acuity."
"If only Indian policymakers would take note" Ed continues,"they could also turn the country’s relative lag when it comes to energy and the environment into an advantage. Nilekani offers many solutions, including building an integrated national gas grid to transport India’s growing supply of relatively clean natural gas. Many of the world’s most promising biotechnology and alternative-fuel entrepreneurs are Indians based in Silicon Valley. India could create a more attractive venture-capital sector to lure back more of its own scientists and entrepreneurs from abroad. Examples of potentially transformative Indian products that are already being developed at home include the $25 laptop and a carbon-positive electric car, which has a photovoltaic sunroof. Many more would be in the pipeline if India had a U.S.-style financial system for start-ups......India possesses the human know-how and natural resources to surmount its challenges. For example, it could devote much more agricultural land to growing biofuel crops such as switchgrass -- a move that would expand its energy stocks and relieve the country’s much-abused water table, which is being drained by water-guzzling crops such as rice and wheat. But reform would mean getting rid of the layer of bureaucrats and the groups of farmers who live off India’s lavish and grossly corrupt subsidy system......or good or for ill, the decisions of Indians will hold ever greater sway over the fates of other countries, including that of the United States."
"The solutions to India’s enormous problems" he concludes, " may not be around the corner, but they deserve very close attention. Nilekani’s book is an ideal place to start contemplating India’s great challenges and its no-less-breathtaking potential."
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