China Shakes the World

Started reading this book "China Shakes the world" by James Kynge. As with other Chinese books, this book shares some of the common facts on the history and the evolution of China post 1978 and overviews the Mao and Deng times.

Though I have not completed it fully, this has triggered the buds by covering some of the recent strategic moves like China National Offshore Oil Corporation's (CNOOC) bid for Unocol and Dalian's almost done acquisition of Ingersoll Milling Machine, which was working on few of America's sensitive projects.

The book also goes in length about how China were able to leverage the lessons learned from the world and pick the best brains in an amazingly short time before pumping the gas on their juggernaut economy. That's the gist for now.

Note: The next book I plan to read is "The Elephant and the Dragon" by Robyn Meredith unless I hear if there is something else that is more interesting.

Nice read

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1645150,00.html

The Rise of India

Recently finished the book 'The Rise of India' by Niranjan Rajadhyaksha. Very interesting read that gave a vivid picture of the Indian economic history ( on a high level) and the realistic issues the country faces ranging from corruption to population to poor government reforms etc. It is a good read for young MBA students to get a fast track view on the past and current bottlenecks that the country faces.

The author also talks in detail on how India missed the Asian race post independence till early 90's and how the energetic Indian youth is catching up currently and also talks about future projections. It was definitely an enjoyable read.

It is certainly encouraging that prominent leaders like Nandan M. Nilekani (one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, 2006.) have read this book and acknowledged it.
As a part of continuous learning, corporates and political parties should enforce that leaders read these kind of books for the benefit of those that they serve.

From Wall Street to the Great Wall

Marc Faber's 'From Wall Street to Great Wall' was the first of his books I had completed a few days back. Since I like the meat and not beating around the bush, the initial few pages repelled me from proceeding as the content was around his life-hood background etc etc. It was a light read until the contents started focusing on how different eras lead to the waves of developments that ultimately resulted in unbalanced growth on this planet.

For those interested in economic and history trends and how they are closely linked, this book is a good read offering a stratum of perspectives. For amateurs, this can help connect the social, political, economical dots from a history as well as contemporary standpoint.

In addition, it is imperative that while financial analysts' detail dashboard is the day to day numbers and the book driven financial stats, the macro-economic barometers are to be viewed with utmost diligence as well, as exemplified by Dr.Doom.

In response to http://us.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/06bspec.htm

With all the mega trends that India is going through, it is easy to forget the forces that pull them back. The prime vanguard of those enemy forces being CORRUPTION. In the long run, though the wide income gap can be handled through education, awareness, communication and govt. policies, the main results being savings gap of the mass middle class and the growth catalyst for them is highly challenged by the grass-root corruption. There have been tons and tons of movies on this subject with futile reaction.