You and your friend each have flights to catch at 8 p.m. and your destination cities are different. You decide to share a cab, but get caught in a rare traffic jam lasting several hours. You end up at the airport around midnight, and surely enough, both of you miss your flights. All quantifiable consequences of missing the flights-cost of tickets cancellation, paying for a new ticket, taking a cab back to the city, overnight stay, taking a cab back to the airport next morning, etc.-are expectedly identical for both. Now suppose the airline assistant tells you, ‘Sorry, your flight left as scheduled at 8 p.m. sharp.’ But your friend is told, ‘Oh, how very unfortunate. Your flight was almost four hours late and only just departed!’ Who feels the greater disappointment? You or your friend?
Neoclassical economics tells us that because both individuals are assumed rational, their regret levels ought to be identical since their economic consequences are identical. Behavioural economists, however, combine psychology with economics, and focus on how real people, with their cognitive biases, actually behave. The friend who just missed the flight does indeed experience greater disappointment than the one who missed the flight by a margin of four hours. Does that make one or the other irrational?
Irrationally Rational takes you through the journey of such rationality-irrationality arguments, showing why economics shorn of psychology may be incomplete. It is the first book of its kind, collating the works of ten Nobel Laureates largely responsible for the rise of behavioural economics, that makes understanding behavioural economics more fun and accessible.
Millions of students graduate every year from college in India and are quickly faced with a problem-they do not have a pathway to a job or career. This is a major obstacle, not only for students, but also parents, the country’s colleges and the entire society.
Get Job Ready: How to Land Your Dream Job out of College is the first book of its type, providing India’s college students with a career pathway framework as a foundational element to improve their job readiness.
The book lays out the steps college students need to take, while in college, to transition from college to career. It includes topics such as how to gain job readiness skills and experience through volunteering, internships, class projects, extracurricular activities; creating a cover letter and résumé; handling an interview; creating a LinkedIn profile; and finding a mentor. It also includes pre-built career pathways, step-by-step guides and worksheets based on global best practices. Students who follow the steps laid out in the book will be job ready, and will be prepared to successfully enter the working world.
Against All Odds: The IT Story of India is an insider’s account and an anecdote-rich history of Indian IT over the last six decades. It taps into the first-hand experiences of Kris Gopalakrishnan and fifty other stalwarts
who built and shaped the IT industry. This is a tale of persistence and resilience, of foresight, of planning and being ready when luck knocks on the door, of a spirit of adventure and, above all, of an abiding sense of faith in technology and the belief that it would do good for India. It is a tale of triumph, and the best is yet to come!
India’s Five-Year Plans were one of the developing world’s most ambitious experiments. After nearly two centuries of colonial rule, planning the economy was meant to be independent India’s route from poverty to prosperity. Planning Democracy explores how India married liberal democracy to a socialist economy. Planning not only built India’s data systems, it even shaped the nature of its democracy. The Five-Year Plans loomed so large that they linked surprisingly far-flung contexts-from computers to Bollywood to Hindutva.
In this compelling history, Nikhil Menon brings the world of planning to life through the intriguing story of a gifted scientist known as the Professor, a trail-blazing research institute in Calcutta, and the alluring idea of ‘democratic planning’. Set amidst global conflicts and international debates, Menon reveals how India walked a tightrope between capitalism and communism. Planning Democracy recasts our understanding of the Indian republic, uncovering how planning came to define the nation and revealing the ways in which it continues to shape our world today
India rightly aspires to be an upper-middle-income economy with its vast workforce gainfully employed
to have a decent standard of living. This, however, is a challenging proposition as India continues to
grapple with major economic policy issues. This book discusses the present state of India’s economy. It thematically explores the critical policy issues India faces today and suggests reforms for India to become a $10-trillion economy
by the mid-2030s. The book presents a wide-angled and comprehensive view of the state of the Indian economy. It analyses India’s macroeconomy in the light of its evolution since Independence and covers the performance of the Indian economy on macro parameters of growth, inflation, monetary management, credit management, foreign capital inflows, fiscal management and other important macroeconomic fundamentals. Covering major sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, industry and services, the book also captures India’s progress towards becoming a digital economy.
‘Integrity and character matter. Without them, no amount of ability can get you anywhere. In addition, you need courage–courage to make difficult decisions and courage to oppose something if your conscience tells you that you are right’–Rahul Bajaj
Rahul Bajaj is a billionaire businessman, the chairman emeritus of the Bajaj Group and a former member of Parliament. This book is not just the story of Rahul Bajaj but the story of India. The author takes us through the country’s transformation from the time Rahul Bajaj’s mother was imprisoned during the freedom struggle to the prism of his eventful life.
Based on unrestricted interviews, the book is full of anecdotes, business learnings and political asides. It is, at its core, a moving human story.
Society tends to glorify the get-rich-quick entrepreneur–who builds a company, takes it public and then (maybe) contributes to charity.
In Leadership to Last, Geoffrey Jones and Tarun Khanna interview iconic leaders in India who have demonstrated leadership to last. There are leaders from South Asia and other emerging markets as well to illustrate that the ideas Indian entrepreneurs speak about are echoed by their counterparts in the Global South. All these magnates–Ratan Tata, Anu Aga, Adi Godrej, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Devi Shetty and Rahul Bajaj, to name a few–have built, to general acclaim and acknowledgement, organizations that are seen as forward-looking and innovative. They subscribe to a code of ethics and contribute to the betterment of society. The authors demonstrate that this is a lot harder to achieve than unicorn status.
The authors corroborate how these stories are less about building a get-rich-quick organization and much more about triggering foundational and institutional change in society. These interviews, encapsulating the history of recent decades, eloquently lay out the opportunities and challenges of today and the future. The profiled leaders inspire awe by displaying audacity of intent, humility of demeanour and steadfastness of purpose.
In Open House, Piyush Pandey takes the readers on a journey into his mind-his work, thoughts and experiences. He answers questions posed to him by people over the decades. Serious questions, incisive questions and frivolous questions. Is advertising a good career option? Should ad agencies work for political parties? Why does Ogilvy work for the BJP? Should citizens take the law into their own hands if they don’t like the advertising? Is Ogilvy a lala company? What is the future of advertising? Is Piyush Pandey too old to be in this business?
Honest, irreverent and informative, this is a roller-coaster ride with Piyush Pandey and Anant Rangaswami who has skilfully curated the book. With its practical wisdom and deep insights,
Open House will both entertain and enlighten you.
This book will be an adept lifetime mentor faithfully by your side to guide you through various stages of life. It guides you in achieving meaningful success including tremendous professional success through multidimensional and balanced life goals, which are the key to happiness and fulfilment. The book first focuses on defining the person you aspire to be through a step-by-step process to define your aspirational life goals. Then it guides you in becoming the best version of yourself and worthy of realizing your aspirations. The ideas shared are relevant to people of ages fifteen years onwards, from high school students to early and senior professionals to CEOs. It also includes insights from exclusive interviews with Ratan Tata, Narayan Murthy, Kiran Majumdar-Shaw, Sadhguru, John Chambers, Dr Devi Shetty, Rahul Dravid, Prakash Padukone, Vinita Bali, Vani Kola, and more. These distinguished people have achieved amazing success by passionately pursuing their goal-based journeys and have underlined the ideas shared in the book.
