Praise for Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy is Transforming America and the World

Mira Kamdar en France du 21 au 31 janvier 2008
More Information on Events for the French Edition of Planet India

"A brisk and conversation-filled ride through India's corporate offices, film studios, farms and slums. Kamdar is an engaging writer." --Ramachandra Guha, The Financial Times

"Planet India is a worthy addition to the burgeoning shelf of serious books about 21st-century India. Despite seeing all the tragedies and limitations, Kamdar comes down firmly on the side of the optimists about India." -- Shashi Tharoor, The Times of India, March 18, 2007

"America's obsessive focus on China tends sometimes to obscure how amazingly fast India is transforming itself into an economic superpower.  This briskly written, vivid account shows how that subcontinental country's films, technology, and service industries have made India an ever-growing presence on the American scene. Time to recognize yet another awakening giant snapping at our heels."  - The Atlantic Monthly, April 2007
 

"Mira Kamdar takes the seemingly endless historical and cultural cross currents of India and weaves them together into a story that bears on the whole world.  She combines her admiration and affection for India and its people with a keen eye for its contradictory impulses, taking readers deep inside an India that is fighting for modernity on its own terms, but also changing, for good and ill, in response to dynamics beyond its control.  Indians, both within and outside their country, are changing the fates of people everywhere.  Planet India is our planet." - Ted Fishman, author of China Inc.  

"Planet India could become one of the most discussed books of the year. Kamdar's book is different from other similar themed books--it throws a challenge to the government, business leaders, voluntary organizations and ordinary citizens, and non-resident Indians, to make the Indian success story meaningful even to the poorest of its citizens." - India Abroad

"This book is an absolute MUST read. It's by far the best book on India and globalization to date and on top of that it's a fun read." - Clyde Prestowitz, author of Rogue Nation and Three Billion New Capitalists

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Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy is Transforming America and the World (Scribner)

India is everywhere: on magazine covers and cinema marquees, at the gym and in the kitchen, in corporate boardrooms and on Capitol Hill. Through incisive reportage and illuminating analysis, Mira Kamdar explores India's astonishing transformation from a developing country into a global powerhouse. She takes us inside India, reporting on the people, companies, and policies defining the new India and revealing how it will profoundly affect our future - financially, culturally, politically.

The world's fastest-growing democracy, India has the youngest population on the planet, and a middle class as big as the population of the entire United States. Its market has the potential to become the world's largest. As one film producer told Kamdar when they met in New York, "Who needs the American audience? There are only 300 million people here." Not only is India the ideal market for the next new thing, but with a highly skilled English-speaking workforce, elite educational institutions, and growing foreign investment, India is emerging as an innovator of the technology that is driving the next phase of the global economy.

While India is celebrating its meteoric rise, it is also racing against time to bring the benefits of the twenty-first century to the 800 million Indians who live on less than two dollars per day, to find the sustainable energy to fuel its explosive economic growth, and to navigate international and domestic politics to ensure India's security and its status as a global power. India is the world in microcosm: the challenges it faces are universal - from combating terrorism, poverty, and disease to protecting the environment and creating jobs. The urgency of these challenges for India is spurring innovative solutions, which will catapult it to the top of the new world order. If India succeeds, it will not only save itself, it will save us all. If it fails, we will all suffer. As goes India, so goes the world.

Mira Kamdar tells the dramatic story of a nation in the midst of redefining itself and our world. Provocative, timely, and essential, Planet India is the groundbreaking book that will convince Americans just how high the stakes are - what there is to lose, and what there is to gain from India's meteoric rise.

OTHER INFORMATION

Book Review in Chennai Online
February 7, 2008

>> KWR Book Reviews

>> The Jewel in the Market-Economy Crown
August 18, 2007

>> Asia Times Review, July 28, 2007

>> IndiaPost.com Review

Planet India is #2 nonfiction bestseller in India (April 12, 2007)

India's Challenge, The Toronto Star, April 15, 2007

Shashi Tharoor review in The Times of India, March 18, 2007

Great Expectations, a review in the FT by Ramachandra Guha

Mira Kamdar profiled in Little India

Article for Publisher's Weekly

India Inc!

Excerpt at YaleGlobal Online

Why I Wrote Planet India, by Mira Kamdar

Find out more at www.simonsays.com

Mira Kamdar on The Conversation, March 2, 2007

Interview with Mira Kamdar from India Abroad, February 16

 

Also by Mira Kamdar: Motiba's Tattoos

Praise for Motiba's Tattoos

"Kamdar provides evocative descriptions of the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of India . . . her family's story illuminates a much larger picture of the Indian experience in the 20th century." — Seattle Times

"The history of the Gujarati diaspora is one of the great unwritten narratives of pre-modern globalization. This finely written, well-researched memoir is not just an important first step towards the telling of this story: It is also a very good read." — Amitav Ghosh, author of The Calcutta Chromosome and The Glass Palace

"[MOTIBA'S TATTOOS] is the story of leaving home, severing roots, and losing one's tribe . . . a triumph of sorts for the family and yet another colorful addition to the complex cultural mosaic that is America." — India Today

Ever wondered about those huge homes in Bollywood movies? Bollywood Food Club

 
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