WE are a nation of entrepreneurs. It may have been
hard to tell this in the days before the economic
liberalization of the 1990s and the time of the
license raj, but entrepreneurs existed even then. They were the
vendors you can still find in country buses, peddling little plastic
knickknacks and bottles of cure-all powders. You can find them
on street pavements. And you can find them in rural settings—
the craftsmen, the farmer, the traders—all managing their
businesses without relying on salaries or handouts.
A Spiritual Entrepreneur
By Sankrant Sanu. Art of Living is a spiritual foundation. Started from scratch by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar about 25 years ago, it now has a presence in over 140 countries, with…
Opportunities Beyond English
To liberate Indians from self-imposed colonial shackles. A few weeks ago I was giving a talk at a college in Gurgaon in Haryana, India, when a young student raised her hand. Urvashi…
Passion and Entrepreneurship
You may end up making a lot of money as an entrepreneur. But if you count your rewards only by the amount of money you make, you will be poorer for it. Entrepreneurship is a journey of self-discovering, of learning, of stretching one’s limits. When you do it because it is what you want to do, and you follow your passion, the work becomes its own reward.
The State, Entrepreneurship and Culture
Culture and success of a venture—or indeed, of a country—are inevitably connected. India’s dysfunctional systems that hamper rather than enable growth are so often pinned down to cultural problems. Is this accurate,…
The Way of the Entrepreneur
Naveen Jain, CEO of Intelius, shares his unique, minimalist and highly effective approach to entrepreneurship. I was on my way to Naveen Jain’s office when I realized that I only had a…
On Leadership and Government
Recently, I was privileged to hear Dr. Abdul Kalam speak at The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) event in Seattle on the topic “Entrepreneurs in a nation’s development: Vision 2020.” In the context of…
Hit Pakistan army where it hurts — its funding
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Islamabad and gave 6 million pounds (about Rs 433 million) to Pakistan’s government as a reward for the attacks on Mumbai, carried out by trained Pakistani militants….
Hinduism
Hinduism Encarta replaced its article on Hinduism after my critique of it was published. This is the replacement article from Encarta 2008 (now out of print) that was written by Prof. Arvind…
The Crisis of Governance: What India can learn from America
We have been busy learning many a thing in adopting a Western lifestyle—among these consumerism, new means of environmental destruction and a fragmenting social structure—yet we haven’t emulated the American systems that…