Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century

Nandan Nilekani

If you can have such good roads in the Infosys

campus, why are the roads outside campus so terrible? A skeptical question often asked to Padam Bhushan recipient Nandan Nilekani, co founder, Infosys, got the author thinking regarding India as a nation, one of the emerging superpower yet filled with its unique challenges and its contradictions. A meeting with Dr. Vijay Kelkar one of leading Indian economist, his insistence on presenting his ideas to the government made Nandan to ponder perhaps his own experiences could also shape up in a worthwhile read which might help the reader in understanding what form the Indian economy is taking and also help us in charting a way forward for the country. Since the early 1990s India has witnessed great social, political and cultural change. As the worlds largest democracy, its most diverse and one of its fastest growing economies it has become an important destination to watch out for on the world map. What better when one of the finest and dynamic minds in the country examines the central ideas that have shaped modern India. Through the book one realizes that Mr. Nilkeni is a clear-minded person with a grasp on the socio-economic issues concerning contemporary India. According to the author there are two Indias. One that exists in outsiders mind based on the economic figures and growth rate of the nation, India filled with unique promises, with its young English speaking work-force, growing IT capability and demographic framework. Yet there is another India the Real India in the minds of its citizens filled with difficulties, social and financial inequalities which leaves them with pessimism regarding little we have achieved so far and the resistance of the political parties to implement policies to diminish these inequalities as it provides a lucrative base for votes. The language and presentation of the book are straight and do not indulge in the gimmickry of impressing the reader with management jargons or complex phrases. It seems as if we are having a faceto-face conversation with the author. Nandan Nilekani has been a key player in Indias growth story. In the book he examines the ideas and attitudes that have evolved with the times and

contributed to our progress, and also those that keep us shackled to old, unproductive and fundamentally undemocratic ways. He asks the key questions of the future like; how will India as a global power avoid the mistakes of earlier developmental models? Will further access to the open market continue to stimulate such extraordinary growth? And how will this growth affect and be shaped by the countrys young people? The book is full of innovative and realistic ideas to tackle socio-economic problems, for example the author suggests the use of smart cards for linking of our disparate vertical databases can move us away from the inefficient subsidies towards a system of the direct benefits. But at sometime the reader may feel that the book is little dry and encyclopedic because historical contextualization and co-opus quotations of experts is included in every section. Mr. Nilkeni has divided the entire book into four parts for the convenience of the reader but the division has been done in a very innovative and interesting manner. The book has been divided on the basis of where we as Indians stand on a variety of ideas. Part I: India Re-imagined comprises of eight chapters. It discusses issues where our attitudes have changed radically over the years, like Indias huge population once a drag for the economic growth has become Human Capital an asset for the nation. Part II: All Abroad comprises of six chapters. It examines those issues that are still in the ether, they are now widely accepted, but have yet to see results on the ground. Like complete literacy and apathy of state run schools. Part III: Fighting Words comprises of five chapters. It deals with our biggest arguments. These are the issues where partisanship has peaked, and where the lack of any consensus has stonewalled progress on urgent policies. Like labor and framing of uniform labor laws. The last part of the book Part IV: Closer than they Appear comprises of seven chapters. It delves into our forgotten nooks of policy, taking up those ideas that have been largely missing from our public discourse, even though they are critical to our future. Like setting up of a sustainable, realistic social security system indigenous to Indian needs instead of adopting it from others.

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Chapetorisation Part I: Chapter 1: Ideas that have arrived. This chapter talks about the authors generation and its take on India transforming in front of it from a colonial empire to a liberalized economy. The author considers his generation as the bridging generation the one that exists between the India of the old and the India of the new, and which straddles the divide and the ideas that separate the two countries. Chapter 2: India, by its People: Paul Ehlrichs author of the book The Population Bomb summarized India in one sentence People eating, people washing, people sleeping, people clinging to buses .people, people, people. But in the last two decades nations facing the problem of saturated markets, increased dependent population and negative birth rate have started viewing India as a source of workers and consumers not just for India, but also for the global economy. Chapter 3: From Rejection to Open Arms: The author is sometimes surprised at the change in the perception of people regarding entrepreneurs as the devious capitalists and favorite target of populist political rhetoric as reformers who after a long, painful period in shackles has been allowed to come out in the sun. Chapter 4: The Phoenix Tongue: This chapter illustrates the importance of English in todays India. In spite of having approximately 1500 languages in India- it is one language popularly known as Indias Auntie Tongue that seems ubiquitous. It has emerged as more of a language of international business and a powerful tool for opening geographical boundaries. Chapter 5: From Man-eaters to Enablers: From an era where opening a school in a village was cheaper than buying a computer for it India has come a long way in the field of technology. With electronification emerging as one of the important factors in uniting communities under single national system. Chapter 6: Home and the World: This chapter expletively talks about the open door policy of ancient India and how it was exploited by foreigners with most of the merchants becoming the rulers, leading to skepticism and resentment in Indian psyche against foreign trade and how a reluctant India in 90s has now emerged as a confined trader and acquirer in global market.

Chapter 7: The Deepening of our Democracy: This chapter explains in depth the various phases Indian democracy had to go through from being a feudal, chaotic system during British Reign to an independent, liberal India of today. Chapter8: A Restless Country: The author feels that popular angst with bad policy and impatient voters have helped trigger fundamental changes in our economy but much needs to be done as the patience is weaning down among people. Part II: Chapter 1: Ideas in Progress: As the title suggests this chapter accounts about the decreasing apathy among Indians regarding basics like crumbling primary education, ad hoc urbanization, inadequate infrastructure. Reflected in the voting pattern of people and frequent use of RTI by people. Chapter 2: S is for Schools: the cautious reaction of people and NGOs involved in primary reaction in India, the country with the largest population of English speaking people to highest number of dropouts of children. The inadequacy of education is not as stark as in pictures of students walking miles to go to school to air-conditioned schools. Chapter 3: Our Changing Faces: This chapter deals with the shift of peoples and governments focus from rural India to cities enjoying the limelight but suffocated by over- migration, cracking infrastructure, centers apathy and states skewer ness. Chapter 4: The Long Roads. Home: frequent power cuts, water shortages, bad roads, depilated schools, poor medical services are the realities of vibrant India. Mr. Nilekani feels the infrastructural development has not been able to keep up with economic development. In comparison of other economies like China we have a long way to go ahead. Chapter 5: Erasing Lines: The author feels that united India as we all know is a land deeply fragmented with division within divisions sometimes geographical sometimes deepened by states for revenues. But with liberalized, unified economy emerging as an unthought-of answer to these differences India is slowly emerging as one. Chapter 6: Moving Deadlines: Accustomed to delays Indian Biggest disadvantage is its lopsided execution of its policies but the states have to brush up their governance or others will grab the opportunities from them.

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Part III: Chapter 1: Ideas in Battle: According to the author issues like higher education and private players, division of nation on caste reservation and palliation regarding bad policies are never openly discussed and remedied. But there is an urgency to clarify our stand as a nation on it. Chapter 2: The Sound & the Fury: Despite of populist slogan India lives in its villages little have been done in the area of rural reforms. This chapter talks about the unique requirements of rural India and the shortages of reforms plagued with weak incentives, infrastructural shortages, labor imbalances etc. Chapter 3: Jostling for Jobs: Creation of jobs a state matter with liberalization has gradually shifted from the government to open market. With global market and found optimism in Indian skilled workforce internationally, scene has never been so radiant. Chapter 4: Institutions of Sand: Once pride of the nation now battlegrounds of egos this chapter talks about the Indian universities and their transformation from provider of freedom fighters and think tanks during freedom struggle to becoming the epicenter of grim and fractious political scrabble plagued with squabbles, vandalism and ostentatious display of muscle and money during elections. Chapter 5: A Fine Balance: The spurning of real issues by the successive governments has led to huge losses monetarily and further deepening of partisanship but as explained in the chapter Nilekani feels a balance between governments market and civil society is required for sustained growth. Part IV: Chapter 1: Ideas to Anticipate: In spite of 60 years of independence the latent urge to appreciate the colonial era has not fizzled from the Indian psyche. Slowly India is trying to come out from the shackles of past and gaining its own ground. Chapter2: ICT in India: when Tom Friedman was asked about the future of China he said that he does not see much possibility for a nation which censors Google. The author hailing from IT talks about the genesis of India, its outreach to villages and slums of India, Sam Pitroda and Rajiv Gandhis passion for

computers and the blossoming of India into a technology hub. Chapter 3 : Changing Epidemics: this chapter deals with the glaring difference in Indias impressive economic numbers juxtapose next to disease incidence and infant mortality rate. No National Health Policy till 1980, slow penetration of health centers in rural areas, expensive medical care, ambiguous medical insurance policies, India with some of the worlds best doctors is not a place to fall ill for poor. Chapter 4: Our Social Insecurities: Economic constraint or attitude changes are leading to crumbling of joint families leading to increase in crime and discrimination against elderly. With no defined social security system, the government too focused on youth and child health and security issues the fate of old seems grim. With majority of population young the government has yet to foresee the increasing elderly population. Chapter 5: The Forest of Trees: This chapter delves into environment, change in climatic conditions, their impact on India, politicians attitude regarding it, Chinas and Indias lopsided commitment to climatic dangers and growing requirements of developing India and China crossing path with environment. Chapter6: Power Plays: Despite of India entering into the 21st century most of its villages has never seen electricity and most of the cities experience 6 to 7 hrs of power cuts. This chapter talks about the saturating conventional sources of power and need to shift focus on unconventional methods and framing of clear policies regarding generation and distribution of power. Being an entrepreneur Nandan stresses on the need to decentralize the entire process. Chapter 7: The Network Effect: In this last chapter the author summarizes the Indian spirit with the indigenous invention Jugad, the car of rural India Cheaper than Nano and solid like Ambassador. The author all through the book emphasis the only thing that has been able to push ahead India is its people and the ability of people at local level to harness it and take charge and innovate is the key to success.

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P rinciples of Biost atistic s Principles Biosta tistics Pages 526

Marcello Pagano Kimberlee Gauvreau

Biostatistics involves the theory and application

of statistical science to analyze public health problems and to further biomedical research. The science of biostatistics encompasses the design of biological experiments, especially in medicine and agriculture; the collection, summarization, and analysis of data from those experiments; and the interpretation of, and inference from, the results. Author of the book, Dr Marcello Pagano is professor of statistical computing in department of biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health and Co-Author Dr Kimberlee Gauvreau is assistant professor in department of biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health. Professor Paganos research in biostatistics continues in compute-intensive methods. Professor Pagano is also engrossed in surveillance methods involving screening, and the associated laboratory tests. Dr. Gauvreaus research focuses on biostatistical issues arising in the field of pediatric cardiology. One particular area of interest has been exploring institutional variability in outcomes following surgery for congenital heart disease. Dr. Gauvreau also works on the development and validation of methods of adjustment for case mix complexity. This book Principles of Biostatistics serves as an introduction to the study of biostatistics, or the use of numerical techniques to extract information from data and facts. Book has been divided into three parts. The first five chapters deal with collections of numbers and ways in which to summarize and explain them. The next two chapters focus on probability and serve as an introduction to the tools needed for the subsequent investigation of uncertainty. It is only in the eighth chapter and thereafter that distinction between population and sampling is eminent and the authors further begin to investigate the inherent variability introduced by sampling, thus progressing to inference. Chapter one, is the introductory chapter which embraces the concept of statistics and its application in various fields. Next chapter, Data Presentation begins with defining various types of numerical data and discusses various tabular

and graphical description techniques as methods of organizing , visually summarizing and displaying a set of data. The authors discuss on deciding which technique is the most appropriate in a given situation, after determining what kind of data there is. Chapter three, Numerical Summary Measures goes beyond the graphical techniques presented in chapter two and introduces the techniques like measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion and grouped data that allow us to make concise, quantitative statements that characterize the distribution of values as a whole. Chapter four, Rates and Standardization deals exclusively with measurements that assume only two values. The notion of dividing a group into smaller subgroups or classes based on a characteristic such as age or gender is associated as well. Concept of rates that may be used instead of raw data has been commenced to make comparisons among groups more meaningful. Finally, this chapter investigates techniques like standardization of rates, direct and indirect methods of standardization and their use that allow us to make valid comparisons among groups that may differ substantially in composition. Chapter five introduces the life table, one of the most important techniques available for study. The chapter initiates by examining the ways the life table is computed and includes a number of practical applications of life table. In summary, the first five chapters of the text demonstrate that the extraction of important information from a collection of numbers is not precluded by the variability among them. Despite this variability the data often exhibit certain regularity as well. In chapter six, Probability, authors progress with the study of the principles of probability. Probability theory resides within what is known as axiomatic system: authors start with some basic truths and then build up a logical system around them. The authors first lay the ground work by describing operations on events and probability, conditional probability and Bayes theorem and its applications. One important application of probability, diagnostic testing has been covered

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effectively. The concept of relative risk and the odds ratio is explained that is needed to compare probabilities. Basic principles of probability are explored in this chapter that can be applied to provide a means of quantifying uncertainty. In Chapter seven, authors expand their opinion by examining several theoretical probability distributions, such as the binomial distribution, Poisson distribution and the normal distribution. These mathematical models described in the chapter are useful as a basis for the methods explained in the remainder of the text. The early chapters of this book focus on the variability that exists in a collection of numbers. Subsequent chapters move on to another form of variability the variability that arises when we draw a sample of observations from a much larger population. Chapter Eight, Sampling Distribution of the Mean begins with the central limit theorem and many of its applications are discussed. This chapter investigates the properties of the sample mean or average when repeated samples are drawn from a population, thus introducing an important concept known as the central limit theorem. This theorem provides a foundation for quantifying the uncertainty associated with the inferences being made. Till now authors investigated the theoretical properties of a distribution of sample means, we are ready to take the next step and apply this knowledge to the process of statistical inference. Chapter nine covers one-sided conference intervals and two-sided conference intervals which were clarified with the example of the distribution of serum cholesterol levels for the population of males in the United States who are hypertensive and who smoke. Chapter ten, Hypothesis Testing envelop its general concepts, two-sided tests of hypotheses, one-sided tests of hypotheses, sample size estimations and its further applications. These techniques are essential methods for drawing a conclusion about the population sampled, while at the same time having some knowledge of likelihood that the conclusion is correct. Chapter eleven, Comparison of Two Means introduces a procedure for deciding whether the

differences one observes between sample means are too large to be attributed to chance alone. The specific form of the analysis depends on the nature of the two sets of observations involved; in particular Authors give the details on whether the data come from paired or independent samples. In the preceding chapter, authors discussed techniques for determining whether a difference exists between the means of two independent populations. The extension of the two-sample ttest to three or more samples is known as the analysis of variance which is covered in Chapter twelve, Analysis of Variance. Chapter Thirteen, Nonparametric Methods continues with the development of hypothesis testing concepts, but introduces techniques that allow the relaxation of some of the assumptions necessary to carry out the tests. In previous and this chapter, authors applied the techniques of statistical inference to continuous or measured data. In Chapter fourteen, fifteen and sixteen authors develop inferential methods that can be applied to enumerated data or counts such as the numbers of cases of sudden infant death syndrome among children put to sleep in various positions-rather than continuous measurements. Authors discuss measures of the strength of association between two dichotomous random variables. Chapter fourteen, Inference on proportions authors used the normal approximation to the binomial approximation to conduct tests of hypotheses for two independent proportions. Next chapter Contingency Table includes chi-square test and McNemars Test and chapter sixteen describes Multiple Contingency tables. In chapter seventeen, Correlation the authors begin to investigate the relationships that can exist among continuous variables. One statistical technique often employed to measure such an association is known as correlation analysis. They define correlation as the quantification of the degree to which two random variables are related, provided that relationship is linear. The details of Pearsons correlation coefficient and Spearmans Rank correlation coefficient are

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discussed. In chapter eighteen, Simple Linear Regression authors describe how simple linear regression can be used to explore the nature of the relationship between two continuous random variables. A natural extension of simple linear regression known as multiple regression analysis is explored in chapter nineteen, Multiple Regression Analysis. In this chapter explanation on two or more factors are used to predict a single outcome. Alternative techniques are explained in chapter twenty, Logistic Regression. Sufficient details of models, function and equation are given in the preceding chapters moving with comparisons from single regression to multiple regressions and then finally covering logistic regression. In chapter twenty one, Survival Analysis Authors introduce the inferential methods appropriate for life tables are introduced. The techniques of the life table method, product limit method that enable us to draw conclusions about the mortality of a population based on a sample of individuals drawn from the group are then dealt with. Finally in Chapter twenty two, Sampling Theory the authors monitor an issue that is

fundamental in inference the concept of the representative ness of a sample. Several different methods for selecting representative samples are described in this chapter of the book. The book is clear, concise, and helpful for health science and statistics learners. This conceptuallybased introduction to statistical procedures prepares readers to conduct and evaluate research in the biological and public health sciences. From beginning to end an with engaging writing style and accommodating graphics, Pagano and Gauvreau point up that statistics is more than just math. Its a practical field that has hundreds of applications and it employs in the real world. The book includes revised and expanded discussions on many topics, and additional figures to help clarify concepts The authors rely heavily on the books graphics and the use of computers to help readers make the calculations, giving them more time to concentrate on and learn the concepts. More than once a general example of population of United States has been used. The authors focus attention on the problem in the hope of stimulating interest in promoting solutions.

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