Nandan Nilekani: Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation
In India, a hot button issue is the UID debate. A universal sort of ID, a national number sort of akin to the social security personal identifier in the United States is in the works. The author recently opined on the issue, and was mentioned on an Economic Times webpage this way: With some activists opining that the unique identity number should not be linked to the government's rural employment scheme, MNREGA , UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani has said the 'Aadhar' number should not be the basis for any discrimination. Asked about activists like Jean Dreze, a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC), not favouring linking Aadhar to MNREGA, he said the number should not be used in such a manner that one gets discriminated against. "Aadhar should not be a basis of discrimination," he said at the annual Rajinder Mathur memorial lecture organised by The Editors Guild of India. [...] Nilekani said the Aadhaar number will be helpful in opening a bank account, getting a ration card and many other things especially for the poor and the migrant labourers. He said the number will enable inclusive growth and development for the deprived and will act as an instrument of social inclusion. In 2009, The Economist magazine covered the book and author this way:
NANDAN NILEKANI, the co-founder of Infosys, one of India’s biggest IT firms, is a corporate icon in his homeland. But to many readers outside the country he is best known for a stray comment he made to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in February 2004. His remark (“Tom, the playing field is being levelled”) inspired the title and thesis of Mr Friedman’s “The World is Flat”, a big-think book about offshoring and globalisation that sold millions. The publishers of “Imagining India”, Mr Nilekani’s admirable first book, must hope that many of those readers will be eager to hear the Indian side of the story, straight from the source. Not to disappoint them, Mr Nilekani provides a chapter on globalisation and two on information technology. But “Imagining India” is a very different book from Mr Friedman’s bestseller. Mr Nilekani, an intellectual trapped in an entrepreneur’s body, seeks to understand India through the “ebb and flow of its ideas” and debates. Some of these arguments are now resolved, even forgotten. Others have yet to be joined. A third category of ideas commands assent, but no action. And some arguments still burn white-hot.
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. The author was a guest on The Daily Show in 2009, as well as a speaker at TED. See those videos just below.
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