Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation by Nandan Nilekani, Thomas L. Friedman (Foreword by)

Broad perspective from a business and technology leaderby andyoram

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October 17, 2009: I learned quite a bit from this book, as someone outside India and the

Indian community, and thoroughly enjoyed Nilekani's writing. It's a

wide-ranging treatise with many big agendas; it covers education,

infrastructure, environmental challenges, government intervention, and

the role of historical narrative, among other things. Biggest among

its agenda--and the one that I wager will generate the most debate--is

Nilekani's own version of what I'd call a modern combin...more I learned quite a bit from this book, as someone outside India and the

Indian community, and thoroughly enjoyed Nilekani's writing. It's a

wide-ranging treatise with many big agendas; it covers education,

infrastructure, environmental challenges, government intervention, and

the role of historical narrative, among other things. Biggest among

its agenda--and the one that I wager will generate the most debate--is

Nilekani's own version of what I'd call a modern combination of

neoliberalism and neoprogressivism that seems to be gaining

ground. The general idea is that governments should take a leading

role to promote social progress by creating an infrastructure that

allows individuals to form their own destinies (good education, good

health care, good physical infrastructure, a light-touch form of

regulation that ensures quality, and occasional direct welfare

payments) rather than preserving oases of protection and easily abused

subsidies for particular interest groups, notably unions, small

businesses, and disadvantaged castes.

Good book for understanding India's current portfolio of problemsby Indian_Kumar

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January 06, 2009: When I came to know about this book I thought finally there is a book which would perhaps make Indians think ( as the title suggests) what their country is potentially capable of becoming. Author mentions in his book a clear and understandable historical background of all the problems which India is currently facing. Problems have been thoroughly analyzed, discussed with experts and have been put in a clear and comprehensible text.However, when it comes to the solutions which would solve these problems, there is so much yet to be put in the book if the title suggests to Imagine India. What are we imagining is still left to be answered I suppose.
The more apt title would have been Analysing India rather than Imagining India. Here the concern is that India's citizens, planners, politicians, acamedicians and many others who are interested in India's growth know India's problems fairly well, however, they are still not sure how to solve those problems, for that matter , there is no project plan so to say. I would have appreciated this book more if a 'dream' project plan for India had been given stating all problem areas having a clear target date for resolution of each of them, putting resources that would be required to accomplish each project activities. In such a project plan mentioning risks, dependencies and assumptions for each activities should be mentioned with the mitigation plan for each of them. For execution, monitoring of such as project plan for India, there has to be involvement from not only state but also from corporates, citizens and many others. Teams should be formed to execute each activity of the project plan, analyze the budget requirement for each area. Put target dates for each activity of the project plan and make people accountable. To substantiate this, lets say we would like to see literacy rates to be as good as 90% by 2020, then based on this target date, see how many schools, teachers, universities etc would be required based on the population to be targeted. Then see how what amount of money would be required for this, identify teams and start executing the plan.
When people will know about the India's dream plan and what would we will achieve after executing that plan then there will definetly be something to Imagine about India, otherwise, if we just mention problems, then it is only about Analysing India. I would surely recommend this book to others as this gives summary of all problems. I hope there is a sequel of this book for more concrete solutions mentioning teams, budget and timelines for accomplishing India's dream plan.