About the Book

Seventy-five years after having achieved independence there are still millions of Indians who live, eat, beg, work, romance, marry, produce children, fall sick, and die without a shelter and without any inkling of where the next meal is going to come from. People are losing faith in the judiciary and the police are mere pawns, handcuffed by politicians and bureaucrats. Where did we go wrong? Would India have been a different country if it had a Presidential form of government rather than a Parliamentary one? Why was the Presidential form of government not debated in the Constituent Assembly in right earnestness? Was it because of a lack of understanding or sheer indifference or just an attempt to cater to vested interests? The authors, as conscientious citizens, have tried to look at these issues in an unbiased and objective manner. The uniqueness of this book lies not in the relevance of the issues but the practical solutions being offered. The title Diminishing India is meant to be a wake-up call and not an expression of doom or frustration.

About the Author

BR Taneja is the founder Managing Director of ISMT Limited, a Pune based steel/engineering conglomerate. He is a first generation entrepreneur and had a long innings with Tatas before he set out on his own in late 1970s. Within the corporate community he is considered to be a passionate technocrat, value driven manager, and an engaging mentor. His intellectual and academic interests are poverty and public policy. He is, along with his co-author, working on his next book which is a critical commentary on ‘noble professions’. Rakesh Duda has been working with ISMT Limited for the last two decades. He has earlier worked with Hero Group, USAID and NCAER. He is an engineer by training, a strategic planner and a people development manager by profession, a humanist by conviction and an academic floater and explorer by temperament.