Creative Society Prospects For India

Creativity is one of mankind’s principal resources. Can this resource be harnessed to accelerate India’s transition from traditionalism to modernity and widespread poverty to decent living standards for all? Can India’s creative efflorescence be directed towards designing a society that facilitates well-being, boosts cultural evolution and raises the bar for exhilaration through creative achievement? Is it possible to socially engineer a society that throbs with questions, novel perspectives and relevant innovations? Can it lead to a society where millions question the status quo and join hands to work out innovative solutions – in short, a creative society? This book is an affirmative response to these questions. Creative Society is an intellectually stimulating analysis of factors that trigger the emergence of a truly creative and innovative society; it explores the nature of human creativity – how it can be augmented and the social contexts that shape it; discusses ways of making institutions such as the government, educational bodies and other civil society organizations more creativity-friendly; offers an assessment of India’s prospective emergence as a highly vibrant, dynamic and creative society; and finally, offers several practical suggestions for India’s creative efflorescence.

Our civilization is at crossroads. It is brightened by unprecedented technological advances and blighted by murderous strife and unsustainable development. The book argues that the way forward is through management excellence of the key institutions of society: enterprises, not-for-profits, communities, other civil society institutions, organs of the state and so forth. The book explains, with the help of numerous live examples and research findings, what management excellence means for each of these institutional forms, and how it can be harnessed to lift the quality of civilization – towards widespread humaneness, creativity and performance excellence.

Management education in India has had a phenomenal transformation since the sixties. In Masters Speak, Vinay Nangia, who has four decades of experience in management, brings together an array of leaders and pioneers in the field. These exclusive interviews offer an insight into how management education has transformed over the years and examines the issues, challenges and relevance in today's competitive, professional scenario. The views and opinions of prominent educationists allow the reader to a better understanding of what management education actually is, and its prospects in the Indian context.

Is Shah Rukh Khan an effective actor? Is Naresh Trehan an effective doctor? Was A.P.J. Abdul Kalam an effective nation builder? Are you an effective person? In this book, bestselling author T.V. Rao studies and analyses effective doctors, actors, civil servants, social workers, educationists, nation builders and entrepreneurs. Some of them seem to go beyond the tenets of effectiveness and shine out as what the author calls Very Effective People and Super Effective People. His diverse examples and cases range from A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Devi Shetty, Anil Gupta to Kangana Ranaut, Sachin Tendulkar, Anupam Kher—to ordinary people whose lives are no less effective. Hugely readable, with self-assessment tools at the end of each chapter, Effective People will propel you to leap forward and discover the best in you.

The book is about eight fired-up young Indian men and women. Their vision of excellence, coupled with their creativity, persistence, and indomitable spirit, helps them emerge as unique individuals. They overcome obstacles in their path, including their own mental blocks. They come from diverse backgrounds, representative of the diversity of contemporary India. One of them is a domestic servant, another is from a lower middle-class family, the third belongs to the family of an academician, the fourth comes from an extremely orthodox Brahmin family, the fifth is of mixed Indian-Canadian descent, and so forth. Their personalities are as diverse as their backgrounds. But what they share in common is grit, the spirit of innovation, a humane concern for others, and the desire to extend the limits of their being. Their achievements are also diverse. One becomes the discoverer of consciousness in plants; another transforms a society a thousand years hence; the third sets up a school to foster creativity in children; the fourth becomes an outstanding painter; the fifth, a highly innovative farmer; the sixth, a pioneer of organ transplants; the seventh, a pioneer of colours distilled from rocks; and the eighth triumphs over her ingrained fear of ghosts to become a counselor who heals wounded beings. These scintillating stories are written in a simple style but with arresting images. They are spiced with action and racy dialogues that make them highly engrossing.

"In the global knowledge economy of the twenty-first century, India's development policy challenges will require it to use knowledge more effectively to raise the productivity of agriculture, industry, and services and reduce poverty. India has made tremendous strides in its economic and social development in the past two decades. Its impressive growth in recent years-8.2 percent in 2003-can be attributed to the far-reaching reforms embarked on in 1991 and to opening the economy to global competition. In addition, India can count on a number of strengths as it strives to transform itself into a knowledge-based economy-availability of skilled human capital, a democratic system, widespread use of English, macroeconomic stability, a dynamic private sector, institutions of a free market economy; a local market that is one of the largest in the world; a well-developed financial sector; and a broad and diversified science and technology infrastructure, and global niches in IT. But India can do more-much more-to leverage its strengths and grasp today's opportunities. India and the Knowledge Economy assesses India's progress in becoming a knowledge economy and suggests actions to strengthen the economic and institutional regime, develop educated and skilled workers, create an efficient innovation system, and build a dynamic information infrastructure. It highlights that to get the greatest benefits from the knowledge revolution, India will need to press on with the economic reform agenda that it put into motion a decade ago and continue to implement the various policy and institutional changes needed to accelerate growth. In so doing, it will be able to improve its international competitivenessand join the ranks of countries that are making a successful transition to the knowledge economy."

As digitalization meets local traditions, there is great potential for creative industries (CI) to promote economic and social development in middle- and low-income countries. This book explores the economic and cultural relevance of these industries in India. The book identifies key topics regarding cultural and creative industries in India, which has a rich cultural heritage and a young demographic and is undergoing swift socio-economic change. It contains the most sophisticated and comprehensive mappings of CI in India to date. It also features numerous case studies, which illuminate the growth of CI in India, its intersections with caste and gender, the central role of handloom, handicraft, and other local practices within communities, as well as the specific challenges in safeguarding and harnessing various creative industry assets to promote sustainable development and social change. Rich with empirical data, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of cultural studies, economics, history, social work, development studies, media studies, and South Asian studies.