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Can India grow without Bharat
by Shankar Acharya.
Academic Foundation
Pages 187. Rs 395

Can India grow without Bharat? Can we reap the "demographic dividend" of a young population? How should we revive industrial employment? Is the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act affordable? Why have reforms sputtered despite the "dream team"? How is growth so strong though reforms have stalled? How can populism be restrained? Can 8 per cent growth be sustained? Should we deploy forex reserves to build infrastructure? What must we do to renew our decaying cities? What is the solution to the coming water crisis? Who are India’s tax reformers? Can bilateral trade agreements substitute for the Doha Round? Should SAARC have a common currency? Is "fiscal responsibility" working? Does monetary policy work? Can we really aspire to China’s economic league — or is it all hype? How good is our foreign policy?

Shankar Acharya provides forthright and provocative answers to these key issues about India’s development.

Shankar Acharya is one of India’s leading policy economists. As Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India from 1993 to 2000, he was deeply involved in the economic reforms of the 1990s. He also served on the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and more recently, as Member, Twelfth Finance Commission (2004). He has authored several books and numerous scholarly articles.

Currently he is Honorary Professor and Board Member of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi. He also serves on the governing boards of other national research organisations (including NCAER and NIPFP) and various advisory bodies of the government, the Reserve Bank and some corporates.

Adventures in Antarctica
by Suravi Thomas and Rishi Thomas
Puffin Rs 195. pages 82

It was the best Christmas gift two children could get — an expedition to Antarctica, the mysterious White Continent!

When Suravi and Rishi Thomas got a place on a Chilean navy ship sailing to Antarctica, they could’t have imagined the stormy time that lay ahead. Four-storey-high waves battered the decks, ferocious winds sharp as ice blades lashed out, hulky icebergs came crashing in until their ship began to teeter like a paper boat in rain. There was only one thing for the brother-sister duo to do— hold on to their bunks for dear life.

It has never been smooth sailing to Antarctica — the coldest and windiest continent on earth — for even the most intrepid explorers. The dangers have never stopped the brave ones, though. And as their ship scissored its way through sea and ice, Suravi and Rishi became fearless discoverers, driven by a passion for penguins and spellbound by Antarctica’s many extraordinary sights: gigantic blue icebergs, playful pods of whales, legendary albatrosses, rainbow skies at midnight and vast carpets of thick ice. Adventures in Antarctica is the first-hand account of two young people on a journey to a desolate yet magnificent wilderness — the real story of Suravi and Rishi’s voyage to the end of the earth: Antarctica.

Please, Mom! It’s My life
by Jaideep Singh Chadha.
Pustak Mahal. Rs 80

For some inexplicable reason, puberty and adolescence produces a streak in children which automatically closes their eyes and ears to what their parents want them to see and hear.

However, these two organs open wide when their friends say something. It is really funny.

Hence, these adolescents carry on doing what they want to do and not what their parents would want them to do.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule.

It is wrong for the children to be blamed all the time. Sometimes, parents are just not there for them.

As the author says, "Since I am totally against the ‘blame game’, I had to find out ways and means to help children and people till the age of 35, for I feel that after that, no matter what you tell them, it rarely helps.

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