India Unbound: A Personal Account of a Social and Economic Revolution from Independence to the Global Information Age
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2001)
BOOK FORUMMonday, April 22, 2002
12:00 p.m.
Featuring the author, Gurcharan Das, Former CEO of Procter & Gamble India; with comments by Swaminathan Aiyar, Economic Times (India).
The Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
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Indian society is being transformed by the decline of the centralized bureaucratic state and the emergence of a market economy. Gurcharan Das will describe how sustained high growth rates are leading to the dramatic rise of the Indian middle class, the breakdown of the caste system, changing attitudes toward entrepreneurship, and a new political dynamic. According to Das, that “silent revolution” affecting one-sixth of humanity has far-reaching implications for the future of liberalism in the world. Swaminathan Aiyar will assess Das’s optimism, put India’s current lack of reforms into context, and highlight his country’s main challenges.