While there are many things that make us the same, there are also many things that make us different. Where we live, what we eat, how we dress and even how we speak-these are just a few things that make us who we are.
Let’s explore all of the wonderful things that make us special in our own way!
Unlike people born in Panjab who have a direct connection with, and hence a memory of the land, I have no liminal or tangible marker of belonging to Panjab. While my family did hail from Panjab, I was neither born here, nor do I live here. I have no address, bank statement, Aadhaar card, passport or land ownership to prove my connection with Panjab.
In 2015, Amandeep Sandhu began an investigation that was meant to resolve the ‘hole in his heart’, his ’emptiness about matters Panjab’. For three years, he crisscrossed the state and discovered a land that was nothing like the one he had imagined and not like the stories he had heard.
Present-day Panjab prides itself on legends of its military and valorous past even as it struggles with daily horrors. The Green Revolution has wreaked ecological havoc in the state, and a decade and a half of militancy has destabilised its economy and governance. Sikhism-the state’s eclectic and syncretic religion- is in crisis, its gatekeepers brooking no dissent and giving little spiritual guidance. And Panjab has yet to recover from the loss of its other half, now in Pakistan.
This revised edition includes a chapter on the 2020-21 farmers’ struggle which proved beyond doubt that the old spirit of the land with its undercurrent of resistance to power and hegemony still beats away. The hope that Panjab’s unyielding knots can be untied continues to linger.
Which description fits your organisation?
DREAMERS: Most Dreamers or early-stage startups, know how to build products, not organisations. Most Dreamers stay local and never become a Unicorn with a national footprint.
UNICORNS: Three curses the Unicorns have to watch for-a narcissistic leader, a leadership team of old cronies and a toxic culture. These prevent them from going global and becoming Market Shapers.
MARKET SHAPERS: A Market Shaper changes how we live and work-across countries and cultures. Their challenge is to continuously earn the trust of governments and communities.
INCUMBENTS: Many Incumbents were once Market Shapers and Unicorns. The leaders don’t know that the firm and its offerings are irrelevant. Not being able to attract and retain talent is a warning bell the leaders often ignore.
Packed with ideas and innovations, this powerhouse of a book by best-selling author and talent management specialist Abhijit Bhaduri explains why leadership, talent and culture are the new drivers of growth whether you are a Dreamer, a Unicorn, a Market Shaper or an Incumbent.
In Search of an Adarsh Indian State
In India, public policies are all around us. Despite this pervasiveness, yeh public sab nahin jaanti hai (the public doesn’t know it all).
Questions are rarely asked of the Indian State-the institution that makes rules, bends them and punishes others for breaking the laws it creates. The privileged can afford not to think about the State because we have given up on it. The not-so-privileged have resigned themselves to a State that provides short-term benefits.
Either way, we seldom pause to reflect on why the Indian State works the way it does.
Missing in Action aims to change such perceptions through sketches from everyday experiences to illustrate India’s tryst with public policymaking. It acquaints the reader with some fundamental concepts of the public policy discipline. It explains the logic (or the lack of it!) of the Indian State’s actions, shortcomings, constraints, and workings.
Jargon-free and accessibly written, the book achieves the difficult task of both entertaining and educating.
There have been many books about Indian society, but none so far about the Indian state. Missing in Action fills that gap, and how! Kotasthane and Jaitley are two of our finest thinkers, and their writing combines a surgeon’s precision with a poet’s art of revealing the unseen. They paint both the big picture and the small details. This book is a masterpiece that will be essential reading 50 years from now. If you want to understand India, you should read Missing in Action.
Amit Varma, Creator of The Seen and the Unseen Podcast and The India Uncut Blog
Missing in Action is a thoroughly engaging, entertaining, and educational book. The book helps readers understand why the Indian State is the way it is-powerful yet ineffective, well-intentioned yet weak, and ambitious yet underperforming. A must-read for everyone!
Rohini Nilekani, Philanthropist, Author of Samaaj Sarkaar Bazaar: a citizen-first approach
The policy outcomes are the result of the three important forces: society, market and the Government. This wonderful book by Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu S. Jaitley beautifully tells you why and how this happens. Their pedagogical strategy is deceptively simple but very effective. The book has many real-life examples of both policy triumphs and disasters in our country and the authors lucidly explain the how and why. I would urge you to read this remarkably perceptive book that is analytically rich while making the learning ride very enjoyable.
Vijay Kelkar, Chairman, Thirteenth Finance Commission and former Finance Secretary, Government of India
Is Pluto a planet? Or a dwarf planet? The controversy rages. But this planet, on the fringes of our solar system, has immense astrological significance, unexplored by the Vedic and Western astrologers. Author and scientific astrologer Greenstone Lobo believes Pluto symbolises destruction and regeneration-as the mythological Rudra Shiva.
In a scary and uncertain world-on the edge because of a pandemic, economic crises, ecological disasters and pandemonium in politics, Lobo looks towards Pluto to make sense of the past, present and the future.
He describes the planet’s journey over the last 250 and the next fifty years, as well as the grand scale on which it can operate. Exploring its character and impact, Lobo discusses his techniques for predictions, the cyclical nature of Pluto, how it changed the world order and its relationship with astrological signs.
From his unique insider’s perspective-as someone familiar with the ways of Pluto through his research-Lobo predicts what to expect and how to prepare for it through 91 predictions. What will the next fifty years bring? When will the world see the last of the pandemic? Who will lead India next? Can India win the next Cricket World Cup? What does the future hold for Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt? What lies in store for star kids Suhana Khan, Hrehaan Roshan, Aarav Akshay Kumar and Aaradhya Bachchan? What about Messi, Angelina Jolie, Rihanna, Beyoncé and others who hold our imagination today?
Through these predictions of good fortune and disasters, scandals and affairs, readers will gain an intimate sense of the rogue planet and its centrality to astrology.
Lieutenant General K.J.S. ‘Tiny’ Dhillon, an Infantry veteran from the Rajputana Rifles with about four decades of military service, has served multiple tenures in Kashmir.
In this book, ‘Tiny’ Dhillon opens a hitherto-closed window, not only to his life but also to Kashmir. He recounts fascinating tales about the toughest challenges he encountered, from age three right up to those from his multiple tenures in Kashmir from 1988 to 2020, where it was his responsibility to maintain a balance between counter-terrorism operations on the one hand and to use military soft power on the other. Dhillon retraces his entire journey, from being a young boy to becoming the Commander of the Chinar Corps, with Kashmir as an inseparable part of this story.
As a first-hand account, the book touches on and demystifies the myths, half-truths, whats, ifs and whys of the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits; the barbarous attack on an Indian security convoy in Pulwama district, in which forty CRPF personnel were killed; the Balakot air strikes; and the abrogation of Article 370 and its impact on the socio-political, economic and law-and-order situation, among other incidents. It takes us behind the scenes to bring out the nuances of various intriguing developments at a critical juncture in the history of J&K.
Anecdotal, candid and evocative, Kitne Ghazi Aaye, Kitne Ghazi Gaye brings to light the true stories from this Army veteran’s life. It focuses on the personal, professional and, most importantly, family life of a soldier in the Army, and will not only provide an insight into the trials and tribulations he faced but will also inspire a wide spectrum of readers, especially young defence aspirants.
Find Tiny Dhillon online:
Twitter: @Tiny_Dhillon
Instagram: @tinydhillon
Facebook: @TinyDhillon
. . . it would be hard to find another that could match Taniya.
Did you know that although Taniya was a very good dog, she was also quite cowardly? It was her antics and adorable nature that made everyone around her love her so much. Why! She was even fed hilsa fish with rice almost every day. Did you also know that she would also sing while Arunabh would play the harmonica or that she could detect an original Marie biscuit from the fake? She was quite the bundle of talent, the little Taniya.
Kalita’s only children’s novel to date, Taniya is a timeless classic in Assam. Masterfully translated in English by veteran Assamese translator Meenaxi Borkotoki, the book also celebrates the verdant landscape and the social and cultural milieu of the beautiful region.
Nisha Small is the youngest detective in all of Madurai.
So when her friend’s sister’s thaali gets stolen shortly before the wedding, Small is called in to solve the mystery. Can she beat the older moustached detectives to catch the thief?
This is the unfettered story of Ashneer Grover-the favourite and misunderstood poster boy of Start-up India.
Raw, gut-wrenching in its honesty and completely from the heart, this is storytelling at its finest.
A young boy with a ‘refugee’ tag growing up in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar outpaces his circumstances by becoming a rank-holder at the pinnacle of academic excellence in India-IIT Delhi. He goes on to do an MBA from the hallowed halls of IIM Ahmedabad, builds a career as an investment banker at Kotak Investment Banking and AmEx, and is pivotal in the making of two unicorns-Grofers, as CFO, and BharatPe, as co-founder.
As a judge on the popular TV show Shark Tank India, Ashneer becomes a household name even as his life turns upside down. Controversy, media spotlight, garrulous social media chatter descend, making it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.
The Creation of Wealth is R. M. Lala’s bestselling account of how the Tatas have been at the forefront in the making of the Indian nation-not just by their phenomenal achievements as industrialists and entrepreneurs but also by their singular contributions in areas like factory reforms, social welfare, medical research, higher education, arts and rural development.
In The TCS Story and Beyond, S. Ramadorai, one of the country’s most respected business leaders, recounts the steps to the extraordinary success of Tata Consultancy Services, one of the world’s largest IT software and services companies, and outlines a vision for the future where the quality initiatives he undertook can be applied to a larger national framework.
Tatalog: Eight Modern Stories from a Timeless Institution provides readers with an insider’s glimpse of the challenges faced by the Tata companies and how they rose above it all and carved a name for themselves.
