Books of the Week - Saturday,. 1St April , 2023

Transforming the Steel Frame

by - Vinod Rai  

About the Book

The bureaucracy in India has been a study in contradictions. On the one hand, it represents the dream job for an entire population of Indians who take the UPSC examination to join the ‘steel frame’, keeping the country running. On the other hand, it is rife with tales of corruption and red tape, such that citizens dread any interaction with government officials of any order.

Curated by veteran bureaucrat, former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai, Transforming the Steel Frame: Promise and Paradox of Civil Service Reform examines the roles and responsibilities of the bureaucracy in modern times. It sets forth a vision of the future through an analysis and review of past attempts at reform, in the process revisiting the strengths of the systems as well as the flaws that prevent its optimal functioning. It includes the perspective of former civil servants who have been a part of this system for their entire lives and reflect on its problems while making recommendations for the future; officials who have participated in setting evaluation standards for the civil services and who have headed training academies and businesspersons who have worked both in the private and public domains and collaborated extensively with the bureaucracy.

In the breadth and thoroughness of its coverage, Transforming the Steel Frame provides an excellent overview of the civil services as they are and, more importantly, as they should be. The study that forms part of this book has been initiated by the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.

About the Author

Vinod Rai is presently distinguished visiting research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies in National University of Singapore. He is also a trustee on the Board of Trustees of the International Financial Reporting Standards. Starting his career in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1972, he rose to become the eleventh Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in 2008. He demitted office in May 2013. In 2016, Rai was appointed the first chairman of the newly created Banks Board Bureau (BBB).

He has authored Not Just an Accountant: The Diary of the Nation's Conscience Keeper, Rethinking Good Governance: Holding to Account India's Public Institutions, Not Just a Nightwatchman: My Innings in the BCCI and has co-edited Seven Decades of Independent India: Ideas and Relections. Rai was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2016, in recognition of his services to the nation.

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK - SATURDAY, 13 JULY, 2019

ISBN : 9789388689526 

Price : Rs. 699.00

About the Book

•  Is Hinduism the exclusive preserve of the most strident            groups?

•  Are the elites of ‘Lutyen’s Delhi’ stuck in a time warp?

•  Should India call Pakistan’s bluff and brand it an enemy            nation?

•  Why do MPs disrupt parliament and waste the taxpayers’           money?

•  Why shouldn’t a grand Ram temple be built in Ayodhya?

•  Why is India’s foreign policy more ad-hocism and less              strategy?

In Chanakya’s View: Understanding India in Transition, Pavan K. Varma, best-selling author of Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism’s Greatest Thinker, analyses the challenges that India faces today. In a minute and frank critique, he points to behavioural change as the need of the hour: Indians need to respect institutions, shun intolerance, accommodate dissent, follow strategic diplomacy and increase their moral quotient. At once a celebration of India and an appraisal of it, Chanakya’s View is a roadmap to making the republic a truly great one.

One of India’s foremost public intellectuals, and also a politician, Varma firmly believes that India will sustain owing to its great civilisational heritage and the strength of its people. As a committed admirer of the great strategist Chanakaya, he is convinced that these years of transition will ultimately lead to a maturation worthy of the world’s largest democracy.

About the Author

Author of the bestselling book, Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism’s Greatest thinker, Pavan K. Varma is a writer-diplomat and now in politics, where he was till recently an MP in the Rajya Sabha. He was earlier Advisor to the Chief Minister of Bihar, with rank of Cabinet minister. He was Ambassador in several countries, also Director of The Nehru Centre in London, Official Spokesperson of the MEA, and Press Secretary to the President of India. Author of over a successful dozen books, Pavan K. Varma is currently the National General Secretary and National Spokesman of the Janata Dal (United).

He was conferred an Honorary Doctoral Degree for his contribution to the fields of diplomacy, literature, culture and aesthetics by the University of Indianapolis in 2005. He was also awarded the Druk Thuksey Award, Bhutan’s highest civilian award, by His Majesty the King of Bhutan. In 2018, on the instructions of His Holiness the Shankaracharya of Sringeri , Pavan K. Varma was conferred an honorary doctorate by the Sri Sharada Institute of Indian Management.

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK - SATURDAY, 22ND JUNE, 2019

Gun Island: A Novel

By - Amitav Ghosh

ISBN : 9780670089161    

Price : Rs. 699.00

About the Book : 

Bundook. Gun. A common word, but one which turns Deen Datta's world upside down.

A dealer of rare books, Deen is used to a quiet life spent indoors, but as his once-solid beliefs begin to shift, he is forced to set out on an extraordinary journey; one that takes him from India to Los Angeles and Venice via a tangled route through the memories and experiences of those he meets along the way. There is Piya, a fellow Bengali-American who sets his journey in motion; Tipu, an entrepreneurial young man who opens Deen's eyes to the realities of growing up in today's world; Rafi, with his desperate attempt to help someone in need; and Cinta, an old friend who provides the missing link in the story they are all a part of. It is a journey which will upend everything he thought he knew about himself, about the Bengali legends of his childhood and about the world around him.

Gun Island is a beautifully realised novel which effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.

About the Author

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford and published the first of eight novels, The Circle of Reason, in 1986. He currently divides his time between Calcutta, Goa and Brooklyn. The first novel in his Ibis trilogy, Sea of Poppies, was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize.

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