The Elephant Paradigm: India Wrestles with Change is, quite simply, about an ancient civilization's reawakening to the spirit and potential of its youth. Following up on the success of India Unbound, which took up the process of India s transformation in the 1990s from a closed to an open economy, The Elephant Paradigm ranges over a vast area covering subjects as varied as panchayati raj, national competitiveness, and the sacred and philosophical concerns of the average Indian consequent to India's entry into what the author calls the age of liberation. While India may never roar ahead like the Asian tigers, Das argues, it will advance like a wise elephant, moving steadily and surely, pausing occasionally to reflect on its past and to enjoy the journey. Gurcharan Das employs the essay form to sew together varied facets of this remarkable transition. Divided into three sections, the book first establishes a context for the changes that have occurred, and then assesses how we have changed or not changed in our public and private lives. As he sweeps over the major political, social and economic developments, he does not forget to examine the individual beliefs and aspirations that underpin the process. Crisp, insightful and witty, these essays capture both the disappointments and the joys that resulted from the 90s revolution and serve as an essential guide to the new India

The Elephant Paradigm: India Wrestles with Change

Business & Money

Gurcharan, Das

Job Hunting & Careers

Penguin

India Unbound is the riveting story of a nation s rise from poverty to prosperity and the clash of ideas that occurred along the way. Today s India is a vibrant free-market democracy, and it has begun to flex its muscles in the global information economy. The old centralized, bureaucratic state, which stifled industrial growth, is on the decline; the lower castes have risen confidently through the ballot box; and the middle class has tripled in the last two decades. This economic and social transformation is one of the major themes of this book. Gurcharan Das recounts the hope and despair of the last fifty years. The Licence Raj created a work environment in which a cousin of the author, on his first day at work in the railways, could precipiate a strike just because he was honest. And on one occasion, the author, even though a seasoned executive, was driven to sit by the polluted Yamuna and weep after a fruitless meeting with a bureaucrat. The transformation began in the golden summer of 1991, when a reticent reformer, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, finally changed the nation s course through sweeping economic reforms. A restrictive regime, in which the state dictated everything, from a woman s choice of lipstick to the programmes on television, gave way to the optimism of a rising middle class eager to compete with the rest of the world. It was a quiet revolution, one that has not been chronicled before. Gurcharan Das examines the highs and lows of independent India through the prism of history and his own experiences and those of numerous others he has met following the reforms, from young people in sleepy UP villages to the chiefs of software companies in Bangalore. Defining and exploring the new mindset of the nation, India Unbound is the perfect introduction to contemporary India. The powerful story of a nation's transition from poverty to prosperity. Examining the highs and lows of independent India through the prism of history and his own experiences, Gurcharan Das defines the new mindset of the nation in riveting prose.

India Unbound

Economics

VIKING

Acchai ki Kathinai

Penguin Yatra

Why should we be good? How should we be good? And how might we more deeply understand the moral and ethical failings-splashed across today's headlines-that have not only destroyed individual lives but caused widespread calamity as well, bringing communities, nations, and indeed the global economy to the brink of collapse? In The Difficulty of Being Good, Gurcharan Das seeks answers to these questions in an unlikely source: the 2,000 year-old Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata. A sprawling, witty, ironic, and delightful poem, the Mahabharata is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharma-in essence, doing the right thing. When a hero does something wrong in a Greek epic, he wastes little time on self-reflection; when a hero falters in the Mahabharata, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and often contradictory take on dharma. Each major character in the epic embodies a significant moral failing or virtue, and their struggles mirror with uncanny precision our own familiar emotions of anxiety, courage, despair, remorse, envy, compassion, vengefulness, and duty. Das explores the Mahabharata from many perspectives and compares the successes and failures of the poem's characters to those of contemporary individuals, many of them highly visible players in the world of economics, business, and politics. In every case, he finds striking parallels that carry lessons for everyone faced with ethical and moral dilemmas in today's complex world.Written with the flair and seemingly effortless erudition that have made Gurcharan Das a bestselling author around the world-and enlivened by Das's forthright discussion of his own personal search for a more meaningful life-The Difficulty of Being Good shines the light of an ancient poem on the most challenging moral ambiguities of modern life.

The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

India today is a vibrant free-market democracy and has begun to flex its muscles in the global information economy and on the world stage. In this acclaimed book, Gurcharan Das tells the stories of the major players in a period of rapid and profound change, and makes comprehensible and compelling the economic and political developments responsible for these changes. Das argues that the changes of the past 50 years have, at last, amounted to a revolution in India. By weaving his personal story into the larger context of contemporary history, Das provides a book that is at once vigorously analytical and vividly written.

India Unbound: From Independence to the Global Information Age

History

Asia

The Elephant Paradigm: India Wrestles with Change is, quite simply, about an ancient civilization's reawakening to the spirit and potential of its youth. Following up on the success of India Unbound, which took up the process of India s transformation in the 1990s from a closed to an open economy, The Elephant Paradigm ranges over a vast area covering subjects as varied as panchayati raj, national competitiveness, and the sacred and philosophical concerns of the average Indian consequent to India's entry into what the author calls the age of liberation. While India may never roar ahead like the Asian tigers, Das argues, it will advance like a wise elephant, moving steadily and surely, pausing occasionally to reflect on its past and to enjoy the journey.  Gurcharan Das employs the essay form to sew together varied facets of this remarkable transition. Divided into three sections, the book first establishes a context for the changes that have occurred, and then assesses how we have changed or not changed in our public and private lives. As he sweeps over the major political, social and economic developments, he does not forget to examine the individual beliefs and aspirations that underpin the process. Crisp, insightful and witty, these essays capture both the disappointments and the joys that resulted from the 90s revolution and serve as an essential guide to the new India.

Penguin??Books

Gurcharan Das Box Set

Penguin India

Kama: The Riddle of Desire

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

India Penguin

Gurcharan Das on the Three Aims of Life: A Boxed Set of India Unbound, The Difficulty of Being Good and Kama: The Riddle of Desire

Religion & Spirituality

Kahani Ek Parivar Ki (Hindi) [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2006] Gurcharan Das

Penguin books.India

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