HRM STRATEGIC INTEGRATION AND ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE

HRM STRATEGIC INTEGRATION AND ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE

ASHOK CHANDA

JIE SHEN

SAGE Publications 2009

Rs.550   Pp 384

HR scholars and researchers continue to stake their claims on various regions of the human brain although most people don’t have a clue about what happens in the deep recesses of the mind. The variables are too many and the equations never amenable to universal application. In fact there are no equations. This grounding on reality is what one expected from Ashok Chanda and Jie Shen when they started out on the premise that no one knows for sure if in a particular unit the HRM function is integrated with the strategy of the business. The Foreword claims that while MNCs seeking to establish business operations in India would find this book useful, it will also help HR practitioners recognise and understand the close link between HRM and organisational strategy. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the authors, says the Foreword, is that HRM strategic integration impacts organisational performance (both financial and non-financial) – something every HR man without exception would give an arm and a leg to get proof of!

It has been accepted of late that though the contribution of HR may not directly be seen in the net profits, it is HR that can ensure the sustainability of profits. Yes, it took some decades to come to this realisation, and it was about time that work like the one under review was published – though, in short, the book is a disappointment. We can have no comments on the quality of research in the present case as that is the prerogative of the university. We see the book as it is seen by a reader with some interest in HRM and the claims of the authors to their new insights.

Like most writers on the subject, there is an over-consciousness of the need to define various terms, some pre-existing and some existing in the peculiar perception of the author(s). The present authors find differences between HRM and SHRM and between SHRM and HRM with Strategic Integration (HRM Si). HRM, they say, treats employees as one of the resources, with its focus on ‘development based on annual needs’, but SHRM treats employees as strategic resources providing sustained competitive advantage. What converts HRM to SHRM or to HRM Si is the mystery. Unfortunately, the book does not supply an answer. Perhaps in the urge to prove that HRM does have a positive contribution to the organisation’s performance the authors lost track of this.

They also seem to have lost track all along the way: the contents of each Part or Chapter do not match with the expectations raised by the headings. Part II, for instance, is entitled Individual HR Practices and their Impact on Organisational Performance: Empirical Evidence. One understands ‘empirical’ as fact-based observations from experimental / practical situations or of surveys conducted by the authors; the authors’ understanding apparently refers to reading up the vast literature on the subject. This Part also covers the bread-and-butter of HR managers viz. Recruitment & Selection, Performance Management, Training & Development, Reward & Compensation, and Employee Relations.

Let’s focus on Performance Management – particularly because this is one area that HR managers hold themselves responsible for being fully aware that ground level performance is a function of line managers. After citing 14 authorities for 8 statements in three-fourths of a page, the authors state that there is confusion and misunderstanding about the efficacy of Performance Management and that further research is needed. This is more than half-way through the book which professes to investigate how differently performance management with varied levels of strategic integration affects organisational performance, in the Indian context. It comes nowhere close to achieving this.

The conclusions could well have been arrived at without the extensive research. It is important, they say, that HR executives and experts are integrally involved to provide HR inputs into business strategy. The question is that if they are not thus involved, what are the reasons and what are the remedies? And isn’t this old hat: Competency of HR managers is a major influence on performance management through which organisations are able to drive employee appraisal and feedback. Can we beat the originality of this one: effective performance management is possible only if there is a dedicated team engaged in performance management process – comprised of both HR experts/managers and line managers. One point is clear though: no HR man will be seen drooling over the freshness of the findings in this book.

THE INDIAN MEDIA IN A GLOBALISED WORLD

THE INDIAN MEDIA IN A GLOBALISED WORLD

MAYA RANGANATHAN

USHA M. RODRIGUES

Sage publications 2010

Rs 550 Pages 275

The problem with social research: humanity and its infinite variety defies categorisation, yet we ‘find’ neat little groups convenient for our analysis.

Another problem with social research: without those categories you cannot do any analysis.

The book under review proceeds on several such assumptions. The first is that there are ‘two Indias’: the urban/rural elite and the impoverished segment (so globalisation, and consequently, media, has to progress on two distinct sets of considerations). The theory moves forward and observes that “despite two decades of liberalisation, [India] treats foreign entry into the country with fears of ‘cultural imperialism’.” Which particular group has expressed this fear of cultural imperialism is not clear. The subject, one’s afraid, is restricted to coffee shops where people air their pseudo-intellectualism to pass the time of day. The citations given by the authors for ‘cultural imperialism’ also point to high-browed foreigners worried over the ‘local culture in many parts of the world  ... being battered out of existence…’ The authors then proceed with the hope that a study of the Indian media and its transformation would help us understand the globalisation-related changes taking place in the country – and that’s what the book is all about. There used to be a story in the old days about the six blind men and the elephant. Surprising (and delightful) how these simple tales take on oracular dimensions!

If this kind of classification and a study based largely thereon were to be useful, one would expect an examination of the influence of the media on public opinion or on the process of globalisation in India – that influence not being insubstantial. There has been phenomenal growth in newspapers from 214 in 1947 to 62,483 (with 222 million readers) in 2007, and equally so in literacy from 18% of a 345-million population in 1947 to 65% of over one-billion. From 6 radio stations in 1947 and an absence of television we now have over 500 radio stations and over 450 television channels. (All these statistics are from the book). From this huge vantage position, the authors find a message of ‘Swadeshi’ regaining currency somewhere deep inside the messages hammered out of the idiot box,  particularly in MNCs placing ‘foreign products in the Indian milieu as if they were an integral part of the country.’ (Apparently, the need for an offensive on the demand for things-Indian is now of foreign origin). There is also a reference to the obliteration of national borders (including India’s recent law on dual citizenship) – raising questions about the fears of cultural imperialism coexisting with claims of political and cultural borderless-ness. The authors, to their eternal credit, find it interesting how these corporations have identified traits that are ‘national’ in character in the country as diverse and completed as India – perhaps they (the MNCs) have located the old elephant’s trunk.

The book is a collection of 12 articles (twice the number associated with the blind men of old). Usha Rodrigues states that Doordarshan, having the wide reach it has, can find a prominent place in the competitive market without imitating its profit-centred counterparts; that  it remains to be seen whether Indians will embrace the practice of the ‘on-line citizen journalism’; that Doordarshan still has a significant role in India’s development goals. In her final article entitled Television Policy in India: An Unfulfilled Agenda Usha questions whether the government is doing enough to guide the public service broadcasting to meet the developmental goals envisaged for television in India in 1959, and notes that the government makes ad hoc decisions, without providing a clear legal framework in which ‘this potentially catalytic media can grow, and meet the education and entertainment needs of the various segments of the Indian population’.

Maya Ranganathan in her seven articles speaks of nationalism as a marketing tool by MNC advertisements, the role of Commercial FM Radio, and how Tamil Media attempts to push Tamil identity to the fore in a ‘carefully articulated pro-LTTE slant’. Another article explores the success of online communication as an alternate media in the politically sensitive north-east regions of India. She then deplores the fact that the women protagonists are archetypes of mythological or historical characters; adhering to the traditional values of a ‘good’ Indian woman – touted as a solution to the problems that women face in the era of globalisation.

In her final article on the Blogosphere she notes with regret that media laws in India do not distinguish between online newspapers (sources of information) and blogs (platforms for personalised communication).

The introduction promises that the book would deal ‘exhaustively with the way in which the Indian media is coping with challenges of globalisation, its role and content’. It doesn’t come anywhere close to that. 

THE LEADERSHIP SECRETS OF GENGHIS KHAN

THE LEADERSHIP SECRETS

OF

GENGHIS KHAN

JOHN MAN

Transworld Publishers 2009

Pp 184    £10.99

There comes a time perhaps, when mankind gets totally bereft of goodness and turns to evil forces to look for virtue in them. That would be a terrible phase in human history… so full with violence and terror that we will scrounge for quality in crime? Alexander Pope was certainly prophetic when he wrote: “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, / As to be hated needs but to be seen. / Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, / We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” (Essay on Man, 1733).  

Has that terrible phase begun? With works on Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan behind him, John Man comes to us probing into the heat oppressed brain of the self-same Genghis Khan to learn his secrets of leadership. In the short introduction to his 40-book bibliography, Man also finds traces of emotional intelligence (Goleman et al) and talent (a la Collins Good to Great): Wow! John Milton will be quite embarrassed to know that his attempts at glorifying Lucifer were not quite up to this level.

The basic source of information in the study of this “brilliant military commander” is The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the 13^th Century by Igor de Rachewiltz (2004) and Genghis Khan: His Life And Times by Paul Ratchnevsky (1991). What exactly does John Man find in Genghis?  There’s vision somewhere hidden in all his ruthless rampaging over Asia and parts of Europe; there’s virtue discernible to Man in Genghis’ idea of getting the right people, and getting rid of the wrong ones fast. Slicing them up, perhaps? Delegation and the practice of rewarding success are some of the other virtues. He also dealt ruthlessly with failure, and always learnt from it. He killed his half-brother in a fit of rage. His mother reprimanded him … and he learned to accept correction! Man!

There is a strong continual attempt throughout the book to justify the out and out cruelty that Genghis is famous for. It was, says the author, a continual jugglery of life and death for Genghis – a situation of shifting alliances where trust and treachery were equally vital. If one were to justify both, says Man, it would need “magical social skills” coupled with “high & flexible sense of morality.” One would agree with the flexible morals, but magical social skills? Brandishing a scimitar doesn’t need much of social finesse.

Genghis no doubt rose from nothing to clan chief to tribal ruler to king to emperor. Kudos to that. He was also known to be a great administrator – but John Man has not much to say about that. He attempts to probe into how the man (not the marauder) evolved as he moved up each level. Man says Genghis was an exception to Peter’s Principle – because he improved his competence at each level – he had a “planned agenda ruthlessly executed.” Executed is perhaps the perfect word in this context. But Man insists that there other aspects – character traits, choices, behaviour patterns, strategic decisions that fit many aspects of modern leadership theory.

In furtherance of the theory that Genghis was compelled to do what he did, Man justifies, Genghis’ attitudes were of his time: “he managed to do what countless despots aspired and failed to do.” His were not inexplicable random acts of rage but of careful thought; it is not mere destruction he was after, but destruction for a purpose. Genghis’ claim to greatness, we are told, lies in his uncorrupted, inspirational, open-minded, curious, generous, persuasive nature. He was what could be called a ‘Situational leader.’ His order before launching an attack was to spare only children small enough to fit under a cart-axle. Now that is virtue indeed. Man lists four points of justification for such wanton genocide. One of these points is that the dire act ‘worked’. Nothing succeeds like success is one Americanism that comes to mind.

Incidentally, his strong point was delegation – with a difference! The sons of his commanders were appointed as his personal bodyguards - ostensibly; in truth they were hostages for their fathers’ good behaviour. Maybe this is all part of the ‘attitudes of his time’. And, oh, there are 21 lessons to be learnt from Genghis – apparently what stood him in good stead while acquiring and ruling an empire that was much larger than Alexander’s or the Roman Empire. Is Osama listening?

AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY - From phantom wealth to real wealth

AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY

From phantom wealth to real wealth

David C. Korten

Tata McGraw-Hill 2009

Pp 196    Rs.275

Around two thousand years ago was reported a voice crying in the wilderness, a man who fed on locusts and wore a coat of camel’s hair. With a single-point message of ‘repentance’, he embarrassed the king extremely about his adulterous life. The ‘woman scorned’ asked for his head – and for reasons beyond conscience and morality, she got it on a platter. The voice was temporarily silenced.

Fast forward to the twenty-first century and several million multiple-hue prophets later, we again hear voices crying hoarse against the generations of rape of Mother Earth, a macabre oedipal ritual that must end in mutual annihilation. We have also crossed the limits of conscience and morality. For as David C. Korten says: 5000 years of attempting to conquer nature and one another, we now realise we are actually attacking our life support system. Someone has rightly pointed out that the initial letters of ‘Mother Earth’ spell ME. What we do to her affects me, us. A theme played passionately by Korten as he shows how greenhouse gases and climate change, depletion of non-renewable resources and paving over of agricultural lands for indiscriminate industrialisation / urbanisation, sub-prime lending and the collapse of Wall Street are all c-o-n-n-e-c-t-e-d. Like John Donne said way back in 1624: …I am involved in mankind. / Therefore, send not to know / For whom the bell tolls, / It tolls for thee.

Korten’s message is clear: our pursuit of Phantom Wealth (illusory; created by inflation of asset bubbles unrelated to the creation of anything of real value or utility) perpetuates the very circumstances that brought us to the present juncture. Real wealth (healthy happy children, loving families, caring communities, and a beautiful, healthy natural environment; healthy food, fertile land, pure water, clean air, caring relationships and loving parents, education, etc.) on the other hand is yet a distant dream. And it is dreamy principles that can help bring us back on track. The creators of phantom wealth, symbolised by ‘Wall Street buccaneers’ seek self-enrichment by wealth they have not created; they minimised local self-reliance so that dependence on distant resources and markets was maximised. We need to shrink the economy, and reallocate real wealth to secure the long-term well-being of all. As against the old form of imperialism, the current stranglehold of Wall Street needs identification of the enemy that lies within us – our thinking, our wants, our greed, at the individual and the community level.

Korten gives several suggestions for taking the fate of Spaceship Earth in hand to collectively and cooperatively guide it to a path of survival. He therefore suggests six criteria of economic health – which include bringing human consumption into balance with earths’ natural systems, nurturing relationships within caring communities, and so on. Idealistic peroration? The alternative is Felo de se.

The book comes straight from the heart of a person who realised that the economic models embraced by official aid agencies were actually increasing poverty and environmental destruction. It comes from a person who understood that the US was actively promoting policies that were deepening the crisis; that if there is to be a human future, US must change. The book reads easily – and not just because it attacks the establishment. An honest tale speeds best being plainly told, perhaps. But there are times when like Somerset Maugham, the proverbial spade has to be called a bloody shovel. Rather the situation we are facing today needs earth-moving (pun intended) machinery! As in Victor Hugo’s Kingdom of the Blind we have a choice of opening our own eyes to the stark realities around us or gouging out the eyes of the few who can see – bringing them to our state of blind unconcern. The book needs to be shoved into the hands of each and every inhabitant of this earth, particularly the policy makers, the law makers, the industrialists, brokers of all colours who deal in phantom money, owners of pollutant devices (like motor cars!), and… the list is endless. Korten ends the book with a short, powerful statement: We are the ones we have been waiting for. The question is, are we? If not, Korten falls among those myriad voices screaming…eyeless, in the kingdom of the blind.

THE 80 MINUTE MBA

THE 80 MINUTE MBA

Everything You’ll Never Learn At Business School

Richard Reeves

&

John Knell

Hachette Books 2009

Pp 159   Rs.195

This is the age of miniaturisation, of instant gratification. And no, it wasn’t instant coffee that started the ball rolling… for way back in 1050 AD we even had a system of instant worship in India: witness the arrangement for this in the Shiva temple in Ambarnath, near Mumbai. Information Technology came along and the small started getting more beautiful by the day – at least as long as one could see it. In all this rush towards the near-invisible it was inevitable that management (as huge as we would like to think it is) would also get encapsulated into its 80-minute variety. Perhaps the title is a throwback to the days of Jules Verne’s 80-day trip around the world with Messieurs Fogg and Passepartout though the adventures are hardly comparable!

The sub-title says “Everything You’ll Never Learn at Business School”. There may be a lurking issue of syntax in there somewhere but then we could let it go. Abridgements in any form do take liberties with basic structures anyway.

That having been said, Reeves and Knell have produced an interesting, engaging, even refreshing common-sense approach to management as a practice. No delving into esoteric theories, no sonorous case studies – a direct assault on the basics. A look at the chapter entitled Cash would indicate their basic, much-shared apathy towards Accountancy as a subject. Perhaps the longest explanation on any particular subject is devoted to deciphering what Credit and Debit stand for, and which side of the account book each would fall. Of course the entire book revolves around five basic elements that the authors have identified as the core of management. The first of these is Sustainability where the authors wax eloquent on the significance of going green and its relevance to the bottom line. This is followed by a section on Leadership. References are made to people ranging from Shelley’s Ozymandias to Darwin Smith’s “eccentric” tenure at Kimberly-Clark. Culture, Cash and Conversations are the three concluding chapters which cover employee relations, finance and marketing respectively.

The miniaturisation makes for novelty in approach, arousing a certain curiosity in the reader. It would serve fairly as a refresher, a no-nonsense pointer towards improvement in one’s attitude as a manager-leader. No more. No more than Charles Lamb could reproduce Shakespeare in prose. The book thus has a limited purpose – to arouse the practising, busy manager to new thoughts on his own performance. It is not intended to be, nor ever can be, a substitute for a full blown certificate course or degree in business administration – and in that sense, it is certainly not the knell for business schools anywhere.   

VIRAL LOOP - The Power of Pass-It-On: ADAM L PENENBERG

VIRAL LOOP

The Power of Pass-It-On

ADAM L PENENBERG

Hachette India 2009

Pp. 221       Rs.350

Here it is! The power of pass-it-on – the astounding effects of referral marketing, the wonders of mouth-to-mouth advertising. Only, this is all virtual …and the expansion hyper-exponential. It’s multi-level marketing (MLM) gone berserk.

MLM giants like Amway, Tupperware and others thrive on this concept of consumption and sales by consumer-dealer initiatives – a concept that goes beyond franchising, where each franchisee (of sorts) is a franchisor (of sorts)… and virus like the business spreads. The viral business model is not new, says Adam Penenberg. The infamous Security Exchange Company (Charles Ponzi: December 1919) also worked on this concept: the typical rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme. The development of Tupperware on the other hand, covers the pioneering efforts made by Brownie Wise to get Tupperware sales spiralling even beyond the company’s production capacity – only through patio parties; it also describes Wise’s unwise decision to join the company as an executive, where she was the ‘effervescent face of the company’ for around eight years … only to be fired by Earl Tupper ‘tired of Wise receiving the lion’s share of the credit.’

On the net of course, you forward the ‘forwards’ that fall into your inbox, (the painful price of emails) and somebody somewhere prospers. The crucial difference is that in the ‘traditional’ MLM everyone prospers while in the internet schemes it is only the originator of what Penenberg calls the virus. And if you ever wanted to have a readable account of how several of these companies came to be set up, and flourished, this is the book. 

The companies covered here are not the ubiquitous sweatshops (however ‘air-conditioned’ they may be) of the third world, leveraging time zones to the advantage of other ‘worlds’. Here we have virtual-brick-and-nebulous-mortar moving through whatever it takes to traverse the World Wide Web – and the path to prosperity. The first of such companies is ‘Am I Hot or Not?’  - which started out as a lazy Heineken-soaked October-2000-afternoon session where the criteria for ‘rating’ an unnamed woman were being tossed between Young and Hong – a discussion, which the author assures us, was the ‘logical outgrowth of a broader discussion they had been having about Web services.’  At a time when web services were mainly B2B, the entrepreneurs mused over the creation of a consumer friendly site “that would appeal to regular people”. They went on to launch their website that they sold two years later for $20 million.

Some of the other companies mentioned are Hotmail, eBay, PayPal, MySpace, YouTube,  Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Mosaic (which helped transform the internet from a ‘playground for geeks into a mass market phenomenon’), Netscape (which collapsed under the barbed strategy of Bill Gates and his Internet Explorer) and Ning (with its double viral loop and ‘collective curation’ – where the audience decides what’s good and passes it on). There’s an interesting analysis of the ‘Viral President’ referring to Obama’s strategy for his campaign that inter alia (“forging ongoing connections with the candidate”) brought in $750 million over a period of two years.

There are stories of how brick-and-mortar companies have also been caught in the viral loop – sometimes inadvertently – and prospered beyond imagination. Mentos for one, minted money out of a show by ‘two goofy guys’ (actually one was a professional juggler and the other a trial lawyer). Knowing that Mentos dropped into a coke bottle would cause an explosion, they tried it – with over two hundred bottles ‘in an intricate design’ and over five hundred mints. The video (available now on http://www.eepybird.com/exp214.html) was downloaded 20 million times, with 215 million mentions of Mentos in TV, Print or radio stories, amounting to free publicity of approximately $10 million to the company. Mentos’ sales climbed 20% during this period, to level off at 15% higher than they had been. Of course Coca-Cola also prospered: diet cola which till then showed flat sales, rose by 5 to 10% according to an unconfirmed statement.

Then there is the company that sells ‘real stuff’ over the net. Originally called AuctionWeb, now eBay, the site launched in mid-1995, hosted 28,000 auctions in October 1996, 200,000 in January 1997. 2005 had 181 million users. eBay bought out PayPal for $1.5 billion & Skype for $2.6 billion – bringing out the ‘stackability’ of programs – a concept to which the author devotes more than one chapter. AuctionWeb/eBay was started by Pierre Omidyar who resented that his on-line application for an IPO was delayed, resulting in his paying 50% extra. Constructive ire, mi dyar!

We will in conclusion permit Penenberg some liberty with one of Winston Churchill’s gems: Never before in human history has there been the potential to create wealth this fast, on this scale, and starting with so little. A powerful paradigm-busting phenomenon precisely presented. 

PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP IN INFRASTRUCTURE

PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP IN INFRASTRUCTURE perspectives     principles     practices RN Joshi Vision Books 2010 Rs 995 Pages 540

A story is told, and bears re-telling, of Bernard Shaw and an unnamed actress/dancer who made bold to propose marriage to Shaw with a highly logical argument: With my beauty and your brains, we will have a perfect child. Shaw, the incurable bachelor, had the most perfect repartee: But if our child should get my beauty and your brains, we would have a disaster! The concept of PPP like the aforementioned unnamed party, seeks to take advantage of ‘the best of both worlds’. It assumes, and unfortunately admits, inefficiency and corruption among public servants on the one hand, and efficiency and transparency in private organisations. RN Joshi, in his starry-eyed account of why-and-the-wherefore of PPP, has failed to see the distinct possibility of the ‘disaster’ lurking just beyond the proverbial nose. Joshi also draws upon a colloquialism to support his argument: one and one make eleven. We have a numerical equivalent, which might be more appropriate: sixes and sevens.

That the private sector has no qualms about corruption (who, for one thing, corrupts the bureaucrats?) is not worth elaborating upon. Nor is it rare to find extensive bureaucratic behaviour in private organisations. Private ownership per se does not guarantee efficiency; and there are government units today that are far more customer-friendly and effective than their ‘private’ counterparts – particularly after 1991. Even before the reforms, a State Transport bus from Mumbai to a remote town in the interior scheduled to leave at 0700 hrs, would leave even with a single passenger on board, while a private service bus will, in similar circumstances, find ‘technical reasons’ for cancelling the day’s trip.

Which brings us to the central question: what is the purpose of public service? Is it mere output, or is it the outcome. The latter is a broader concept which includes, and is a consequence of, output. This difference, although it smacks of hair-splitting, is far more significant than it appears at first glance. Consider the immediate output of infrastructure building – the theme of the book under review – the output of which would mean the specific facility created. The outcome would have to be seen at two levels.

The first is the kind of service available to the users by the new facility. An elevated corridor/fly-over may result in faster movement of vehicles on a longer round-about without saving of much time while increasing the distance and therefore the expenditure on fuel; it also means carrying vehicular pollution to higher levels for greater dispersal. It would also mean demolition of shops (read livelihoods) of scores of people.

The second, and certainly a much more important aspect of the outcome, is the exploitation of manpower that goes under the name of PPP/privatisation/outsourcing. The fact that the unorganised/informal sector with its unorganised labour – comprising more than 86 per cent of total employment – are the most exploited lot in the country needs no elaboration. And a major part of the 86% are migrant labour working in shifting, construction activities. Joshi however chooses to wax upon the wonders of PPP.  To the government, he says, it is a solution to decades of neglected and antiquated infrastructure; to the private investor it is a long-term inflation-linked revenue system. But have we looked at India’s HDI? Joshi does not even feel the need to analyse the ‘benefits’ to the millions at large, as we stand at 134 out of 182 countries. And everyone’s aware of the seriousness of the situation.

The Law Commission (184^th Report) considering the up-gradation of legal education mentions ‘new challenges, new legal issues concerning ways in which the poor and marginalised sections can protect themselves from further impoverishment’. In a Foreword for a 2009 publication, Mr. Kirti S Parikh, Member, Planning Commission, recalling Gandhiji’s talisman, says unequivocally that the ultimate emphasis in transition should be placed on the betterment of social and human development indicators, and not on liberalisation for its own sake.

Joshi goes about treating the subject with the ivory-tower attitude of a pure text book writer – definitions, applications, etc. In fact, Mani Shankar Iyer’s statement may be more than right when he says: Our new mindset is so excited about the successful Indian that the unsuccessful Indian becomes an irritating distraction. 

Certainly, it’s not a miracle we are looking for. PPP is not a panacea but the worrying fact is that we are not much higher on the UN Human Development Index than we were in 1994. Let us not be misled into taking the sound of the axe as the sound of progress (Ref: Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard). The quality and quantity of human capital matters far more than those of physical capital for sustainable economic development. It is sad to find that in an otherwise comprehensive book there is no reference whatsoever to what has now come to be known as the Other India.