A weekly column on what well-known personalities are reading and planning to read.
This week, it is Ajit Ranade and Milind Deora. Ajit Ranade is chief economist, Aditya Birla Group. Milind Deora is a member of the Congress party.
I am reading In the Name of Democracy: JP Movement and the Emergency by Bipan Chandra, which is about the tumultuous events just about 15 years preceding the economic reforms of 1991. The highest recorded inflation levels in India were seen in this period, especially September 1974. Many political stalwarts of later years cut their teeth in this period. What was remarkable in this period was that the motivations of the two opposing sides — Indira Gandhi and the JP movement— for what they did then were to “save India’s democracy”. The book is a very insightful analysis of this landmark period, the events of which are not sufficiently ingrained in our national consciousness.
Ajit Ranade is chief economist, Aditya Birla Group.
Milind Deora
I have moved away from fiction which I used to read a lot. These days I find myself reaching out to storytellers in the non-fiction world. I connect to their personal struggles and triumphs. Arianna Huffington is a person I have admired and known, and her book Thrive I enjoyed reading immensely. I find I can connect to honest accounts by people I admire. I liked Sleep Revolution written by Arianna for the same reason. As I identify with music and non-fiction, I find biographies equally engrossing. For instance, I read the memoir of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, Life , which I found riveting.
Milind Deora is a member of the Congress party.
