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Gurcharan Das
Gurcharan Das at Jaipur Literature Festival 2012
Born	(1943-10-03) October 3, 1943 (age 68) Lyallpur, Punjab, Indian empire/British Raj
Occupation	Author, Commentator, Public Intellectual.

Gurcharan Das (Punjabi: ਗੁਰਚਰਨ ਦਾਸ, Hindi: गुरचरण दास), (born October 3, 1943), is an Indian author,^[1] commentator and public intellectual. He is the author of The Difficulty of Being Good: On the subtle art of dharma which interrogates the epic, Mahabharata. His international bestseller, India Unbound, is a narrative account of India from Independence to the global information age, and has been published in many languages and filmed by BBC.

He is a regular columnist for six Indian newspapers in English, Hindi, Telugu and Marathi, and he writes periodic pieces for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and Newsweek.

Gurcharan Das graduated with honors from Harvard University in Philosophy. He later attended Harvard Business School (AMP), where he is featured in three case studies. He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India and later Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning). In 1995, he took early retirement to become a full time writer.

His other literary works include a novel, A Fine Family, a book of essays, The Elephant Paradigm, and anthology, Three English Plays.

Early life[link]

Gurcharan Das was born in Lyallpur, India (now Pakistan) into a Punjabi Hindu family. His mildly autobiographical novel sheds light on his early life. After Independence, Das' family fled to India as refugees. His father was an engineer with the government and he spent his childhood in Shimla and Delhi. He went to high school in Washington D.C. when his father was posted there in the mid-1950s. He attended Harvard University and graduated with honors in Philosophy. He wrote his thesis under John Rawls. Later he attended Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program, where he is featured in three case studies.

Career[link]

Gurcharan Das was the CEO of Procter & Gamble India and Vice President for Procter & Gamble Far East between 1985 and 1992. He was later Vice President and Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide responsible for global strategic planning. Prior to P&G, he was Chairman and Managing Director of Richardson Hindustan Limited from 1981 to 1985, the company where he started as a trainee.

In end 1994, after a 30-year career in six countries, he took an early retirement to become a full-time writer.

He began to write a regular column on Sundays for the Times of India and continued to do so for 15 years. Gradually, he added “Dainik Bhaskar (Hindi)”, “Prabhat Khabar (Hindi)”, Eenadu (Telugu)”, “Sakal (Marathi)” and “Mathrubhumi (Malayalam)”. He also wrote occasional guest columns for Time magazine and Newsweek magazines and occasional pieces for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs .

Books[link]

Gurcharan Das is now mainly known for his two best-selling books, India Unbound and The Difficulty of Being Good. India Unbound, is a narrative account of India from Independence to the global information age, and has been published in over a dozen languages and filmed by BBC. The Difficulty of Being Good: On the subtle art of dharma (Penguin 2009) examines contemporary moral failures through the lens of the millenia year old epic, the Mahabharata.

India Unbound is mainly about the transformation of India from birth of the writer in (1942) to (1999). The author majorly speaks about the Indian politics and the economy of India. He categorizes the complete timeline from 1942 to 1999 in three major sections: 'Spring of Hope (1942–65)', 'the Lost Generation (1966–91)' & 'Rebirth of Dream (1991–99)' and tell various stories(memoirs) and the historical facts of that time.

Gurcharan Das began to write soon after college. He wrote three plays in his twenties, which have been published as an anthology, Three English Plays (Oxford University Press, 2003). It consists of Larins Sahib, a prize-winning play about the British in India, which has been presented at the Edinburgh Festival; Mira, which was produced off-Broadway to critical acclaim from New York critics; and 9 Jakhoo Hill which has been performed in major Indian cities.

He wrote a novel in his thirties, A Fine Family, which follows the stories of several generations of a Punjabi family beginning with the Partition.

The Elephant Paradigm is a book of essays which ranges over subjects as varied as panchayati raj, national competitiveness, and the sacred and philosophical concerns of the average Indian consequent to India’s entry into what the author calls the ‘age of liberation’. While India may never roar like the Asian tigers, Das argues, it will advance like a wise elephant, moving steadily and surely, pausing occasionally to reflect on its past and to enjoy the journey.

Personal life[link]

Gurcharan Das is married and lives with his wife in New Delhi. He has two children.

References[link]

External links[link]

Articles by Gurcharan Das:

• The Dilemma of a Liberal Hindu
• The India Model
• Local Memoirs of a Global Manager Harvard Business Review March 1993

Nandan Manohar Nilekani
Nandan M Nilekani at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2007
Born	(1955-06-02) 2 June 1955 (age 57) Sirsi (Uttara Kannada District), Karnataka, India
Residence	Bangalore
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	Indian Institute of Technology
Occupation	Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
Net worth	$1.4 billion (2012)[1]
Signature	150px

Nandan Nilekani (born June 2, 1955) is an Indian entrepreneur. He currently serves as the Chairman of the new Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), after a successful career at Infosys Technologies Ltd. He is also now heading Government of India's technology committee, TAGUP.

Early life[link]

Nandan Manohar Nilekani was born in Sirsi town in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, as the younger son of Durga and Mohan Rao Nilekani.His father worked as a General Manager of Mysore and Minerva Mills. His father, who subscribed to Fabian Socialist ideals, had an influence on Nandan during his early years. He has an elder brother, Vijay, who works in the Nuclear Energy Institute.^[2]

He studied at St. Joseph's High School Dharwad,studied at the Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore and later in Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai where he graduated with a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering in 1978.^[3] His early years were marked by his father’s job transfers and re-locations. He spent the first twelve years at Bangalore, and then moved in with his uncle’s family in Dharwad, after his father had been transferred.

Career[link]

Nandan Nilekani, after graduating from IIT Bombay in 1978, joined Mumbai-based Patni Computer Systems where he was interviewed by N.R. Narayana Murthy. Three years later, in 1981, Murthy walked out of Patni following a disagreement with one of the Patni brothers. His entire division walked out with him. The defectors decided to start their own company, Infosys.

Nilekani became the Chief Executive Officer of Infosys in March 2002, taking over from Murthy. Nilekani served as CEO of the company from March 2002 to April 2007, when he relinquished his position to his colleague Kris Gopalakrishnan, becoming Co-Chairman. He left Infosys on 9 July 2009 to serve as the chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India, in the rank of a cabinet minister under invitation from the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh.

He co-founded India’s National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) as well as the Bangalore Chapter of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE).

He appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on March 18, 2009^[4] to promote his book "Imagining India." He spoke, at a TED conference, about his ideas for India's future.

He has an estimated net worth of the Indian rupee equivalent of US$1.8 billion.^[1] In 2009, Time magazine placed Nilekani in the Time 100 list of 'World's Most Influential People' ^[5]

Nilekani has been extensively quoted in Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat.^[6]

Personal life[link]

Nandan Nilekani is married to Rohini, whom he met at a quizzing event at IIT.^[7] They have two children Nihar and Janhavi, both studying at Yale University.^[8]

Honours and awards[link]

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• One of the youngest entrepreneurs to join 20 global leaders on the prestigious World Economic Forum (WEF) Foundation Board in January 2006.
• Member of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi
• Member of the review committee of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
• Forbes “Businessman of the Year” for Asia in 2007.
• He, along with Infosys founder (and currently non-executive chairman) N. R. Narayana Murthy, also received Fortune magazine’s ‘Asia’s Businessmen of the Year 2003’ award.
• Named among the ‘World’s most respected business leaders’ in 2002 and 2003, according to a global survey by Financial Times and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• Awarded the Corporate Citizen of the Year award at the Asia Business Leader Awards (2004) organized by CNBC.
• Joseph Schumpeter Prize for innovative services in economy, economic sciences and politics - 2005.^[9]
• Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian honors awarded by the Government of India - 2006.
• Was presented the 'Legend in Leadership Award' by the Yale University in November 2009. He is the first Indian to receive the top honour.
• Was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto on the 31st of May, 2011.
• NDTV Indian of the Year's Transformational Idea of the Year Award in 2011^[10]

Bibliography[link]

• Nandan Nilekani. Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation (March 19, 2009 ed.). Penguin Press HC. p. 528. ISBN 1-59420-204-4. 

In this book, Nandan discusses topics such as the future of India, its recent history, the ideas and attitudes that evolved with the times and contributed to the country’s progress, India’s early socialist policies, its young population, Information Technology, caste politics, labour reform, infrastructure, higher education, and the English language in India.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nandan Nilekani

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