Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century by Nandan Nilekani.

Imagining India, Ideas for the New Century by Nandan Nilekani
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The book is well researched and provides lots of insight into the problems plaguing India.
1. The book has very well illustrated the ups and downs of the Indian economy along with the reasons.
2. It has well documented the need for reforms in the different sectors (education, power, environment) in India.
3. It has analyzed some reasons on why India has been through these ups and downs.
4. He has well argued as to why Government of India should stop trying to create jobs and rather concentrate on creating an atmosphere where private players and entrepreneurs can setup businesses which will in turn create jobs.

Some negative aspects are.

1. The material is repetitive.
2. He waxes eloquent of what IT and ITES has done for the Indian economy. No doubt it has helped the Indian economy but it really is exaggerated.
3. In one of the places talking about education he indicates that there has been a spate of engineering colleges that have come up in India and that the quality of these are going down day by day. What he does not acknowledge is that the IT industry has been mostly or at least partially responsible for mushrooming of these colleges. All IT companies insist on an engineering degree for entry into these organizations irrespective of the branch in which they graduate. And this has really be detrimental to both these organizations and for the quality of education offered.
4. There is a lot of mention of how Infosys provided the banking software to ICICI bank and how it has revolutionized the banking sector (and no doubt in this). On similar lines there is lot of mention of how much NSE, NSDL and NCDEX has benefited because of IT and how much these institutions have gone towards contributing to the development of Indian economy, but there is no mention that TCS was the company behind the software being used at all these institutions.

Note: Read my earlier review of the TCS story by Mr. Ramadorai that has no mention of Infosys and this book has only one mention of TCS and that in passing. It looks like there is lot of bad blood between these two giants and that does not augur well for the Indian IT industry.

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The TCS Story - S. Ramadorai

The TCS Story . . . and Beyond by S. Ramadorai
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book is well written and highlights the Travails faced by the IT industry pioneers in India. For somebody in the Indian IT industry today it hightlights the characteristics of associates in the early days with the characteristics of the associates today. It is a world of a difference. Associates were more dedicated, more loyal and more hardworking than they are today. Maybe the same number of associates answer to the above set of attributes but in overall percentage of associates in IT companies there numbers are very small and that is the reason one has seen a huge drop in the quality of software coming out of these companies.

While Mr. Ramadorai highlights the successes of TCS he is failed to touch upon the failures which would have added another dimension to the company that is TCS. The book leaves the reader in no doubt as to who were the pioneers of IT industry in India.

Towards the end of the book Mr. Ramadorai has put in his thoughts on Education in India and how vocational training has to be brought in and strengthened as that would open up more avenues of employment for the students passing out of the numerous schools and colleges. It would give a different means to livelihood to the millions who today strive the find a job and then try to find satisfaction with whatever job comes their way rather than being able to select a job as per their abilities and likes.

On the whole a good read for the employees of the Indian IT industry.

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