From the Bookshelves
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Can we trust India's drug regulator? Dinesh Thakur and Prashant Reddy weigh in
Four cough and cold syrups made in India have allegedly caused the death of 66 children in Gambia, which is being investigated by Indian drug regulator. India has had at least five major events of poisoning by DEG in the past. In today's episode, Dinesh Thakur and Prashant Reddy, authors of 'The Truth Pill' (published by Simon & Schuster India) talk about the problem with drug regulation in India, regulators are more responsive to pharma companies rather than the people of India, and what adverse events due to substandard drugs mean for the $42 billion pharma industry in India
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Workplaces need to be less stressful: Aparna Piramal Raje on living with bipolar disorder
Aparna Piramal Raje comes from a prominent business family. She is a writer, educator, public speaker, and, in her own words, "happy, thriving and bipolar". Her new book, 'Chemical Khichdi', is published by Penguin Random House India. In this episode of From the Bookshelves of Forbes India, Aparna talks about how she and her family coped with her mental health condition, finding one's identity, the role of privilege in mental health awareness and de-stigmatisation, and why it's important for corporate leaders to be more vulnerable, sensitive and empathetic
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On building brands in the social media era, with Anjana Menon
'What's your story? The Essential Business Storytelling Handbook', is a collection of experiences of three co-authors Adri Buckner, Anjana Menon, Marybeth Sandell who talk about how companies should map their audience and engage with their target audience. It is filled with examples of companies and whether they are doing it right or wrong, and how one should engage with customers. From finding the mission of the brand to channelising your company's SEO, the book provides an insight into how companies should interact in today's times
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Will Page: What the music industry can teach you about pivoting in the digital age
"What we learn from the music business tells us so much more about who we really are, than other media industries; music is important not only because it was first to suffer and first to recover, but because it was the first to discover who we really are," says Will Page, formerly the chief economist at audio streaming company Spotify. In his book 'Tarzan Economics', Page takes a leaf or two from the music industry to explain how lessons from there can be used by anyone to disrupt an industry. The book talks about eight principles to pivot through disruption
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Kotler and Sarkar: On brand activism, and why credibility of Indian CEOs is at an all-time low
Marketing guru Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar in their new book discuss the seven wicked topics they have identified for brand activism. The book is an insightful read on how brands end up on either side of the regressive or progressive activism debate, with examples like Anita Roddick building the Body Shop. In this conversation, Kotler and Sarkar discuss moral myopia to brands, why credibility of CEOs in India is at an all-time low, to climate change
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Unpacking untold stories of India's banking ecosystem, with Tamal Bandyopadhyay
'Pandemonium' by veteran banking editor Tamal Bandyopadhyay narrates untold gripping stories from the Indian banking ecosystem. From the bad loans war room created far from the Mint street in Mumbai, to the arrests made in connection to the disbursal of such loans, he breaks down the nuances of bad loans in India, the key faces, and a collection of rare interviews of all the Reserve Bank of India governors on what they think has caused the big banking mess
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.jpg "Binod Chaudhary: Making it big in Nepal")
Binod Chaudhary: Making it big in Nepal
Binod Chaudhary is Nepal's sole billionaire according to Forbes World Billionaires list for 2021. In his autobiography, 'Making it Big', he writes about building his business, the impact of monarchy and politics, running 160 companies and how he plans to consolidate them now. His company CG Corp Global manufactures the widely popular Wai Wai noodles and has a controlling stake in Nabil Bank. Chaudhary now dreams of a NYSE-listed company—the first one from Nepal
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Steven Levy: Why Alphabet is more conventional than Google ever was
Steven Levy has updated his book 'In the Plex' and now takes a look at how Google has changed over the last decade. In the middle of the decade, Larry Page decided to call the company Alphabet. Alpha meant Google and Bet means the new bets or the moonshine projects it will undertake. Levy believes this structure has made it tougher for these bets like the fibre optics business to succeed on their own and a lot of them have eventually failed. He says Google has become something the founders never wanted to be—Conventional
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Jayadevan P.K: How Xiaomi built a cult following
In the summer of 2010, Xiaomi Corporation chose to launch as the force behind MIUI, an operating system based on Google's Android OS. Xiaomi officially launched as a mobile phone maker in August 2011. Since then, it has become the largest-selling smartphone manufacturer in India, the 2nd largest smartphone market in the world. In his book on 'Xiaomi', Jayadevan P. K., a tech journalist, traces the journey of China opening up a market for smartphones with Motorola, and how it brought lessons for entrepreneurs in China, including Lei Jun, the main man behind Xiaomi
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Vivek Wadhwa: Now the Goliaths eat David for lunch
The book's title 'From Incremental to Exponential' is a giveaway and its author, Vivek Wadhwa, a tech entrepreneur and a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon University joins us on today's episode where he points out there will be more disruption in this decade than in the last 50 years. Wadhwa take us through how legacy companies cut the middleman to stay in the game, why he says AI is an excel sheet on steroids, and why Amazon's monopoly is not a good thing for the Indian market
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Jeff Immelt: My legacy was controversial at best
GE was created in 1892 and it finds its roots with Thomas Edison. But after 110 years, in 2018, GE was booted from Dow Jones. Many pointed fingers at the senior management. In this tell-all podcast, Jeffery Immelt the ex-CEO of GE talks about his time leading the conglomerate, including decisions that went wrong and some which will bear fruits later. In his book Hot Seat, Immelt talks about the various business verticals in detail, especially the breaking up of GE Capital which was one of the drivers of the conglomerate