Indian companies took up products that came in from the West and either replicated it or re-engineered it. Indians, when they went to other countries, were part of creative teams that came up with, and implemented great ideas. But, when in their own country, Indians do not have a reputation for coming up with innovative ideas. So, what is it that stops them?The author laments this situation in his book Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible. He points out that even the Indian branches of MNCs do not see their Indian operations as centers of innovations. They just work on things that have already been conceived elsewhere.In this book, Munshi tells the true stories of 11 breakthrough ideas conceived and executed by Indians. These ground-breaking examples show that if someone dares to think out-of-the box and follows their dream, then seemingly impossible things can be achieved.The examples cover a wide range of industries. from public sector to private sector, and from MNCs and huge Indian companies to startup firms. The book talks about 11 ideas that had a deep impact, and achievements that were original and influential.The examples include the creation of the slimmest water proof watches by Titan, and the business model of Cavinkare - a small company that took on giants in the field of personal care products and succeeded. It includes the story of how Aravind Eye Hospital came up with an idea - assembly line surgery - to improve the productivity of its surgeons. Today, the hospital treats 70% of its patients free of charge and yet manages to make a good profit.Then, there is the case of the Hindi daily, Dainik Bhaskar, that combined intensive in-house marketing surveys and research with innovative marketing ideas to capture a large segment of the market in each new city they entered.The book throws light on the innovative strategies of Trichy police to turn around a city that was crime prone and known for communal clashes into one of the safest in the country. He further talks about the power backup company Su-kam that succeeded by creating its own niche, and Shantha Biotech that launched a low-cost Hepatitis B vaccine.The other success stories include Surat City’s transformation after the plague outbreak into one of the cleanest cities in the country, and Chic shampoo’s innovation of introducing sachet packs, which revolutionized the retail market. Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible further elaborates how Bosch India came up with a new cost-effective pump that meets the Euro standards, ITC’s e-Choupal marketing model, and Chola Vehicle Finance’s innovative business model.All these real-life examples in Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible give an insight into the ability of Indians to go beyond conventions and create innovative products and strategies that could turn their respective industries on their heads.About the AuthorPorus Munshi is a psychology graduate and has a passion for helping people realize their potential. He is also a partner consultant at Erehwon Innovation Consulting.He previously contributed a column to Hindu Busnessline called Work and You. His book, Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible, is already on its second reprint.Munshi works with clients and helps them release mental blocks and conventional restraints to help them achieve their goals and dreams. He helps facilitate innovative thinking and organizational transformations. Besides his passion for innovation and realizing the human potential, he has an avid interest in martial arts, from Karate to Tai Chi.

    The five weird and wonderful tales collected here each unlock the many-tongued language of desire, whether it takes the form of hunger, lust, sudden infatuation or the secret longings of the heart.Selected from Haruki’s Murakami’s short story collections The Elephant Vanishes, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman and Men Without Women.

    His first two novels established Mohsin Hamid as a radically inventive storyteller with his finger on the world's pulse. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia meets that reputation, and exceeds it. the astonishing and riveting tale of a man's journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon, it steals its shape from the business self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over "rising Asia." It follows its nameless hero to the sprawling metropolis where he begins to amass an empire built on that most fluid, and increasingly scarce, of goods: water. Yet his heart remains set on something else, on the pretty girl whose star rises along with his, their paths crossing and recrossing, a lifelong affair sparked and snuffed and sparked again by the forces that careen their fates along. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a striking slice of contemporary life at a time of crushing upheaval. Romantic without being sentimental, political without being didactic, and spiritual without being religious, it brings an unflinching gaze to the violence and hopes it depicts. And it creates two unforgettable characters who find moments of transcendent intimacy in the midst of shattering change.

    In the course of a confession to a white 'sahib' the imprisoned Ameer Ali recounts his life as a devoted follower of Thuggee, a secret religious cult practising ritual mass murder and robbery. Taylor uncovered evidence of the crimes committed by bands of Thugs as a Superintendent of Police in India during the 1820s. Introducing a new standard of ethnographic realism to western fiction about India, Confessions of a Thug is a strikingly vivid, chilling and immensely readable thriller. This unique critical edition makes available a fascinating and significant work of Empire writing.

    Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time.Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.

    Thus began a unique journey as forty villagers set off in a special third-class railway carriage to travel from the soggy plains of Bengal and the tropicana of the deep south to the alpine majesty of the Himalayas. Heather Wood was fortunate enough to share part of their trip and, with notebook open and pen in hand, she unobtrusively watched and recorded the villagers' experiences on this unprecedented Indian odyssey.

    Kaplan now travels from West Africa to Southeast Asia to report on a world of disintegrating nation-states, warring nationalities, metastasizing populations, and dwindling resources. He emerges with a gritty tour de force of travel writing and political journalism. Whether he is walking through a shantytown in the Ivory Coast or a death camp in Cambodia, talking with refugees, border guards, or Iranian revolutionaries, Kaplan travels under the most arduous conditions and purveys the most startling truths. Intimate and intrepid, erudite and visceral, The Ends of the Earth is an unflinching look at the places and peoples that will make tomorrow's headlines--and the history of the next millennium.

    Aged 17, she came to England for the first time. This book describes that exotic upbringing in India and explains what an unusual effect it has had on the rest of her life.

    Every genre and style, from the celebrated No plays to the poetry and novels of the seventeenth century, find a place in this book. An introduction by Donald Keene places the selections in their proper historical context, allowing the readers to enjoy the book both as literature and as a guide to the cultural history of Japan. Selections include “Man’yoshu” or “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves” from the ancient period; “Kokinshu” or “Collection of Ancient and Modern Poetry,” “The Tosa Diary” of Ki No Tsurayuki, “Yugao” from “Tales of Genji” of Murasaki Shikibu, and “The Pillow Book” of Sei Shonagon from the Heian Period; “The Tale of the Heike” from the Kamakura Period; Plan of the No Stage, “Birds of Sorrow” of Seami Motokiyo, and “Three Poets at Minase” from the Muromachi Period; and Sections from Basho, including “The Narrow Road of Oku,” “The Love Suicides at Sonezaki” by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and Waka and haiku of the Tokugawa Period.

    A Common Assault describes an incident in Italy when he was mugged, and found himself trying to give a statement to the police in bad Italian. The History Boys harks back once more to Bennetts time at school, and shows how the raw material of experience was eventually transformed into the highly-acclaimed stage play The History Boys. Arise, Sir..., finishes on a light-hearted note, in which Bennett muses on the Honours List in typically iconoclastic mode.

    Impossibly remote and nearly inaccessible, Bhutan is rich in natural beauty, exotic plants and animals, and crazy wisdom. It is a place where people are genuinely content with very few material possessions and the government embraces “Gross National Happiness” instead of Gross National Product.        In this funny, magical memoir, we accompany Linda Leaming on her travels through South Asia, sharing her experiences as she learns the language, customs, and religion; her surprising romance with a Buddhist artist; and her realizations about the unexpected path to happiness and accidental enlightenment.        As one of the few Americans to have lived in Bhutan, Leaming offers a rare glimpse into the quirky mountain kingdom so many have only dreamed of. For over ten years, Leaming has lived and worked in the town of Thimphu, where there are no traffic lights and fewer than 100,000 people. “If enlightenment is possible anywhere,” she writes, “I think it is particularly possible here.”        The Bhutanese way of life can seem daunting to most Westerners, whose lives are consumed with time, efficiency, and acquiring things. But Leaming shows us that we don’t necessarily have to travel around the world to appreciate a little Bhutan in our own lives, and that following our dreams is the way to be truly happy.

    Attempts to tell the reader through stories what India is, its traditions, culture, philosophical and religious beliefs customs, etc that are so variagated that it seems there are many Indias, rather that just one.

    A prostitute, her lover and a policeman play for high stakes in BombDay. Injectionwala exposes chilling medical malpractices and a lovelorn vigilantes twisted game plan. In Coma Man, a man awakens from coma after twenty years, and sets out in search of his wife and himself. Gritty love stories, manipulative cops and hard-boiled slumlords form the backdrop of this unputdownable thriller. Its MUMBAISTAN all the way. Mumbai, a city of dreams for many. But for others, a nightmare. Behind the façade of lustre and glamour churns a seething underbelly of squalor, corruption and crime. Mumbaistan’s three explosive crime novellas unravel the subterranean secrets of maximum city—from the teeming maw of Dharavi and the wanton streets of Kamathipura to the swank high-rises of Bandra. A prostitute, her lover and a policeman play for high stakes in Bomb-Day. Injectionwala exposes chilling medical malpractices and a lovelorn vigilante’s twisted game plan. In Coma Man, a man awakens from coma after twenty years, and sets out in search of his wife— and himself. Macabre love stories, conniving cops and hard-boiled slumlords form the backdrop of a schizophrenic city that is brooding...dying. Welcome to Mumbaistan; a gritty, compelling take on the megalopolis that lives on the edge.

    Curator of kitsch and unabashed aficionada of pop culture, Halliday offers bemused, self-deprecating narration of events from guerrilla theater in Romania to drug-induced Apocalypse Now reenactments in Vietnam to a perhaps more surreal collagen-implant demonstration at a Paris fashion show emceed by Lauren Bacall. On layover in Amsterdam, Halliday finds unlikely trouble in the red-light districteliciting the ire of a tiny, violent madam, and is forced to explain tampons to soldiers in Kashmir"they re for ladies. Bleeding ladies"that, she admits, "might have looked like white cotton bullets lined up in their box." A self-admittedly bumbling vacationer, Halliday shareswith razor-sharp wit and to hilarious effectthe travel stories most are too self-conscious to tell. Includes line drawings by the author."

    The expedition was described by the two men in Sea of Cortez, published in 1941. The day-to-day story of the trip is told here in the Log, which combines science, philosophy and high-spirited adventure.Log from the Sea of Cortez includes the narrative of the journey and the essay “About Ed Ricketts.” It does not include pictures and detailed descriptions of the species collected by Steinbeck and Ricketts. (See also Sea of Cortez.)