Arthur R Kroeber provides a detailed and masterful analysis of how China succeeded in his book China's Economy

The real story of the China miracle

Business Standard

The idea of public policy has gained credence in recent years while discussing democratic institutions and political processes

Civil society and its discontents

There is a grand narrative about the way areas impacted by Maoist insurgency operate. Maoist rebels are painted as villains of the worst kind. The people sympathetic to them, either by choice or under compulsion, are considered anti-development. Government servants are seen as helpless spectators unable to do much to make some breakthrough. And corporate houses willing to invest are perceived as saviours because they want to use money to bring some development in such neglected regions. Any deviation from this narrative is seen as a betrayal of the cause of development.The story, unfortunately, has no place for victims who suffer silently because of their refusal to take sides. They are bound to suffer because their only interest is survival. After all, they are the ones who allowed the dreaded Maoists to flourish in their midst in the first place.The book under review, however, questions this grand narrative and does so fairly persuasively. The author is a professor at a leading busin

Despatches from the conflict zone

Since Mr McNeil's book was finished on June 1, numerous new findings have offered further cause for concern about Zika's arrival in the United States

Zika's long jump

Chasing mirages

Oxford economist Vijay Joshi calls for 'more sweeping reforms of a deeper variety' for India to make a rapid ascent to prosperity. The billion-dollar question is how feasible this is even under ideal conditions

As more Indian women enter the workforce, two recent books examine the tenuous balance that women struggle to achieve between professionalism and their gender-based roles. One is written by an award-winning journalist/author Pallavi Aiyar, who calls herself an elite-in-a-developing-country kind of brat; the other studies inter-generational changes in attitudes towards women's work through case studies of respondents who have been the first women in their family to seek jobs.Author Alice W Clark has observed the strategies that have enabled modern Indian women to work in spite of the limitations placed upon them and concludes that familial support is one of the most important facilitators of women's careers. Whether in large cities or small towns, the extent of a girl's education (which determines her employability and her attitude towards work) is most often determined by her family, especially by the father, and post-marriage, by her husband's attitudes. Ms Clark writes about Lilawati

Women on the balancing beam

An internationally famed cellist, also the best friend of a ruthless politician, serving as the clandestine owner of shady companies that help the elite in his country siphon away public funds; corrupt officials selling off broadcasting rights for major sporting events to a private media company for a pittance; a "banana republic" in Central America offering a tax haven; and at the centre of it, the mysterious son of a former Waffen-SS officer assisting drug lords, gun runners and autocrats conceal their ill-gotten wealth... Sounds like the plot of an Alistair McLean pot boiler?On the contrary: It's the true story of the greatest data leak ever. And, the international journalists who dug through the unimaginable mountains of data to focus the light of day on a shadow financial system that aids the rich and powerful conceal their wealth, and maintain the status quo of inequality. Now, the world knows of the leak as "Panama Papers" - the 1.5 million documents of the Panamanian law firm M

A Promethean project

As Henri De Wailly's book, rigged wars are by no means the prerogative of the 21st century powers

Syria's forgotten war

From Hobbes and Hegel to John Stuart Mill and John Rawls, the seminal figures of Western political theory are united in their almost complete neglect of immigration. No doubt they have their reasons. Who among them witnessed anything like the global refugee crisis of 2015? Or the anxieties about national identity that it inflamed? Be that as it may, with hostility toward immigrants and refugees fueling the "Brexit" movement and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, we could use some deep thinking about the relationship between the state and its citizens.On the case is the political philosopher David Miller. His book Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration aims to be the first to combine such an abstract approach to the topic with such a strong dose of realism. Make no mistake: Mr Miller is a humane, social democratic Oxford University professor. But comes down in favour of a state's right - except when human rights are threatened - to close its borders to o

Deep thinking about immigration

26/11 case: David Headley says ready to depose if he receives pardon

An account of David Headley's life, often in his own words, provides a useful study in how radicalised youth cross the boundaries into terrorism

A terrorist's mind map

Ashraf Marwan betrayed Egypt for close to three decades as an influential spy for Israel

The great betrayer

Being the Other: The Muslim in India explores the continuing marginalisation of Muslims in India in the post-partition years

India's unofficial apartheid

Few people know that Swami Vivekananda was fluent in Sanskrit. He had a disciple named Sharatchandra Chakravarty who kept a diary, written in Bengali but it has since been translated into English. This anecdote is from this diary. Shri Ramakrishna had a householder disciple named Nag Mahashaya. On one occasion in 1897, when Sharatchandra Chakravarty was present, another disciple, who frequently visited Nag Mahashaya, came to meet Swami Vivekananda and mentioned Nag Mahashaya. Swami Vivekananda addressed this disciple in Sanskrit with a reference to Nag Mahashaya's great spiritual success. Translated, the quote reads: "We have been destroyed in our pursuit of the truth. O bee! You are the one who has indeed been successful."What is remarkable is not that Swami Vivekananda spoke in Sanskrit, but that he used a quote from literature, Kalidasa's Abhijnanashakuntalam in this case. The Shakuntala story is about King Dushyanta and Shakuntala, and King Dushyanta said this when a bee was hoveri

Bibek Debroy: A recognition of Kalidasa

Defining and understanding these 12 technological forces and how they will shape our future in the next 30 years is the thrust of The Inevitable

Our digital lives tomorrow

The true history of the games is a far cry from the platitude-laden, sepia-toned nostalgia pumped out by the International Olympic Committee and sponsors

Dark history of the Olympics

The next booms, busts and protests

With a focus on change in five to ten years, Ruchir Sharma's new book, The Rise and Fall of Nations, manages to make a persuasive case for a general audience

A recent spate of bombings and attacks all over the world - Dhaka to Istanbul, Medina to Baghdad - has served as a reminder, an especially cruel one during Ramadan, of the continued threat of the Islamic State (IS). Though the terror outfit suffered major setbacks in Iraq, losing Fallujah at the end of June, it continues to attract disillusioned people from all over the globe, including about 20 from Kerala last month, with the promise of a utopia. Tabish Khair's new novel follows two English girls who undertake the treacherous journey through Turkey and war-torn Syria to join the jihadis. It is an essential tale for our times - and a terrifying one.The title of the novel is, quite obviously, inspired by Jihadi John, the British recruit who was purportedly seen beheading about 30 people in videos released by the Islamic State. Originally, Mohammed Emwazi, he was named "John" by a group of his hostages as he was part of a four-person terrorist cell called The Beatles because all its mem

A regular tale of terror

Authors Arun Gadre and Abhay Shukla have based this book on a set of 78 interviews with leading doctors across the country conducted at Support for Advocacy and Training to Health Initiatives

Doctors diagnose the decline of health care

Ms Anja Manuel has tackled political systems and dissent in both countries as interrelated themes

The new world troika

S Muthiah and Ranjitha Ashok's book collects plenty of such anecdotes from erstwhile employees of British firms in India, and presents them in an immensely readable format

My granduncle's hat & other tales

Antonio Garcia Martinez's Chaos Monkeys, a book whose bland all-purpose title belies the fact that this is a valley account like no other

In the engine room of the start-up economy

Book News: Check out for latest book news, reviews, book launches and more on Business Standard. Explore now for new books reviews along with books writers and novel reviews and more.

Books News: Latest Book, Book Reviews, Book Features, Book Launches | Business Standard

Check out for latest book reviews, book launches and more on Business Standard. Explore now for new books reviews along with books writers and novel reviews and more.

Page 148 - Book Reviews