From the Bookshelves

Binod Chaudhary: Making it big in Nepal

Binod Chaudhary: Making it big in Nepal

Steven Levy: Why Alphabet is more conventional than Google ever was

Steven Levy: Why Alphabet is more conventional than Google ever was

Jayadevan P.K: How Xiaomi built a cult following

Jayadevan P.K: How Xiaomi built a cult following

Vivek Wadhwa: Now the Goliaths eat David for lunch

Vivek Wadhwa: Now the Goliaths eat David for lunch

Jeff Immelt: My legacy was controversial at best

Jeff Immelt: My legacy was controversial at best

  • Nitin Rakesh: 8 principles for companies to follow in post pandemic world

    Nitin Rakesh: 8 principles for companies to follow in post pandemic world

    The book 'Transformation In Times of Crisis' by Nitin Rakesh, CEO of Mphasis and Professor Jerry Wind, who taught at Wharton School, delves upon how enterprises are rewiring themselves and adapting to the new normal to survive. The book outlines key eight principles which include agility, mental models, digital transformation, tapping open talent resources, among other ideas. The book prods companies to ask themselves to build their new strategy for the new normal

  • Shiv Shivakumar: How to deal with the ten most important career dilemmas

    Shiv Shivakumar: How to deal with the ten most important career dilemmas

    All of us go through career dilemmas at some point. Shivakumar discusses the top ten dilemmas that we may experience and backs them with research and data to analyse how we can make better career moves. In his book, 'The Right Choice', he says India produces nearly half a million MBAs every year but less than 5 percent of an IIM batch makes it to the CEO's office, thus explaining that merely possessing a degree from a prestigious institute does not guarantee a ticket to the corner office. He discusses the importance of career moves, board membership and CEO's dilemmas

  • Raja Rajamannar: Marketers should harness new tech to stay relevant

    Raja Rajamannar: Marketers should harness new tech to stay relevant

    Marketers, globally, are facing an existential crisis as more companies are losing confidence in what marketers can do for their brands. In this book, Rajamannar points out what he calls quantum marketing, the fifth paradigm, that can help marketers to stay relevant in the business. The need to adopt experiential marketing, harnessing machine learning, artificial intelligence, 5G, and more relevant data to create campaigns which can resonate with customers. He also talks about the new ways that he is planning to launch campaigns for Mastercard

  • Challenging the myths of meritocracy, with Prof. Michael Sandel

    Challenging the myths of meritocracy, with Prof. Michael Sandel

    As more people feel dislocated in the face of the inexorable forces of globalisation and lash out against immigrants and free trade, Professor Michael Sandel, one of the foremost philosophers in the world and a professor at Harvard University, challenges the usual notions of meritocracy in his latest book, 'The Tyranny of Merit: What's become of the common good?' While the book delves more into Donald Trump's win and Brexit as the base for its narrative, it has lessons for everyone as education plays a key role in how citizenry votes around the world

  • Dr Sudipta Sarangi: Why we like free stuff, and the economics of other small things

    Dr Sudipta Sarangi: Why we like free stuff, and the economics of other small things

    Dr. Sudipta Sarangi's debut novel 'The Economics of Small Things' questions our small actions and why we do things the way we do them, and the economics behind them. The book explains concepts of economics with real life questions, like why we ask for freebies while buying vegetables, and more importantly, why the shopkeeper will give you freebies. The book presents some interesting case studies, including the correlation of the pied piper of Hamelin in the context of economics

  • Chinmay Tumbe: Why pandemics, economics and politics will always be inter-connected

    Chinmay Tumbe: Why pandemics, economics and politics will always be inter-connected

    Every pandemic that tore through the Indian subcontinent like in 2020, brought businesses to a standstill. In 1907, India's GDP contracted by 5 percent, and in 1918 India's GDP fell 10 percent while inflation was high, creating a supply-side shock as 20 million Indians died. The Age of Pandemics by Chinmay Tumbe argues the close connection between pandemics, economics, and politics that have shaped Indian history and why we need to give a central role to pandemics

  • Understanding Amartya Sen, with Lawrence Hamilton

    Understanding Amartya Sen, with Lawrence Hamilton

    Noble laureate Dr. Amartya Sen is a celebrated economist but he is highly misunderstood in India. The book is an attempt by the author to bring his economic theories and other ideas in a simple concise manner to common readers. Amartya Sen has never been shy of being critical of the Indian government's identity politics and economic reforms which has not gone done well with a lot of politicians and intellectuals alike. The book distills his ideas of the capabilities approach, choice theory among other things, and why his ideas are all the more important in the pandemic era.

  • Sumant Sinha: Need for renewable energy in India and challenges that ail the power sector

    Sumant Sinha: Need for renewable energy in India and challenges that ail the power sector

    74% of carbon comes from energy sector and a third of it comes from the electricity providers in India. Indian renewable sector has faced challenges in terms of valuations, competitive bid prices but things are changing in 2020. With India planning to sell its discoms in Union territories to private companies, renewable companies are now looking to acquire these assets for expanding their portfolio. This conversation dwells on the reason to adapt to renewable space, future opportunities and challenges in the sector

  • Nims Purja: What life's like in the death zone

    Nims Purja: What life's like in the death zone

    Remember that viral image of the long queue at Mount Everest? That was the work of Nirmal "Nims" Purja, who served in the armed forces before leaving to follow his passion for mountaineering full-time. He joins us on this week's episode to talk about his book 'Beyond Possible', a real-life chronicle of the sheer grit it takes to conquest all the world's 8,000-metre 'death zone' peaks in 7 months

  • Devaki Jain: Memoirs of a powerful feminist economist

    Devaki Jain: Memoirs of a powerful feminist economist

    In her book 'The Brass Notebook', Padma Bhushan awardee Devaki Jain highlights the lived pain of ambitious women growing up in pre-Independence India. She joins us on this episode to share her incredible story to success, peppered with intimate anecdotes and reflections—a story she isn't afraid of showing off

  • Mohammad Mustafa: 5 things to remember when raising capital

    Mohammad Mustafa: 5 things to remember when raising capital

    With deep experience in banking himself as SIDBI's ex-chairman, Mustafa had an inside view into how the venture capital ecosystem works. From his observation collected across the years, Mustafa's book 'Demystifying Venture Capital' is a primer for the Indian VC scene, which works very differently from other parts of Indian finance. Mustafa joins us on this week's episode to share his insights

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