17-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
A K Bhattacharya's third book on India's FMs captures the post-reform era
Typically, by the third sequel, authors tend to lose energy, but not A K Bhattacharya. He enjoys reporting the joys and pains of India's finance ministers too much
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Laveesh Bhandari
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India's Finance Ministers III: Different Strokes (1998–2014)
by A K Bhattacharya
Published by Penguin Business
556 pages ₹999
Titled India's Finance Ministers: Different Strokes (1998-2014), this volume does exactly what the previous two in the same series did, but over some of the most interesting years of modern Indian economic history. The style remains the same: Non-judgemental and clinical, yet not critical. Perhaps there would be another where the author does not shy away from judgement or critique, but for now, he is simply a raconteur and not an analyst.
The period 1998 to 2014 is unarguably critical; the reforms of the