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Key takeaways:
Top 5 books that envision the future of India for your reading list:
- Indian Higher Education: Envisioning the Future by Pawan Agarwal
- Seven Decades Of Independent India: Ideas And Reflections by Vinod Rai & Dr. Amitendu Palit (Eds.)
- Jobonomics: India’s Employment Crisis And What the Future Holds by Goutam Das
- The Future of India — Politics, Economics, and Governance by Bimal Jalan
- India — The Future Is Now: The Vision And Road Map For The Country By Her Young Parliamentarians by Shashi Tharoor
On August 15, 2021, India celebrated its 75 years of Independence from British rule. We have indeed come a long way since 1947 — have seen various governments, heroes, tragedies, and accomplishments that have molded India towards what it is today.
While it's good to learn from the past, one must not live in it. I personally think we as Indians are too proud of our past, so much so that we forget to keep pace with the world that is moving ahead. Curating this list was difficult — everyone writes about our history, culture, issues, and fiction, but surprisingly, hardly anyone writes about how one can look into the future.
“We should wipe out poverty by 2010 and become a developed nation by 2020.”
— Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
We have certainly moved towards this goal, but haven’t achieved it yet. That’s okay, but we do need to continue working towards this vision, even if it's delayed.
Here is a list of some books you can pick up that envision how India could grow and look in the future. Do share your reviews and thoughts with our community at merrative.com!
Indian Higher Education: Envisioning the Future by Pawan Agarwal
It is surprising that India has no major higher education research center and no group of researchers focusing on this key subject. This is in sharp contrast to China, which has an extensive network of higher education training programs attached to universities, several excellent higher education research centers, and a general understanding that policy and management of higher education is a matter of considerable National importance.
Pawan Agarwal is serving as Adviser, Higher Education in the Planning Commission, where he has steered the formulation of the country’s Twelfth Plan for Higher Education. Here, he takes inspiration and analyses applications for India from other leading nations in education. The book has a solution-based approach and serves as food for thought on how we can do the much-needed transformation of India’s Higher education.
"This book deals with the contested terrain of higher education in India…the book is an impressive collection of relevant, valuable, and diverse data, assiduously gathered from many sources, and this makes it a “useful base document for opening fresh debate” on higher education policy. "
— The Hindu
Seven Decades Of Independent India: Ideas And Reflections by Vinod Rai & Dr. Amitendu Palit (Eds.)
The importance of building a secular, independent India and making its Institutions work in a fashion uninfluenced by religious tensions and biases have been a key objective of Indian policies.
After 7 decades of independence, the author reflects if we have fulfilled the aspirations of our freedom fighters, Constitution makers, and most importantly, its people. It focuses on public policies, institutions, economics, etc by gathering rare and candid insights from some of the most distinguished experts, practitioners, and scholars in India.
"Scholarly caution and not political rhetoric runs through ‘Seven Decades of Independent India'."
— Scroll.in
Jobonomics: India’s Employment Crisis And What the Future Holds by Goutam Das
The book tells true stories on India’s pay, productivity, and the coming job crisis, one that can easily turn into a demographic nightmare if not addressed urgently and immediately — more so because India is a young and aspirational country.
Either there are no jobs, and those who have, are being paid peanuts. This book highlights not just the lack of productivity and skills among the young population, but also how the lack of employment opportunities via Job Creation. It documents real stories of workers across various shades along with future trends in India's job market.
"The content is presented in a gripping story-led format with specific relatable examples from urban and rural areas that the author seems to have visited during the course of writing this book. Plenty of front-page stories cautioning about poor jobs creation indices, sweeping technology changes likely to make jobs redundant, etc have taken center stage for political and economic discussions, especially in an election year. Jobonomics may almost be the guideline for setting an economic agenda for any political party. "
— Shefali K on Amazon Reviews
The Future of India — Politics, Economics, and Governance by Bimal Jalan
It is a sobering thought that, despite several favourable developments in the economy in the last decade, India continues to have the largest number of poor in the world.
The book explores the rising tide of optimism about India’s future and determines how far it is justified. He argues that it is the interface between politics, economics, and governance, and their combined effect on the functioning of our democracy, which will largely determine India’s future. An understanding of this interface will help explain the swings in India’s political and economic fortunes over the past decades, and why the promise has been belied.
"While the book’s title talks of the future, it is natural to talk of the past. However, the approach of the author is different, as he has taken his own articles and speeches and presented excerpts from them. Such an approach provides views of the author in a time context and hence is not a retrospective."
— Financial Express
India — The Future Is Now: The Vision And Road Map For The Country By Her Young Parliamentarians by Shashi Tharoor
For India’s challenges are considerable, and there’s a reason why we’re still ‘emerging’ , rather than, as President Obama flatteringly put it in his November 2010 address to parliament, already ‘emerged’.
The Future is Now is an inspiring vision of India, by her young parliamentarians cutting across ideologies, geographies, and political affiliations sharing their perspectives across sectors like healthcare, technology, education, etc. It focuses on the importance of laying faith in the vision of young Indians who are truly the future of this country.
"Actually what the editor of this volume should have done is to ask a dozen MPs what they themselves have done towards improving the economy, progress, and prosperity of their constituencies through the use of funds allotted to them by the Government. MPs should become models in their own right. Charity, they say, begins at home. "
— The Free Press Journal
Hope you enjoyed this list! If you have more recommendations or have read any of these books, do share your takeaways and review them with the community at — merrative.com!
