Adtech regulation a priority for Modi govt in third term: MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Credibility of news and platforms are as important as monetisation challenges: Anurag Thakur

HUL: Meet the leaders who have emerged from "The CEO Factory"

Punit Goenka addresses Zee employees; ensures no layoffs due to failed merger

Disney's strategic sale to Viacom18 set to boost market share to 40 percent

The Leader's Edge: Storyboard18 in conversation with leaders, decision makers and disruptors

Nobody’s Perfect Retro Porsche Ad

In Conversation With Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard

Shahid Kapoor And Varun Ganjoo Speaks On PokerBaazi's Campaign

In conversation with IHCL’s Puneet Chhatwal & GroupM’s Kate Scott-Dawkins

Why are brands including e-sports in their sports marketing itinerary?

Storyboard18 x The English Nut: How to pronounce these 10 brand names

Experts' Take On Reinvention Of Ad Campaigns Through Technology

Experts Speak On Key Emerging Trends In Cannes Lions Entries

Leaders of the future have to be outstanding human beings: Nestle MD

In conversation with VMLY&R’s Hari Ramanathan

I had the good fortune of receiving two books of poetry penned by Nadir Godrej, in the presence of his better half Rati Godrej. Their most generous hands and most indulgent smiles, celebrate a rare authenticity where knowledge, bona fide humility and understated elegance are the preferred accessory that define wealth. I enjoyed reading his poems over the last three months or so and have been waiting for a time to write about them.


Last week saw the 11th edition of the Hurun India philanthropy list come out. From Shiv Nadar who topped the list to the Bajaj family who are tenth on it, education seemed to be on top of every list. This connected to Nadir Godrej’s poem, ‘Good & Green’,

 
And if we teach the youth to earn,
 
Enabling them to quickly learn, 

Then all of us will get to spend 

The demographic dividend.

While growth is good and is our right 

We should always keep in sight,

As billions seek the promised land 

Enough resources aren't at hand.

 
The power of poetry lies in the fact that like humor, it is eminently powerful in talking about complex issues. Nadir Godrej’s poems raise questions in the nicest, most human way possible. On another continent last week, MacKenzie Scott (ex-wife of Jeff Bezos) announced selling another 11% of her Amazon shares (she hasn’t disclosed further giving yet). Clear patterns have emerged in her donations- many of them are towards historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-serving institutions. I was reminded of another of Nadir Godrej’s poems titled ‘Shared Values.’
 
And yet we clearly know 

No problem is solved by money flow 

Alone. Some deep thought is required

For good solutions to be inspired.

And hence came this new paradigm.

Why did it take so much time?

Shared value makes a lot of sense

When viewed through a certain lens.

Now externalities are the base 

On which one can make the case.

There is a conflict that we face

As we pursue the development race.

 
Another stellar philanthropist we lost this October, was Ratan Tata, whose vast work extended to healthcare, education, rural development, water, sanitation, hygiene, and skill development. He had famously said, “The day I can't do something for myself will be the day I pack my bags and leave.” Reminded me of Nadir Godrej’s poem titled ‘The Captain,’ written in memory of his uncle Naval Godrej.

 
We must accept the soul is leaving, 

But nothing can arrest our grieving.

But why not gaze the other way 

And build for him a monument,

Complete the work for which he spent

His each and every living day.

And thus the wounds of grief we suture 

By looking at the past and future.

 
Lastly, citing another poem written for his brother Ali Godrej, its safe to say about Nadir Godrej himself,
 
And none of us can fail to see

That he is full of energy.


Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ On Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/brand-makers/bookstrapping-alok-samas-the-money-trap-and-benjamin-grahams-the-intelligent-investor-46505.htm">Bookstrapping: Alok Sama's 'The Money Trap' and Benjamin Graham's 'The Intelligent Investor'</a>

Bookstrapping: Versifying with Nadir Godrej

Making sense of a red October at the Sensex


It isn't the job of the stock market to equalize everyone's wealth, says Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta in her twin review of Alok Sama’s ‘The Money Trap’ and Benjamin Graham’s ‘The Intelligent Investor.’

 
I got my hand on 75th anniversary edition of The Intelligent Investor (2024) by Benjamin Graham updated with a new commentary by Jason Zweig. It reads like a stoic captain navigating a tumultuous sea. With the Indian Diwali being a washout for the Sensex, one cannot help but admire how applicable the fundamentals of Graham’s book, originally published in 1949 are, even today. 


For the uninitiated, he differentiates between investing and speculation. He defines investing as an activity that is conducted through the fundamental analysis of companies, where the investor seeks to avoid serious losses while looking for adequate returns as opposed to extraordinary performances. In tandem, I also finished The Money Trap, a book by Morgan Stanley veteran Alok Sama, who details his experiences with modern investing in technology companies alongside Softbank’s Masayoshi San and Nikesh Arora.

 
What’s the funny parallel between these two books? More money isn't always the answer. Here are our five #Bookstrapping insights:

 
1. Human capital can push your income past the rate of inflation, says Graham, after defining inflation as a part the environment, not just an external event. Graham adds that a sound intellectual framework for decision making (protected from crazy emotional states) is the most important thing to invest successfully; not inside information and definitely not high IQ. Very very moot, even today.


2. Warren Buffet has repeatedly credited Benjamin Graham with being his inspiration. Graham earned returns during the most difficult times including the Great Depression- he beat the market by an average of roughly 5 percentage points- between 1936 and 1956. Huge!


3. The Intelligent Investors’ timeless grasp of investing is miles apart from The Money Traps’ world of espionage, threats, sharp suited lawyers and honey traps. Alok Sama’s language is definitely not that of a CA, as witnessed by sentences like 'Indians are frequently like crabs in a bucket'. He also knows the value of understatement; how 'some kid named Justin Bieber' was the opening act before a Taylor Swift concert at Wembley in the early 2000s. He writes his book like a thriller.


4. “The only reason why people examine their lives is to figure out ways to make more money”, says Sama. Even though, money isn’t everything, but originality may be. “Even when it flirts with absurdity, originality is thrilling. In the race against machines, originality may be our last strand’, Sama emphasizes. Good advice!


5. Graham understood that investing is a lonely activity in which isolated individuals yearning for connection and approval of their peers easily fall prey to manipulators. Talking about the fallacy of investing with borrowed money, Graham points out that we all hate admitting our own short comings. “Bright energetic people have promised to perform miracles with other people's money since time immemorial. They are usually able to do it for a while, at least appear to, but have inevitably brought losses to their public in the end,” he says. This is why fund managers walking around as miracle workers, were punished after the financial crisis of 2008-2009.


Jason Zweig’s commentary after each chapter is extremely insightful. The best way to sum up both books is as follows-

 
Believing you have more control than you do, is a sure way to end up earning lower returns then you should be. Feelings can't change facts. It isn't the job of the stock market to equalize everyone's wealth. Be wise with your asset allocation and rebalancing, if you want to play long term.


Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ On Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta

Bookstrapping: Alok Sama's 'The Money Trap' and Benjamin Graham's 'The Intelligent Investor'

I have had the privilege of working with many journalists in my lifetime. I know this for sure - when a journalist knows their subject deeply, they could well be called ‘real time historians.’ Bob Woodward of the Washington Post is in this category and even the best historians cannot resist their own opinions.

 
His appropriately red-themed book ‘War,’ comfortingly singular, talks about Joe Biden’s White House. A President forced to step down! But was he a genuine advocate of peace in a world ready to go to war at the slightest instance, Woodward seems to ask.

 
Here are our five #Bookstrapping insights:

 
1. Under Biden, the US famously and infamously withdrew from Afghanistan. Woodward believes that Biden and his team were fully aware of the menace Russia posed, but that Putin never took them seriously after they left Afghanistan. In fact, Woodward goes on to quote CIA’s profile of Putin and says that he is “defined by his extreme insecurity and imperial ambition.” He also conjures a picture of Donald Trump as a fan of Vladimir Putin. Did he supply him COVID tests secretively, the author asks.

 
2. Biden is Putin’s 5th American President. Obviously, he has been around longer than them. But did Putin’s megalomania begin because Obama did not take him seriously, Woodward wonders.

 
3. Famous for his Donald Trump trilogy, the books Fear (2018) Rage(2020) and Peril (2021), Woodward is a two time Pulitzer winner, first in 1973 for the coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein (yes, he brought down Richard Nixon) and second in 2003 as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yes, he knows his politics.

 
4. But why is this book out just before the elections? Because Woodward has strong beliefs about Donald Trump and vice versa. "None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump derangement syndrome," Trump campaign communications director Cheung has said about War. 

 
5. After fifty years of reporting on American politics, Woodward has trained his expert lens on the 3 years from 2021 to 2024. He has tremendous access and makes full use of it to give a ringside view of US Foreign policy and how that defines the character of its Presidents.

 
In essence, Woodward praises Biden while recalling an interaction with Trump and says, “We need to look at what's Trump all about. And I think Trump is a hazard, is definitely the wrong person for the job, but the overall reasons are--and I think they're so important to understand. And the first is that Trump has no plan. He does not plan!”

 
Strong words. But will they dent Trump’s charismatic hold over many?


Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ On Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta

Bookstrapping: War By Bob Woodward

Who is the inspirational Kamala Harris really? If this question intrigues you, then you have a creditable, first person account in this book. I for one was curious about how her name is pronounced? "Comma-La, which means lotus flower", she says. Not Kamma-La, the way we pronounce it here in India. That’s her Jamaican father and Indian mother coming together to create a unique sounding name!


Indians love their own flesh-and-blood politicians who rise to positions of power in foreign lands. We love Rishi Sunak, Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, Prithvirajsing Roopun and of course we love Kamala Harris most of all! Post November 2024, we might be compelled to love her more if she ascends to the coveted position of President.

 
She wrote 'The Truths We Hold' in 2019, before she became Vice President. The book is written in exceptionally simple language and talks about her convictions; about social justice, communities, families, art, creativity, protecting human rights. Everything except the economy.


Here are our five Bookstrapping insights in the VP’s words!


1. What drew her to law - It was the way people around me trusted and relied on lawyers. Uncle Sherman and our close friend Henry were lawyers, and any time someone had a problem, within the family or neighbourhood, the first thing you'd hear was "Call Henry. Call Sherman. They'll know what to do. They'll know how to make sense of this." I wanted to be able to do that… I wanted to be the one who could help.


2. The platitudes - These may be things Kamala Harris believes in, “Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. America must get to work.” More so because she is a traditional politician. Some readers may find these statements vacuous! But that's the whole point of a democracy.


3. She wears her middle class upbringing proudly - “We were renters for most of my childhood and my mother took incredible pride in our home,” she says while sharing shortly thereafter that her mother always wanted to be a homeowner.


4. She understands justice and makes it the core of her identity, via the book. “When people hear that a mother has lost her child to cancer, the natural response is collective sympathy and concern. But when a woman loses her son to violence in the streets, the response from the public is often different!”


5. She describes her mistakes too. Once, early in her career she was using a map to refer to while trying a hit-and-run case and got continuously confused between the both, east , south and west. Referring to this, she says, “During the break, Judge Horner called me into his chamber and said, ‘don’t you ever do that again! You figure it out. Figure it out.” Seems like she did!


The book is a celebration of the people in her life we don’t know. And the vast amount of work that has elevated her to being considered for the top job. She does not waste too much ink on obvious ones in the limelight. One must also give her credit for a very intelligent book, that positions her extremely well - the ‘shared purpose, shared values’ identity is believable because she provides ample context for it.

 
Might be a good time to get to know the second woman candidate, standing between ‘Donald Trump and the Presidency,’ if one could put it that way. May the best human win!


Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ On Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta

Bookstrapping - The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris

16 1/2 REASONS WHY YOUR CHOICES ARE NOT ABOUT FREE WILL

 
In his speed readable book, ‘The Illusion of Choice’, the author Richard Shotton questions the factors that influence our choices- over 16 1/2 chapters. Make that 17 1/2 because there ’s a bonus chapter in there as well.

 
Shotton shares the psychological quirks that govern our choices! The book is clearly aimed at making the reader realise the hogwash of free will! I'd like to point the reader to other books on behavioural science as well, such as Robert Cialdini's Influence, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. This is a popular field of non-fiction filled with many choices and I might've detected the easy flair of Malcolm Gladwell and Martin Lindstorm, in Richard Shotton’s writing; in that it is anecdotal and breezy. 


Here are our five Bookstrapping insights:


1. When it comes to Loyalty Programs at restaurants, a psychologist at the University of Chicago discovered that uncertain rewards are the answer to enhancing a loyalty scheme! When you stop offering every customer the same incentive, each time they visit, and add a dash of uncertainty, the value is enhanced! For eg; the Dishoom restaurant allows you to roll a dice at the end of the meal! If you get a six, your meal is free. This is 16.7 percent probability and a very welcome surprise!


2. Shotton also talks about how chunking commitments or breaking them down, e.g. volunteer four hours a week as opposed to 200 hours a year, can make all the difference to volunteering!


3. Who is Richard Shotton again? He runs a marketing company called Astroten, which help clients such as Google and Facebook apply behavioural science to marketing. This is his second book after ‘The Choice Factory’ and he has also been a media planner at the beginning of his career. Nice!


4. Shotton makes a case for reducing friction from the buying process? Ever thought about why Netflix autoplays the next episode?


5. He goes on to say that the best ads are memorable because they make the customer work a little and feel clever for figuring them out. When the brain exerts itself to make some effort, memorability is enhanced.


A lot of the insights make you pause and ponder. For eg; do we remember concrete things better than abstract things? Does this become a problem because marketers who have loads of experience, often find the simple too banal and prefer the abstract!

 
The book aims to tell brands that even small bits of friction will put off user-ship or engagement. Most people, including experts and professionals, tend to underestimate the scale of the impact of friction! Advertisers therefore need to think through the customer journey, identify even the smallest barrier that's getting in the customer’s way, and then resolve it! This can make all the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful company! 


Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ Asia's first Reading Coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta

Bookstrapping: The Illusion of Choice by Richard Shotton

A pre-Raj tale of bumbling British excursions?

 
Here is a book that is almost a fun take on the prehistory to the British Raj! A curious motley crew of English characters made their way to India, during the 16th and 17th centuries. This was during the heydays of the Mughal Empire, when the English sent ambassador after ambassador to seek favour and set up trade with the Mughals! The Mughals however, couldn’t be bothered! Why so? Mughal India was the world's largest economy matched only by that of China! Throughout the 17th century, the region’s GDP surpassed the combined GDP of Western Europe - who were crippled by debt and dependent on trade. (What about per capita income though?)

 
Mughal India was a saviour for its first English arrivals. And yet, ironically enough, the book 'Travellers in the Golden Realm' by Lubaaba Al Azami says that the first English arrivals in India were inspired- by neither commerce nor trade- but by the conflict between Protestants and Catholics! Has been covered before, but Al Azami does it anecdotally with a dash of humour.

 
Here are our five #Bookstrapping insights:


1. Al Azami says that India's reputation as an early paradise was built on the abundance of glinting gold and precious gemstones in her bountiful mines, even as India's spices were fabled as a fountain of youth. It was not uncommon for the subcontinent to be referred as gold-fingered India. And when Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498, the idea of India moved from imagination to reality.


2. The book suggests that Babar's conquest of India had much to do with the confidence instilled in him by his grandmother! Thus it came about, that in the 16th and 17 centuries, there were three leading Islamic Empires in the world- the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the Persian Safavid empire and the Indian Mughal empire. However, only in India did the rulers govern as a religious minority.


3. That the British East India company launched in 1600 in India is well known. Here is a book that dials back time to when the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth-I (thanks to her protestant leanings) via a diktat in 1570! Elizabeth-I had no choice but to make a pragmatic decision. To sustain her nation, she had to seek fresh trade partnerships beyond Catholic Europe - and one of the lands she chose was India. Makes sense!


4. In the tradition of Babar’s strong grandmother, Humayun too was protected by his steely aunt, until a strong Akbar took over and consolidated the empire. Akbar professed curiosity for all religions, from Jesuits to Jains, Muslims and Hindus! In contrast, the Portuguese were ruthless; destroying over 300 temples and converted 8000 Brahmins to Christianity in Goa - projecting themselves as strenuous and zealous soldiers of Christ! The locals therefore were against the Christian faith, even as the one of the first English travellers Thomas Stephens learnt the local languages and started writing poetry in Marathi.


5. It was in this curious climate - when the Mughals were at their peak and the East India company faced one embarrassing defeat after another- Sir Thomas Roe for instance - one realises what a miracle it was, that the Company survived the 17th century. The 18th century of course- after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, became a very different story!


It is well known that the English coming to power was a series of underhanded dealings. In the authors own words, “17th century networks of slave trading, commerce and colonialism are interconnected and complex!” However, Al-Azami deflates the English excursions during the Mughal Empire, thoroughly and definitively. I referred back to two books while I read this one, The Shortest History of India by John Zubrzycki and The British in India: Three Centuries of Ambition and Experience, by David Gilmour, and found some interesting parallels.

 
I also found that Al Azami has referenced a few rare sources- as compared to the other books about this period, which was an eye-opener. A few new themes for discussion put out there perhaps?


Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ Asia's first Reading Coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta

Bookstrapping: Travellers in the golden realm by Lubaaba Al Azami

Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was awarded a Bharat Ratna in 1955. His birthday on 15th September is celebrated every day as engineers day, not just in India but also Sri Lanka and Tanzania. He lived a grand 101 years from 1861 to 1962.

 
Now despite this preamble, the name Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya may still not ring a bell. Heard of the Krishna Raja Sagar Dam? He oversaw its construction. Ever used Mysore Sandal soap? M Visvesvaraya put up this factory. And ever heard of IISC Bengaluru? M Visweswaraya was crucial to setting it up. Author Aparajith Ramnath gives us a comprehensive biography of the legendary M Visvesvaraya in Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M Visvesvaraya.

 
He was one of the early architects of ‘India,’ in multifarious ways. The sheer multi-sectoral relevance of his work is one reason history demands that we know him. 


Here are our five BookStrapping insights.


1. The timing of his birth was definitely lucky in terms of the education he received; benefitting from the British system of English education of the 1850s, and not the ancient ‘pyol’ system of learning scriptures. Thus, he had access to western knowledge.


2. He left his home state of Mysore to go to Poona, to become a civil engineer at the College of Science in Poona. Later, he devised an intricate system of irrigation to repay the city, which was installed at the Khadakvasla Dam near Pune. His success led to the installation of similar systems at other dams. This was also the time when Mahratta, a weekly published by Bal Gangadhar Tilak profiled inventors and scientists like Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur etc; another happy coincidence.


3. Curiosity was his middle name; Visvesvaraya was a well-travelled man. He travelled to Japan in the 1890s, returning thoroughly impressed by its electric tramways and electric lighting, its education system and its modern economy. In the later years, he would also travel to Aden (Yemen), England, United States, Egypt, Milan etc; to study aspects of civil construction in the more developed cities of the time or implement projects therein.


4. His work is alive even today. For instance; when Hyderabad was in the grip of a catastrophic flood in 1908, sir Visvesvaraya’s services were requested by the Nizam’s government in the construction of a flood protection system and a drainage system for the city. The author writes in the book, ‘years before Orson Welles ran through the Viennese sewers in ‘The Third Man’, Visvesvaraya trudged along in drains in the bowels of London, Paris and Dusseldorf.’


5. His imprint on the education landscape is indelible. As the Dewan (chief minister) of Mysore from 1912 to 1918, he played a crucial role in the development of the state. He initiated various projects, including the Mysore Iron & Steel Works, the Bangalore Agricultural University, the Mysore University which also had its own engineering, medical, commerce and arts colleges. The State of Mysore also played a crucial role in helping establish Indian Institute of Science and influenced its research in the years that followed.


There is a reference to how JRD Tata clapped loudly as Visvesvaraya went up to collect his Bharat Ratna at the hands of Dr Rajendra Prasad. The citation he received read ‘ A great engineer, industrialist and statesman and the father of the idea of planned development in India!’ In the twilight of his life, his waning political influence due to divergence in views, did not affect his enthusiasm. He continued to advocate for heavy industry as the engine of growth. His 101 year old life, marked by both happy coincidences and his own energetic vigour, are fundamental to inspiring countless Indians to believe in the possible!


Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ A reading coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta.


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/brand-makers/bookstrapping-illustrated-books-ahoy-42833.htm">Bookstrapping: Illustrated books ahoy!</a>

Bookstrapping: 101 years too little?

By Meghan Bal


Career taxman Smarak Swain's book, 'Digital Fortunes: A Value Investor’s Guide to the New Economy', offers an excellent examination of the digital economy. Swain uncovers how regulators view value creation and market disruption in the digital age. Packed with examples and analogies, he discusses the story of nearly all the apps on your smartphone, contextualising their place and role in the global market.


The reader remains situated in the Indian context, which is refreshing. Swain traces the disruption of traditional 'pipeline' business models by digital platforms and breaks down the 'new' market fundamentals, such as network effects. As disruptors and traditional businesses compete for efficiency and margins, Swain highlights the implications for gig work, valuation metrics, and accounting practices. Swain's experience in government provides insight into the ideas and concerns that shaped platform regulation in India. He also zooms out to discuss the inevitability of monopolies in network-driven businesses and how these factors interplay with geopolitics.


Addressed to investors, the themes of fundamental value and speculation run throughout the book. After discussing digital platforms, Swain turns to crypto or virtual assets as a category of disruptive digital innovation. He categorises different types of virtual assets based on their underlying authority structures and provides frameworks to help investors understand the market risks. Just as traditional supply chain gatekeepers were disrupted by marketplace platforms, Swain remarks that platforms are the new gatekeepers poised to be disrupted by automated applications on blockchains such as decentralised finance, where financial transactions like loans can be issued out based on pre-programmed rules and conditions termed as ‘smart contracts’. Platforms like Amazon and Flipkart disrupted the traditional supply chains of physical wholesalers and retailers during the 2010s. Government-backed blockchain networks like the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), aim to wrest control away from these siloed platforms and ‘unbundle’ e-commerce supply chains.
 

Everything hinges on public trust. Swain notes how crypto's promise of a 'decentralised trustless system' was ironically used by swindlers to gain the trust of innocent people. Intermediaries in crypto markets have themselves become repositories of trust. Crypto evangelists promote their vision of a society where trust is placed in ‘cryptography’ rather than centralised institutions like governments and banks. They however fail to specify that coders and system designers must first be trusted to create fair systems. For instance, FTX – once a leading crypto exchange which crumbled and filed for bankruptcy – had loopholes in its code which allowed its founder to siphon depositors’ funds for his personal expenses. Swain flags that the success of automated applications on blockchains depends on trust in the coders who develop and administer the underlying algorithms.


Swain's discussion on trust dynamics in crypto is accompanied by important regulatory perspectives from India. The book sheds light on why Indian regulators have tried to keep the crypto sector on life support. Developing countries with capital controls cannot afford to encourage unchecked channels of fund movement. 


Foreign exchange currently moves in and out of India within specified limits and for specified purposes. Capital movements must be recorded and reported by banks and account holders, and must not be from blacklisted countries. With crypto, however, these checks and limits are easy to circumvent. People could potentially pump money in and create speculative bubbles, or take money out and create panic runs on the domestic financial system. These fears echo within the halls of government and regulatory institutions but may not be entirely justified. The reaction to these fears in the form of high taxes on investors and inaction on the regulatory framework is even harder to justify.


Swain argues that existing anti-money laundering controls and taxes in India have made speculative trading unviable. He suggests that regulation over digital platforms that operate as points of centralisation in the crypto ecosystem may be a way forward. This approach can work only if all countries implement uniform rules for identifying and recording cross-border crypto transfers and coordinate for law enforcement – a far cry at this juncture, as Swain would likely agree. The Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) ‘travel rule’ is one international standard that requires countries mandate crypto exchanges to record the origins and destinations of transactions. 
 

The book looks away from the alarming impact of high crypto taxes in India. KYC-compliant Indian exchanges lost approximately 90 percent of their trading volumes to offshore exchanges due to high taxes. Perhaps there is a need for regulators to incentivise investors to stay within the centralised and 'visible' sections of the crypto ecosystem, rather than the 'invisible', offshore exchanges and peer-to-peer networks.


That said, much is clearly happening behind the scenes, and Swain's book perhaps reveals a small glimpse of this. The Department of Economic Affairs will reportedly release a consultation paper in September-October 2024, seeking to determine the contours of crypto regulation. Swain's book will certainly equip the public to engage in a more informed discussion on the issue in the coming weeks.


The book will remain an excellent guide on India's digital economy. It is a must-read for anyone looking to understand tech innovation, disruption, and the crypto world as it relates to India without getting tangled in technicalities. The insights Swain shares about the regulatory world will remain valuable for policy wonks. 


The author is the Director of the Esya Centre, a tech-policy focussed think tank. Views are personal.

Book Review: Smarak Swain's 'Digital Fortunes: A Value Investor’s Guide to the New Economy'

I came across the rather quirky book Bangaliyana by Rajiv Baneerjee first on LinkedIn. With chapters titled Muchmuche and Pujor Chutti, this was the work of an ardent Bangla-phile, albeit probashi. (born outside of Bengal)


Bangaliyana is an illustrated book for adults! First up, not a very large universe of such books. I asked the author, are you a caricaturist first or an author? He said, “Doodling is my first love. The sketches came first and the words followed suit. Cartooning and doodling has been a passion since childhood and all of it is self taught, looking, reading and observing the works of greats like R.K. Laxman, Mario Miranda and Ajit Ninan.” Tall order that!

 
Abound Bangaliyana itself, he adds, “This book took shape first in the form of sketches, about 8-10 years ago. The narrative around every sketch in the book was then woven in and they were based on my observations and personal experiences.”

 
Since these books are rare, ardent book lovers have started viewing them as collector’s items. Let's look at a few such gems.


1. The magnificently illustrated Neil Geiman’s ’Ocean at the End of the Lane: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.’ This is a startling work of fiction that displays a rare and nuanced understanding of the human mind and asks an important question- can adults remain curious and feel safe to ask “stupid questions.”


2. How many author-doodlers are out there? Because an author can write and then farm the visual art out to a caricaturist. Rajiv Banerjee explains that the ‘writer-doodler’ identity is often singular, as in the case of the great RK Laxman who sketched and wrote extensively about his iconic ‘common man,’ and the polymath and genius, Satyajit Ray, who not only wrote, but also sketched! What better example than the famous detective character he created, ‘Feluda'!


3. A gem of book that has to make this list is ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse’ by artist and illustrator Charlie Mackesy. It is a book for all age groups and has come to mean different things to different people. For millions of readers, this book is a source of strength and for others, it gives them hope!


4. If you’re a collector, you must procure a copy of the illustrated version of James Joyce’s Ulysess. A limited edition was published in 2022 and the interpretation of complex prose into art is captivating to say the least. The book features rich drawings by the neo-figurative artist Eduardo Arroyo, one of the greatest Spanish painters of his generation.


5. And while we are talking graphical novels, it is simply not possible to leave out Japanese manga novels. Lets make a special reference to the work of Nagata Kabi, the Japanese manga artist who has authored several books including My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. The books deal with adult themes of eating disorders, mental illness, self-abuse and exposes the underbelly of biases in Japanese society.


Back to Bangaliyana! It is an intimate peek into the author’s life experiences and how he has interpreted them. Its tickles your funny bone because it lampoons its own protagonist-even as a community starts to speak as one. Like the delicious Sandesh holding its own in an exotic bevy of Michelin star desserts, the probashi Bengali has created their own cultural imprint on the world. Dive right in!


Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ A reading coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta.

Bookstrapping: Illustrated books ahoy!

Who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary?

 
Stumped aren’t you?

 
We are familiar with the authors of so many books- but the one book that helps us make sense of all the other books- remains a complete mystery to us. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was a crowdsourcing project that took 70 years (1858 to 1928) to complete! Did you know that? The team that came together for the project, the editors and many of the contributors (largely volunteers), made this their magnificent obsession; chasing down obscure words and when they appeared first!

 
Author Sara Ogilvie ticks all the right boxes; she was not only editor of Oxford Dictionary Australia, but also on the Amazon team that developed the Kindle. She has written a book that makes us question- “why didn’t anyone think of this before?” ‘The Dictionary People- The Unsung Heroes who Created the Oxford English Dictionary’ is the most obvious book never written until now!

 
Here are our five Bookstrapping insights - 


1. The OED is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are largely unknown. The dictionary itself- as we know it today- is a modern development. Earlier versions of the dictionary were prescriptive- they explained to a reader how something should be pronounced. Its only in the 19th century that the dictionary began to trace the meanings of words across time and describe how people were actually using them.


2. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, the ‘3000’ people she tried to track down were as varied as the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale and a cocaine addict found dead in a railway station laboratory! All of them held somewhat loosely together by Dr James Murray, who died during the compiling of the alphabet ’T’ in 1915, not knowing whether his project would ever be complete!


3. How did these people come together? Dr James Murray asked people to read their local books-and send him small words and quotations on 4*6 inch paper slips. His clarion call was quite powerful; one of the respondents Margaret Alice Murray read the advertisement while she was living in Kolkata. There is no doubt that the OED was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavour in human history, the Wikipedia of its time.


4. Which of the contributors sent the maximum slips to Dr Murray? The award goes to Thomas Austin Jr. who sent a total of 1,65,061 slips. Sarah Ogilvie has labelled 26 chapters as per the letters of the alphabet. Not the most remarkable aspect; but interesting.


5. Ogilvie’s zealous detective pursuit of the identities and stories of the contributors to the OED is very well crafted. The very idea of this book and the author’s approach to it is unique and likely to elicit sharp reactions from people.


There is a serendipity to this book itself; just as theres a serendipity to the OED. In her last days living in Oxford, before taking a teaching position at Stanford, Sarah Ogilvie, who had worked as an editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, discovered six handwritten address books noting the names of more than 3,000 contributors to the project. This is what triggered her journey.


 
Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ Asia's first Reading Coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta

BOOKSTRAPPING