The Hindu Business Line : Be geared to the growth debate

ACCORDING to the NCAER (National Council of Applied Economic Research) our GDP (gross domestic product) growth has been 7.8 per cent this year, on the back of "benign inflation, bullish stock market, robust industrial and export performance and good monsoon."

Only days earlier, the CSO (Central Statistical Organisation) estimated GDP growth for this fiscal at 8.1 per cent. The Union Minister of State for Finance, Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal, has said that our growth rate can even reach 10 per cent in the emerging economic scenario.

But Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific), has cautioned that a higher growth rate of 8-10 per cent with a higher level of inflation in a fast-growing emerging economy such as India would tend to increase the already visible social disparity by creating large but isolated pockets of prosperity

To help grow your knowledge on the topic, here is Aspects of India's Economic Growth and Reforms, by R. Nagaraj, from Academic Foundation (www.academicfoundation.com).

The book analyses the country's growth over almost half a century and deals in depth with industrial growth and economic policy. While acceleration in growth is happy news, what is worrying is the sharpness of inequality, with increased nutritional poverty. Do we need to alter the course of the economic policy, asks the author?

Provokes participation in the growth debate!

Proactive consumer is prosumer

IN THE `real world advice from real experts' series, catch up with The Art of Public Relations, from Vision Books (www.visionbooksindia.com). "Communications capital is the strategic use of communications to leverage a company's intellectual capital," explains Christopher P. A. Komisarjevsky. `Seven truths' of PR are insight, speed, alliances, relevance, architecture, integrated communications, and multidimensional communications, writes Rich Jernstedt.

`The new breed of the informed proactive consumer' is `the prosumer', declares Don Middleberg. "Tell the truth, be energetic, and be very curious," advises Ron Watt, Sr. There's lot more from the top practitioners sharing their `secrets of successful public relations'.

Valuable read.

Demand good governance

CITIZENS' role in governance doesn't end with voting. Many of the ills that the country faces are due to people's indifference and also the denial of their due place in the democratic process, writes J. Paul Baskar in Good Governance, from Peace Trust (www.peacetrust.org.in).

The book compiles papers presented at a workshop on the governance theme. Thus, A. K. Venkata Subramanian writes, "So long as the local community remains passive it will be extremely convenient for the bureaucrat to keep the administration opaque."

S. Muthukumaran is categorical that it is the duty of those in the education field to guide the society to deserve the best and demand good governance. B. S. Bhargava rues that administrative reforms towards good governance have not become a movement. D. Pandian discusses the many difficulties in realising people's participation.

Useful collection.

Bark better than bit parts

LEADERSHIP is `dog's life', but it need not be low and contemptible, assures Warren Bennis. Bark can be better than bit parts and sound bites, and the dogs can be lucky, if they learn the new tricks of collaboration and transformation, he writes in Old Dogs, New Tricks, from Jaico (www.jaicobooks.com).

The book has more than a score of such tricks to help leaders become exemplary. Trick #1 is `follow your spirit', where Bennis exhorts leaders to possess a moral compass, and sums up the lesson of history thus: "In picking a leader, insist on integrity".

The sixth trick says, `Imbue work with meaning'; the example given is how Richard Feynman found that his team in the Manhattan Project could work 10 times faster after J. Robert Oppenheimer lifted the veil of secrecy and told the technicians why it was important to build the bomb before the enemy did.

Explosive stuff.

Women and security

THERE are no arranged marriages in Maldives. Nor are there any dowry deaths, social taboos associated with divorce, trafficking in women, preference of the boy child and so on. Bad news, though, is that the divorce rate is extremely high. "It is estimated that more than 75 per cent of the marriages end in divorce," informs Women, Security, South Asia, edited by Farah Faizal and Swarna Rajagopalan, from Sage (www.indiasage.com).

"This high divorce rate has been the norm since ancient times. In the past, sailors who anchored in the islands en route mainly from Africa and the Arab world to Asia and beyond, and vice versa, married Maldivian women and then divorced them before they set sail."

As a consequence of the high rate of divorces and remarriages, the society has many half-brothers and half-sisters, and "people are related to each other by a myriad of relationships."

The collection of essays concludes with a message: that every woman's first tool of defence is survival skill. "If women did not feel secure inside their homes, then they would definitely not feel secure outside even in times of relative peace."

Important literature.

Tailpiece

"What do you say of malignant cartoons?"

"Tartoons?"

ReadingRoom@TheHindu.co.in

D. Murali

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