Encounters with Reality

I found this book browsing books available under ‘Kindle Unlimited’. There is one huge disappointment, which I faced first time about kindle books. This book has numerous font and spelling mistakes. It seems that a draft and not the final version have been released under kindle limited.             Mark Tully has maintained a flowing narrative throughout the book. The narrative touches briefly the history of Sikhs. The emergence of Bhidranwale and the role played by India Gandhi and Akali Dal and Congress leadership in assisting this emergence is quite well explored, though the rigour of exploration is of a journalist and not of an academic. The book came in 1986, 2 years after operation blue star, which suggests that Tully and Satish Jacob (both are authors of this book) were working briskly to complete their project. Times of India is most cited reference. For me, it is hard to believe that Times of India can serve such serio...

I just finished ‘How Much is Enough?’ by RobertSkidelsky . I certainly do not agree with many of the explanations provided in the book and many of the suggestions made. Yet, it is a thought-provoking book, no doubt about that! Skidelsky has shown courage to develop suggestions, based on explanations, with acknowledged religious overtone. He does now thump the chest while arguing that government policy should cease to be the value-neutral or liberal or efficiency based and it should explicitly move away from mad pursuit of growth. Clearly, his explanation lacks sophistication and is more of a persuasive nature, the style which we miss in the days of semi-formal books published by Economists about everything under the sky.  But he takes on an interesting journey to establish that there is more to life, more to policy-making than some digits. I have always though that Religion was a way, at least theoretically, to tap the consumption. Why any ancient civilization would have though...