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Developmental aspects of entrepreneurship
edited by Shivganesh Bhargaga
Price Rs450; Pages 210
Sage Publications
Business schools in the US have seen a rise in the number of Asian students enrolling for MBA programmes in Entrepreneurship. There is growing interest in organizations, amongst students, individuals, small time business people and professionals to convert ideas and concepts into winning business realities.
The book starts from giving simplistic definitions of what it means to be an entrepreneur and how entrepreneurship has evolved in developing nations and emerging economies to the specifics of small scale industrial development in India, women entrepreneurship, emerging sectors in the 21st century and finally capping it with entrepreneurial behaviour, skills and mindsets.
More for management students, the book has an academic look and feel, but can be an interesting read for anyone wanting to embark on a business venture. It busts the myth that you have to inherit a business to be an entrepreneur. There is an interesting chapter on social entrepreneurship and also the continuous reference to well-known brands and case studies like the Wal Mart add to its contemporariness.
Militarizing Sri Lanka
by Neloufer de Mel
Price475; Pages 329
Sage Publications
When a professor of English at the Department of English, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka decides to write a book that looks at violence in a troubled country, you are not surprised at the almost poetic albeit emphatic narrative that emerges as she goes on to carve out a graphic imagery of the incidents that have torn apart the country in the last three decades.
In a very systematic way she builds up the sequence of events by first creating the foundation through an account of what constitutes martial virtue. In an interesting chapter on ‘Marketing war, Marketing peace: mediating global capital and national security’, she combines the skills of a sociologist and media critic as she deftly talks of the armed conflict between the Sri Lankan state and the kind of military advertising/ films/ theatre that were being made on the subject or which were a take off on real life specific incidents and news items.
A full section is devoted to the ‘Staging of pain’ where she talks of injury, getting disabled and physical pain in the aftermath of violence. Juxtaposing theatrical accounts, references to established poets’ expressions with real life narratives from wounded soldiers she gives you a first person account of the turbulence and confusions that come when you are part of something you have little control over.
Gradually as the reader gets sensitized to the subject she moves to a broader canvas - international film fests where film makers like Asoka Handagama and Prasanna Vithanage have portrayed war and the impact of militarization on contemporary Sri Lankan society forming a critical dialogue with the state and militarism. She very effectively uses case studies of disabled soldiers, children in conflict zones, the LTTE female suicide bomber and feminism against the backdrop of popular culture.
States of the Indian Economy
by Amir Ullah Khan and Harsh Vivek
Price Rs550; Pages256
Sage Publications
A valuable resource for students and researchers of economics, politics, history and sociology the book takes a detailed look at the state of the Indian economy post liberalization. It lists out reasons as to why certain sectors have thrived while others have lagged behind.
Building a case for a better planned second generation of economic reforms it takes the reader through the determinants of a fast moving growing economy, the need to balance growth in the rural hinterland, recognizing potential in emerging states and boosting their development parameters while all along using the government machinery to have an enabling environment that strengthens infrastructure, makes licensing easier and involves all players in the economy as stakeholders.
The state-wise break up of industries and the extent to which the public services are available/ accessed is useful, though some of the statistics may be a bit dated. Some of the government’s latest schemes have been discussed and a reference to the government’s unfinished agenda, clearly brings out the gaps that exist at the state level.
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