Friday, March 27, 2020

India's Legal System - Can It be Saved - Fali Nariman (2016)

Fali Nariman has been a leading expert on legal matters and has been a celebrated senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India. He needs no introduction to any person remotely related to law. This book is a short description on the following aspects:

1. Judicial System Pre-Indepence
2. Adoption of Judicial System post indepence.
3. Civil Courts and the flaws in the Indian Legal System
4. Criminal Courts and the flaws in the adversial justice system in India

While the judiciary role is upheld in the whole book, there are definite lacuna that have been identified. The role of judiciary and its importance to be kept independent is discussed with certain firmness.

Short and concise but definite treatment of Indian Legal System. More from a commoner's view point than a legal expert. To a practicing lawyer the book will seem to lack details.

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice : Clayton Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David Duncan (2016)

Needed to gift a book to the library of my hostel in my alma mater IIT, Kharagpur. It was imperative to choose a book on innovation, undoubtedly Clayton Christensen comes as the most authoritative management guru in the field of innovation. Hence, this choice.

If you have read Innovator's Dillema, Innovator's Choice or any such book by Clayton Christensen the views are always from a producers angle. Technically, the producer comes up with a new product or solution that completely disrupts the market and then market starts adopting it. And the whole saga of the adoption process is described in details with very crisp and well defined examples. This book is actually unique as it describes the innovation from a consumers viewpoint. In some sense, there is nothing completely new that has not been talked about earlier, it tells you to listen to the customer pain points to identify the real need and then build a solution that addresses that need. A very standard product management process to develop a product.

I think other than a terminology variation, like customer hires xyz service or product to address his needs there is nothing quite unique in the book. I felt over the years of research, it's Christensen who has really identified that needs driven innovation actually sticks to produce results. The concepts are told in a very different language, with the hiring terminology but I did not quite find any significant new ideas in the book.

But, as with most Christensen books, you will still gain enough to finish reading it. Hence, recommended.

Surely Youre Joking Mr Feynman: Richard Feynmann (1985)

A maverick!!! That is what you feel when you read the book. A person who does not agree to anything that does not meet his line of work or t...