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The Turn of the Tortoise
It is said of India that it is the country of the future—and will remain so
In The Turn of the Tortoise, the distinguished journalist T.N. Ninan addresses a range of contemporary questions as only he can—looking at why the economy lost steam, the emerging trends in politics, the Chinese shadow over India, and the relationship between the state and the citizen. He asks whether manufacturing can be made a success story, what is the size of the neo-middle class, who really is the aam aadmi, and if it is possible to put an end to extreme poverty now. And, finally—what are the fears that should keep us awake at night?
This wide-ranging book is an attempt to understand, through data and analyses, where India stands today, why it has emerged the way it has, and what the next ten years might bring. For anyone interested in India and its future, this is essential and enlightening reading.
In The Turn of the Tortoise, the distinguished journalist T.N. Ninan addresses a range of contemporary questions as only he can—looking at why the economy lost steam, the emerging trends in politics, the Chinese shadow over India, and the relationship between the state and the citizen. He asks whether manufacturing can be made a success story, what is the size of the neo-middle class, who really is the aam aadmi, and if it is possible to put an end to extreme poverty now. And, finally—what are the fears that should keep us awake at night?
This wide-ranging book is an attempt to understand, through data and analyses, where India stands today, why it has emerged the way it has, and what the next ten years might bring. For anyone interested in India and its future, this is essential and enlightening reading.
368 pages, Paperback
First published October 12, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 17, 2016
"Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true" - Joan Robinson
In early 2000s, an Indian diplomat serving in Nepal visited the Kosi barrage, built across the unstable river whose water volume increases fatally in times of monsoon. He was stunned to see the dredgers, whose work was to regularly clear the river of silt,were lying unused as they were under repair. The diplomat immediately contacted the Bihar government for immediate action but nothing ensued. As it happens ,in 2008, the Kosi floods happened leaving lakhs of people adrift and homeless. Later, it was known that the satellite maps of the river were not being accessed by water resources ministry . The sensors that provide data on water flows had stopped functioning long back. And thus even as the waters of Kosi surged ahead bursting banks, the government had no clue about the state of the river. It was a complete breakdown of government machinery. Snafu.
By narrating this incident , T.N.Ninan, in his book "The turn of the turtoise" underlines how scarily non-existent the government can be. But in the next page, he points out government's efficiency in mission-mode events like elections or Kumbh melas .Thus, in these two pages, the author sets the tone of his book . Despair and hope. This balance is what makes the book stand out from various other tomes which either take the tone of a "Mother India" or an " India : Emerging power".
T.N.Ninan is a veteran journalist who started his career in India Today. He specialised in matters of economy and this experience led him to take up the editorship of Business Standard, a champion of free markets, in 1993. In 2010, he took over as the chairman of the paper. His Saturday column in the paper has a dedicated following among policymakers and general readers alike. For such a career involving prolific writing and keeping weekend deadlines, it is a surprise that it has taken so long for him to write his first book. Or it may be precisely because he was caught in the unrelenting storm of journalism that it took him so long.
This book comes at a significant juncture in the post-independence trajectory of India when we have the first single majority government at the helm since 1984 and our country is trying to reclaim the high growth path which it had once traced in mid-2000s. The book does not focus on a single domain as such but covers multiple aspects which need to be addressed and discussed for India to march ahead. An interesting observation is that we have had our country compared to many animals - be it a tiger or an elephant or even a dragon. But Tinan takes the curious analogy of a slumbering tortoise but it's not all pessimistic as he clearly says that it is the tortoise's turn now.
The book is divided into five sections. In the first section of the book, the author lays a platform of numbers for the ideas to follow in the rest of the chapters. He argues how the 1991 reforms were not deep enough as they touched only the product markets and left the factor markets unreformed. Ninan reminds that our failures have been mainly related to government because it tried to bite more than it can chew -right from running watch factories to making failing airlines stay afloat.
In another sharply written chapter, Ninan reels out numbers like how China's income grew at a rate of over 10 percent in the decades straddling the year 2000,how it's foreign exchange reserves are twice India's GDP and how China has trumped illiteracy and poverty effectively to show that clubbing India and China together is a exercise in imbecility. Even as our priority sectors for manufacturing are basic ones like electronics and garments, China has moved on to loftier aims in high-end numerically controlled machine tools and ocean engineering equipment etc.
In the second section, the author covers manufacturing and private sector. In recent times, there is a huge focus on manufacturing through the "Make in India" campaign. The author stresses that India's cost advantage in sectors like garments in times of China's slowdown is not enough as there are other cheaper options available (Bangladesh, for instance). Thus , we need a wholesale reorientation of our hitherto rigid labour laws, focus on increasing the productivity of workers and undertake urgent large scale investments in infrastructure and above all, ease the process of doing business.
There is a separate section on the Indian state's curious mixture of overreach and under-performance. Ninan feels that government's noble intentions get scuttled by being blind to market realities. The anti-market mindset which we have inherited wrongly from Nehruvian days has made governments interfere with functioning of the marketplace through price controls, import controls and suboptimal public sector enterprises. Corruption is taken up in an inter-country comparison with USA's "Gilded age" when prosperity and corruption were bedfellows. The solution to corruption ,the author concludes, lies in stronger institutions, technology and more transparency in political/electoral funding. When it comes to poverty, a decent case is made for direct cash transfers as it is less taxing on the governmental capacity to deliver. But the author wants more focus on delivery of merit goods like education and health without which mere cash transfers will amount to zilch.
In the section on Indian society, the author classifies Indian citizenry into four broad types based on expenditure per month per family. These are : Middle- class rich, aspiring neo-middle class, vulnerable no-poor and poor. He underlines how more and more vulnerable non-poor are climbing into the upper echelons in recent years. He believes the median family income will grow from Rs.22500 to Rs.40000 in ten years.
There is a separate section on how India deals with strategic issues like defence and foreign policy. Again,Ninan comes back to economics saying rapid economic growth remains the best foreign policy. In the climate change talks, Ninan faults India for clubbing itself with China i 2009 when China's per capita emission is much higher compared to India's. He also calls for emission caps to be based on emission intensity - emissions measured with respect to a unit of GDP.
In the concluding chapter, Ninan outlines three major trends that will be evident in times to come : huge spurt in growth of middle class, retreat of state from economy and devolution of powers from Delhi to state capitals.Some minor quibbles need to be mentioned as well. The focus on agriculture, education and health is kept to a bare minimum. Also, such a long book on economy could have spent more print ink on the interplay of politics and economy and how economically sound market policies which end up benefiting the downtrodden are not electorally viable. India is at a tantalising crossroad and the steps it takes now will have historical repercussions. Some of those steps can be learned from T.N.Ninan's book so that the tortoise ensures that it's turn counts.
In early 2000s, an Indian diplomat serving in Nepal visited the Kosi barrage, built across the unstable river whose water volume increases fatally in times of monsoon. He was stunned to see the dredgers, whose work was to regularly clear the river of silt,were lying unused as they were under repair. The diplomat immediately contacted the Bihar government for immediate action but nothing ensued. As it happens ,in 2008, the Kosi floods happened leaving lakhs of people adrift and homeless. Later, it was known that the satellite maps of the river were not being accessed by water resources ministry . The sensors that provide data on water flows had stopped functioning long back. And thus even as the waters of Kosi surged ahead bursting banks, the government had no clue about the state of the river. It was a complete breakdown of government machinery. Snafu.
By narrating this incident , T.N.Ninan, in his book "The turn of the turtoise" underlines how scarily non-existent the government can be. But in the next page, he points out government's efficiency in mission-mode events like elections or Kumbh melas .Thus, in these two pages, the author sets the tone of his book . Despair and hope. This balance is what makes the book stand out from various other tomes which either take the tone of a "Mother India" or an " India : Emerging power".
T.N.Ninan is a veteran journalist who started his career in India Today. He specialised in matters of economy and this experience led him to take up the editorship of Business Standard, a champion of free markets, in 1993. In 2010, he took over as the chairman of the paper. His Saturday column in the paper has a dedicated following among policymakers and general readers alike. For such a career involving prolific writing and keeping weekend deadlines, it is a surprise that it has taken so long for him to write his first book. Or it may be precisely because he was caught in the unrelenting storm of journalism that it took him so long.
This book comes at a significant juncture in the post-independence trajectory of India when we have the first single majority government at the helm since 1984 and our country is trying to reclaim the high growth path which it had once traced in mid-2000s. The book does not focus on a single domain as such but covers multiple aspects which need to be addressed and discussed for India to march ahead. An interesting observation is that we have had our country compared to many animals - be it a tiger or an elephant or even a dragon. But Tinan takes the curious analogy of a slumbering tortoise but it's not all pessimistic as he clearly says that it is the tortoise's turn now.
The book is divided into five sections. In the first section of the book, the author lays a platform of numbers for the ideas to follow in the rest of the chapters. He argues how the 1991 reforms were not deep enough as they touched only the product markets and left the factor markets unreformed. Ninan reminds that our failures have been mainly related to government because it tried to bite more than it can chew -right from running watch factories to making failing airlines stay afloat.
In another sharply written chapter, Ninan reels out numbers like how China's income grew at a rate of over 10 percent in the decades straddling the year 2000,how it's foreign exchange reserves are twice India's GDP and how China has trumped illiteracy and poverty effectively to show that clubbing India and China together is a exercise in imbecility. Even as our priority sectors for manufacturing are basic ones like electronics and garments, China has moved on to loftier aims in high-end numerically controlled machine tools and ocean engineering equipment etc.
In the second section, the author covers manufacturing and private sector. In recent times, there is a huge focus on manufacturing through the "Make in India" campaign. The author stresses that India's cost advantage in sectors like garments in times of China's slowdown is not enough as there are other cheaper options available (Bangladesh, for instance). Thus , we need a wholesale reorientation of our hitherto rigid labour laws, focus on increasing the productivity of workers and undertake urgent large scale investments in infrastructure and above all, ease the process of doing business.
There is a separate section on the Indian state's curious mixture of overreach and under-performance. Ninan feels that government's noble intentions get scuttled by being blind to market realities. The anti-market mindset which we have inherited wrongly from Nehruvian days has made governments interfere with functioning of the marketplace through price controls, import controls and suboptimal public sector enterprises. Corruption is taken up in an inter-country comparison with USA's "Gilded age" when prosperity and corruption were bedfellows. The solution to corruption ,the author concludes, lies in stronger institutions, technology and more transparency in political/electoral funding. When it comes to poverty, a decent case is made for direct cash transfers as it is less taxing on the governmental capacity to deliver. But the author wants more focus on delivery of merit goods like education and health without which mere cash transfers will amount to zilch.
In the section on Indian society, the author classifies Indian citizenry into four broad types based on expenditure per month per family. These are : Middle- class rich, aspiring neo-middle class, vulnerable no-poor and poor. He underlines how more and more vulnerable non-poor are climbing into the upper echelons in recent years. He believes the median family income will grow from Rs.22500 to Rs.40000 in ten years.
There is a separate section on how India deals with strategic issues like defence and foreign policy. Again,Ninan comes back to economics saying rapid economic growth remains the best foreign policy. In the climate change talks, Ninan faults India for clubbing itself with China i 2009 when China's per capita emission is much higher compared to India's. He also calls for emission caps to be based on emission intensity - emissions measured with respect to a unit of GDP.
In the concluding chapter, Ninan outlines three major trends that will be evident in times to come : huge spurt in growth of middle class, retreat of state from economy and devolution of powers from Delhi to state capitals.Some minor quibbles need to be mentioned as well. The focus on agriculture, education and health is kept to a bare minimum. Also, such a long book on economy could have spent more print ink on the interplay of politics and economy and how economically sound market policies which end up benefiting the downtrodden are not electorally viable. India is at a tantalising crossroad and the steps it takes now will have historical repercussions. Some of those steps can be learned from T.N.Ninan's book so that the tortoise ensures that it's turn counts.
December 14, 2015
I never followed politics and economics very closely... Its a good book which explains what all is right and wrong in India and its policies.. Unlike Implosion it's focus is not just on negatives but on positives as well
August 3, 2018
3.5/5 This is a good, refreshing book dealing with the usual "What ails India ?".
But firstly, while it looked at challenges rationally and a little differently, it didnt discuss roadmaps for solutions. And solutions arent easy without roadmaps. You cant just shrug off saying - "This is an obvious solution but no-one will do it for lack of political courage." Surely, there is more to it. And unless this is the first book you have read on this topic, you already know what the problems are, broadly atleast.
Secondly, some sections, say the one on foreign policy, military and even on political parties seemed short and a little half-baked.
Overall, its a good, interesting read on the topic with some shortcomings.
But firstly, while it looked at challenges rationally and a little differently, it didnt discuss roadmaps for solutions. And solutions arent easy without roadmaps. You cant just shrug off saying - "This is an obvious solution but no-one will do it for lack of political courage." Surely, there is more to it. And unless this is the first book you have read on this topic, you already know what the problems are, broadly atleast.
Secondly, some sections, say the one on foreign policy, military and even on political parties seemed short and a little half-baked.
Overall, its a good, interesting read on the topic with some shortcomings.
July 11, 2017
One of the great book for anyone interested in knowing the current state of Indian Economy. The author has very beautifully linked stats to events, especially those of last 25 years. The book is neutral, has as much criticism as some motivating realities. Knowledge and Information, figures and facts are presented in a way to let you drive your own conclusion. All in all, it is a must read for any 90s kid, interested in knowing where India stands. I cannot think of any cons straightaway. Some points have been stressed time and again, India vs China, poverty, 1991 reforms amongst other things. Read this book with pencil in your hand, there are lots of pressing facts that you will come across. Language used is not difficult to understand and there is no prerequisite as such. Any one interested, will be kept involved throughout. Happy reading!
November 9, 2022
A fantastic book that helps you understand the interplay between the Indian government, social indicators, and the economy at large. You realize how India operates both from the top down, as well as from the grassroots level. You will understand a lot more about the tussle between the public sector and the private sector (with details about both domestic and international companies). Finally, you get a sense of how this all ties together when it comes to foreign relations.
The most phenomenal thing are the thoughts going through my mind as I read this book in 2022. India has come a long way, and the author made some noteworthy predictions that have borne fruit.
The most phenomenal thing are the thoughts going through my mind as I read this book in 2022. India has come a long way, and the author made some noteworthy predictions that have borne fruit.
June 16, 2018
More than a snapshot of Modi's India circa 2016. Ninan's book is wide ranging, encompassing India's similarities and differences with China, the constraints to the growth of manufacturing, the challenges of ineffective governance and corruption, the class/consumption structure, and India's search for strategic autonomy. Thoughtful and even-handed, Ninan analyses why India will move ahead economically in the future and speculates about the political impact of a rising middle and aspirational class. An excellent overview of India's economy and politics.
April 27, 2020
One of India's finest business journalists (who almost created the genre with his brilliance at India Today starting nearly 4 decades ago) has written a worthy and objective book about India's economic promise and challenges. The slight disappointment is that the book doesn't provide a vision of the possibilities of reform, or a guide to the key aspects that could transform India from a tortoise to something of a hare in the global economic race.
May 6, 2016
The author presents a very lucid and precise of the country, one of the best books on state of India, most of the topics that come on the noisy media have been discussed in a well research manner.
There is no stain of ideology or hyperbole that is generally associated with book on current affairs of the country. Hope to see more from the author.
Would recommend.
Read if you liked 'In spite of the gods', this book gives a broader economic/geopolitical picture.
There is no stain of ideology or hyperbole that is generally associated with book on current affairs of the country. Hope to see more from the author.
Would recommend.
Read if you liked 'In spite of the gods', this book gives a broader economic/geopolitical picture.
November 18, 2015
a good summary of economic activities in India since Independence. though the definition of development looked a little biased and one sided. or may be its a left of the centre reader's response to a right of the centre author's book :)
November 3, 2015
Quite well done... for a comprehensive reviews, see: https://in.news.yahoo.com/slow-advanc...
November 19, 2015
Its necessary to understand the strength and weakness, to grow.
A good book to understand both, with an economic perspective throughout, for a layman.
A good book to understand both, with an economic perspective throughout, for a layman.
January 5, 2016
Best book on the state of Indian economy -2015.
May 29, 2016
Bred, edruelig og lesverdig gjennomgang av Indias politiske og økonomiske situasjon.
July 27, 2016
A good book for anyone interested to understand india's performance as an economy.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews