Showing results by narrator "Adwait Karambelkar" in All Categories

Away from the gaze of mainstream urban media, across India's dusty, sleepy towns, a brand of popular culture is quietly seizing the imagination of millions, on the internet and off it. From catchy songs with acerbic lyrics to poetry recited in kavi sammelans to social media influencers shaping opinions with their brand of 'breaking news' to books rescripting historical events, 'Hindutva Pop' or H-Pop is steadily creating societal acceptability for Hindutva's core beliefs.

The author, a former Special Secretary of India's external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) of the Cabinet Secretariat, examines a series of interconnected events that led to the rise of the Khalistan movement, Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the anti-Sikh violence unleashed thereafter. With a timeline that moves from seven years before to a decade after 1984, the book strives to answer critical questions that continue to linger till today.

This is the unfettered story of Ashneer Grover—the favourite and misunderstood poster boy of Start-up India.

The history of India's struggle for freedom is usually told from the perspective of the non-violent movement. Yet, the story of armed resistance to colonial occupation is just as important. Names such as Vinayak Savarkar, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rashbehari Bose, Bagha Jatin, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose are still widely remembered. Their story is almost always presented as acts of individual heroism and not as part of a wider movement that had any overarching strategy or significant impact on the overall struggle for Independence.

Zeyad Masroor Khan was four years old when he realized that an innocent act of clicking a switch near a window overlooking the street could trigger a riot. As the distant thud of a crowd grew closer and calls for murder rent the air, he got his first taste of growing up in Upar Kot, a Muslim ghetto in Aligarh. Khan's world was far-removed from the Aligarh of popular imagination-of poets, tehzeeb and the intellectual corridors of the Aligarh Muslim University.

Management consulting is seen as a glamorous profession. Behind the mystique are the consultants who put in extraordinary effort, synthesize great problem-solving skills, and display fine personal attributes that enable them to capture the attention and respect of their clients. This book opens up to that world through the story of Samanta Thomas, a character based on countless excellent consultants, through whom we get inside the very mind of a consultant and their journey.  

India is at a crossroads today. Its growth rate, while respectable relative to other large countries, is too low for the jobs our youth need. Intense competition in low-skilled manufacturing, increasing protectionism globally and growing automation make the situation still more difficult. In this book, the authors explain how we can accelerate economic development by investing in our people’s human capital, expanding opportunities in high-skilled services and manufacturing centered on innovative new products, and making India a ferment of ideas and creativity.

The year was 1983. A cotton trader, still in his early thirties, began to dream big. His aspiration was to become an 'industrialist'. The venture he was about to embark on was uncharted territory for him. He knew nothing about cement, limestone or anything remotely associated with it. In the era of Licence Raj, where everything from production to consumption was controlled by the government, Narotam Sekhsaria saw the huge potential in cement and its role in a growing nation.

Seventeenth-century India. Chhatrapati Shivaji's dominion has been firmly established over the Deccan peninsula. Troubled by the mounting European threat along the Konkan coast, the Maratha empire turns to Kanhoji Angrey, master mariner, excellent swordsman and astute strategist, to lead its navy. For the next few decades, until his death in 1729, no matter who rules the land or lords over the trading settlements, none can defy Kanhoji's hold over the waters of the Konkan coast.

This book examines fifteen judgments that have influenced the financial destiny of India. With significant macroeconomic dimensions, these judgments, when explored, show a long-term impact on the economy.

Leaders in the Making includes in-depth interviews of thirty HR leaders, drawn from public as well as private sectors. These life stories provide highlights of their early childhood, education and career over the years, and touch upon the inflexion points in these leaders’ lives, their major influences and the lessons they learnt to become who they are. The authors provide an analysis of these thirty stories to establish a pattern of the life journeys, competencies and values these leaders displayed.

At 10.20 p.m. on 21 May 1991, a young woman bowed before Rajiv Gandhi at an election rally in Sriperumbudur, 42 km north of Chennai. And then there was an explosion. This book is the definitive account of one of the most controversial crimes in contemporary India. It unravels the complex plot hatched by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) to ensure that Rajiv Gandhi did not return to power in the 1991 general elections.

The year was 2004, and India's economy was booming. Around the same time, a nonbanking financial company applied for and received a license to operate as a private bank. Yes Bank was born. Its rise was phenomenal, and it soon became the fourth-largest private bank in the country, with approved permissions to operate in Singapore, London, and Dubai. The returns were also immense. That is, till the skeletons began tumbling out of the Yes Bank lockers. Stories of the bank's reckless lending were going around, and allegations of bribery and corruption became rife.

The great poet Ghalib, part of a long tradition of eclectic liberalism, found Benaras so compelling that he wrote his longest poem on the holy city. If we take Ghalib and his myriads of followers out of the equation, will Hindustan be left with a gaping hole or become something quite new? The Muslim Vanishes, a play by Saeed Naqvi, attempts to answer that question.

The Art of a Happy Exit helps entrepreneurs get prepared for all that selling their business entails. The book covers not just the Outside game-positioning, prospecting, finding professional partners, negotiating, structuring, and executing, but the critical Inside game-the mental and emotional preparation needed even while retaining customers, employees, and the business.

Welcome to the exciting world of angel investing and entrepreneurship. Using his rich experience as an investor and mentor to numerous start-ups, Sanjay Kulkarni provides you a ringside view of this world. In an accessible, jargon- free approach and illustrated with insider stories, the book arms you with all the tools and strategies needed to become a successful angel investor. Like a good guide, this book will help you in navigating the start-up eco-system, avoiding common pitfalls, investing smartly and identifying the next billion-dollar start-up.

Prasenjit Paul, a bestselling author and successful investor, who has multiplied his portfolio by more than a 100 times over the last decade, shares his wisdom on multibagger investing in this book. He recounts his wealth-creation journey and offers an easy-to-implement strategy, which anyone from any background can use to create wealth and achieve financial well-being. This book offers listeners a simple yet effective technique to identify the stocks that have the potential of generating stupendous returns.

The idea of starting a company has never been more popular in India. A new breed of entrepreneurs is rising in the country, inspired by home-grown heroes, driven to pursue extraordinary outcomes and supported by an ecosystem that is willing to back audacious ideas. Startup Compass offers advice on starting and growing a company, shared in a lecture series at IIM Ahmedabad and over extensive interviews by fifteen iconic Indian entrepreneurs.

The Murderer, the Monarch and the Fakir is a fresh account of one of the most controversial political assassinations in contemporary history - that of Mahatma Gandhi. Based on previously unseen intelligence reports and police records, this book recreates the circumstances of his murder, the events leading up to it, and the investigation afterward. In doing so, it unearths a conspiracy that runs far deeper than a hate crime and challenges the popular narrative about the assassination that has persisted for the past 70 years.

THINK STRAIGHT reveals the recipe for taking control of your mind so you can improve your life, career, relationships, and business. I wrote this little book in a way that you can listen to it more than once. And I hope that this book serves as an anchor to you—especially during trying times.