About the Author Gurcharan Das born, 1946 is an Indian author, consultant and public intellectual.
Born in 1946 at Lyallpur, India (now Pakistan) into a Punjabi Hindu family, Das spent the better half of his childhood in New York as his father was posted there. He graduated with honors from Harvard University in Philosophy and Politics. He later attended Harvard Business School (AMP), where he is featured in three case studies.
He is a columnist for The Times of India and other newspapers. Currently he is a Venture Capitalist and a consultant to Industry.
Book Review “The most important Indians are the Education Ministers of I0 largest states & the next 10 are the Secretaries to these Ministers”.
“In today’s Global Economy a Country’s status is determined by the share of the brains that it uses & the share of the Brands that it commands.”
Gurcharan Das (India Unbound) The Book is mainly about the transformation of India from Birth of the writer (1942) – (1991). The author majorly speaks about the Indian Politics, the economy of India. He categorizes the Indian Population in three major groups Spring of Hope (1942-65), the lost Generation (1966-91) & Rebirth of Dream (1991-99). It is a Part memoir, part journalism, part history and part management bible, the book begins shortly before independence and continues until the new millennium. As other Authors cherish the
revolution that began with independence in 1947, Gurcharan Das does not find full cause for jubilation until 1991, when India unleashed a series of economic reforms, the start of an ''economic revolution'' that he believes ''may well be more important than the
political revolution.''
Those reforms were forced upon India, adopted less than enthusiastically when the nation found itself with foreign exchange reserves worth only two weeks of imports. Over the course of what Das calls a ''golden summer,'' a newly installed government surprised everyone by easing foreign exchange restrictions, devaluing the rupee, lowering import tariffs and undoing the byzantine controls that had stifled Indian industry. Many -- Das included -- feel the reforms should have gone further, but the results nonetheless have been dramatic: after decades of chugging along at the so-called Hindu rate of growth (a dismal 3.5 percent per year), the economy grew by an average of 7.5 percent in the mid-1990. The growth in disposable incomes, and the opening up of the country to world markets, has altered the face of Indian society, creating a new consumer middle class. Das argues that these changes are only the beginning of a dramatic reversal of fortunes. ''The theme of this book,'' he writes, ''is how a rich country became poor and will be rich again.''
At the heart of ''India Unbound'' is a deep ambivalence about Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of Indian independence but also of its disastrous economic policies. Das recognizes the political contributions made by Nehru, and he writes of the admiration he felt as a young man for the handsome leader whose lofty ideals inspired a nation. But, echoing an increasingly common attitude in modern India, he feels that Nehru's faith in Soviet-style central planning cheated the nation of the prosperity enjoyed by some of its Southeast Asian neighbors. Nehru's revolution, Das argues, was incomplete, delivering political liberty but failing to unshackle the nation economically. In one of the more eloquent expressions of this sentiment, he tells of a meeting at which the industrialist Rahul Bajaj is threatened with imprisonment for producing more scooters than permitted by his quota. ''My grandfather went to jail for my country's freedom,'' replies Bajaj. ''I stand ready to do the same for producing on behalf of my motherland.''
Das had a ringside seat at the events he describes, and the result is an engaging account that moves easily from the big picture to the telling anecdote. Through Das, we are introduced not just to the standard pantheon of political figures but to a range of lesser-known characters from the corporate world. These include old-fashioned industrialists like Bajaj and also a new brand of businessman -- entrepreneurs like Narayana Murthy, the C.E.O. of Infosys, India's most successful software company, and Subhash Chandra, the founder of a global Hindi satellite television channel, often called ''the Murdoch of Asia.'' Organizations such as Spectra mind, Shaadi.com, baazee.com, Silicon Spice, Mantra online Cirrus Logic, etc.