The Ten Commandments by Vijay Kumar Dewan – Book Review

The Ten Commandments is about achieving the mission called “IndiaNext”. It discusses the objectives, the focus areas, goals, strategic imperatives, failures, the pursuit for excellence, how the change implies change, and its implementation strategy. IndiaNext mission is to build India as the most developed nation in the world and with a vision to fulfill all the expectations of the people of India. The author says change is the essence of life. Indian civil service has to mount a public-sector wide initiative in a drive for organizational excellence. Its purpose has to position the public service for superior capability and delivery in the next century.

As the name suggests, the book talks about 10 different aspects of the Indian economy and its growth. The author has done really good research to write the book. It gave a very deep understanding of the following topics:

  1. Indian Agriculture
    2. Indian Population
    3. Indian women
    4. Indian Infrastructure
    5. Indian Economy
    6. Indian Democracy
    7. Indian Politics
    8. Indian Government
    9. Indian Challenges
    10. Indian Life

All the topics are initially discussed with some compelling statistics of the present situation. Then the author gives his opinion and advice to the Indian Government on how it can be improved.

It was surprising to read about some of the facts. For eg: Indian is among the top producers of so many food items that I never knew. Also, in 1958–59, the Indian government began defining a current status employed as any person if “he was gainfully occupied for wage or no wage on at least one day,” during the reference week “regardless of the hours of work” he might have put in on that “gainfully occupied” day or days. This was kind of an eye-opener for me. How is it that we still go by this standard about the employment status of a person!!

My favorite part of the book was when the author discussed a quote from Dr. Abdul Kalam which said if you want to live after your death, you will have to do one of the two, “Either write something for the world to read” or “Do something for the world to write about you”. Loved this!

The only downside is that the book was too long and too detailed. Maybe some of the details could have been removed.

Otherwise, it’s a great book for those looking for a good and detailed insight into the Indian economy.

My Rating: 3.5⭐/5

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