Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Bureaucracy But Were Afraid to Ask

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Bureaucracy But Were Afraid to Ask
Author: T. R. Raghunandan
Publisher: Penguin Enterprise
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2019-08-15
Genre: Study Aids
ISBN: 9780143442271

Whatever its faults, the Indian bureaucracy cannot be accused of bias when it comes to confounding those who have to deal with it. Veteran insiders who return to it with their petitions after retirement are as clueless about how it functions as freshly minted supplicants. Outsiders in any case have little knowledge of who is responsible for what and why or how to navigate that critical proposal through the treacherous shoals of the secretariat. At the top of the heap is the fast-tracked elite civil servant, who belongs to a group of generalist and specialized services selected through a competitive examination. The aura of the Indian Administrative Service has remained intact over the years. Lack of awe, bordering on civilized disrespect, is a most effective learning tool. In this humorous, practical book, T.R. Raghunandan aims to deconstruct the structure of the bureaucracy and how it functions, for the understanding of the common person and replaces the anxiety that people feel when they step into a government office with a healthy dollop of irreverence.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Anarchism, But Were Afraid to Ask...

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Anarchism, But Were Afraid to Ask...
Author: Simon Read
Publisher: Rebel Press
Total Pages: 70
Release: 2004
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780946061105

An excellent, short, contemporary, introduction to anarchism, its ideas, and some of the thornier issues in life ("don't we need the police to catch criminals," "aren't people naturally selfish," "don't we need some kind of management" etc).

The Beautiful Bureaucrat

The Beautiful Bureaucrat
Author: Helen Phillips
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2015-08-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1627793771

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2015 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by Time Out, Bustle, The Atlantic, Electric Literature, Kobo, Kirkus and more... "Riveting... thrillerlike...drolly surreal...Ultimately, The Beautiful Bureaucrat succeeds because it isn't afraid to ask the deepest questions." The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice "A joyride..." -Karen Russell NAMED A MUST READ OF THE SUMMER by the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Bustle, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, HelloGiggles and more... A young wife's new job pits her against the unfeeling machinations of the universe in a first novel Ursula K. Le Guin hails as "funny, sad, scary, beautiful. I love it." In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. After a long period of joblessness, she's not inclined to question her fortune, but as the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings-the office's scarred pinkish walls take on a living quality, the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread. As other strange events build to a crescendo, the haunting truth about Josephine's work begins to take shape in her mind, even as something powerful is gathering its own form within her. She realizes that in order to save those she holds most dear, she must penetrate an institution whose tentacles seem to extend to every corner of the city and beyond. Both chilling and poignant, The Beautiful Bureaucrat is a novel of rare restraint and imagination. With it, Helen Phillips enters the company of Murakami, Bender, and Atwood as she twists the world we know and shows it back to us full of meaning and wonder-luminous and new.

Exposure

Exposure
Author: Helen Dunmore
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2016-04-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802190413

“An unconventional thriller [and] a page turner . . . As much a surprising love story as it is a tale of spies” (The New York Times Book Review). In 1960 London, the Cold War is at its height, and a spy may be a friend or neighbor, colleague or lover. Two colleagues, Giles Holloway and Simon Callington, face a terrible dilemma over a missing top-secret file. At the end of a suburban garden, in the pouring rain, Simon’s wife, Lily, buries a briefcase containing the file deep in the earth. She believes that in doing so she is protecting her family. What she will learn is that no one is immune from betrayal or the devastating consequences of exposure. “Dunmore’s strategy, placing a triangle of past and present loves within a spy novel, yields an unexpected dividend. Even the most ordinary elements of life—the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her children, meeting someone special, what remains unsaid within a marriage—become viscerally exciting.” —The New Yorker “Exposure is many things at once—an espionage thriller, a forbidden-love story, an immigrant’s tale . . . A novel you won’t be able to shake.” —Entertainment Weekly “One of those books that you read with your heart in your mouth, your mind fully engaged, and with a sense of desolation as you note the dwindling number of pages left before it comes to an end.” —Chicago Tribune

Robert Ludlum's The Ares Decision

Robert Ludlum's The Ares Decision
Author: Kyle Mills
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2011-09-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 140911189X

The brand new Covert-One thriller from a master storyteller and global bestseller. When a US Special Forces team is wiped out by a group of normally peaceful farmers in Uganda, Covert-One operative Jon Smith is sent to investigate. Video of the attack shows even women and children possessing almost supernatural speed and strength, consumed with a rage that makes them immune to pain, fear and all but the most devastating injuries. Smith finds evidence of a parasitic infection that for centuries has been causing violent insanity and then going dormant. This time, though, it's different. And as Smith and his team are cut off from all outside support, they begin to suspect that forces much closer to home are in play...

A Bureaucrat Fights Back

A Bureaucrat Fights Back
Author: Pradip Baijal
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2016-06-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9351777561

POWER. REFORM. SCAMS. The 2G spectrum allocation scam struck a blow to the UPA-II government, and was perhaps India's biggest political scandal. The notional loss to the exchequer was a whopping Rs 1.76 trillion. Yet, it was no aberration. The 2G story is rooted in the very fabric of economic reforms in India--reforms that are essential for the growing economy. When Pradip Baijal took over as the third chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in 2003, the telecom sector was in serious crisis. But there was also resistance to the reforms he sought to implement. They were seen as both anti-establishment and pro-private business. Baijal fought for the reforms at great personal cost and, years later, the accused in the 2G scam blamed him for creating conditions conducive to malpractices. A Bureaucrat Fights Back: The Complete Story of Indian Reforms uses the 2G story--Indian telecom's rise from 3.1 million mobile users in 2000 to a billion in 2015--to analyse the roadblocks to change in India. It also captures the dilemma of India's civil servants, an especially pressing concern given the necessity of reforms. You are not doing your job if you shy away from reforms, and if you pursue them, you are likely to get mired in inquiries. How does a bureaucrat walk that tightrope? And at what cost? Intensely personal and deeply political, A Bureaucrat Fights Back is an examination of the best and worst of India's economic coming of age.

Hand to Mouth

Hand to Mouth
Author: Linda Tirado
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2015-09-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0425277976

The real-life Nickel and Dimed—the author of the wildly popular “Poverty Thoughts” essay tells what it’s like to be working poor in America. ONE OF THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF THE YEAR--Esquire “DEVASTATINGLY SMART AND FUNNY. I am the author of Nickel and Dimed, which tells the story of my own brief attempt, as a semi-undercover journalist, to survive on low-wage retail and service jobs. TIRADO IS THE REAL THING.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, from the Foreword As the haves and have-nots grow more separate and unequal in America, the working poor don’t get heard from much. Now they have a voice—and it’s forthright, funny, and just a little bit furious. Here, Linda Tirado tells what it’s like, day after day, to work, eat, shop, raise kids, and keep a roof over your head without enough money. She also answers questions often asked about those who live on or near minimum wage: Why don’t they get better jobs? Why don’t they make better choices? Why do they smoke cigarettes and have ugly lawns? Why don’t they borrow from their parents? Enlightening and entertaining, Hand to Mouth opens up a new and much-needed dialogue between the people who just don’t have it and the people who just don’t get it.

Democracy and Executive Power

Democracy and Executive Power
Author: Susan Rose-Ackerman
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2021-10-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0300262477

A defense of regulatory agencies’ efforts to combine public consultation with bureaucratic expertise to serve the interest of all citizens The statutory delegation of rule-making authority to the executive has recently become a source of controversy. There are guiding models, but none, Susan Rose-Ackerman claims, is a good fit with the needs of regulating in the public interest. Using a cross-national comparison of public policy-making in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, she argues that public participation inside executive rule-making processes is necessary to preserve the legitimacy of regulatory policy-making.

Method in the Madness

Method in the Madness
Author: Parameswaran Iyer
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2021-01-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9390327571

Parameswaran Iyer, former Secretary to the Government of India, is best known for leading the implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship programme, which became the world's largest sanitation revolution. But Iyer is not your typical bureaucrat. With a far-from-usual career combining two distinguished tenures in the government and an eventful stint outside it, he likes to describe himself as an uncommon 'Insider-Outsider-Insider'. In Method in the Madness, he reflects on the unique path he chose - from cracking the IAS to becoming a globe-trotting World Bank technocrat, to playing the role of a coach to his professional tennis-playing children, to finally returning to India and implementing the SBM. Written with humour and wisdom, this is an inspiring read full of key management insights, practical career advice, and valuable life lessons that will resonate with readers across age groups and professions.