Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions

The development of institutions that conform to both democratic principles as well as market-capitalist ideas is one of human history's unfinished tasks. Perhaps it has become modern India's destiny to help finish the task. Institutions and institutional processes provide stability, are a means to progress and thus fulfil the needs of society. This functionality, however, has been lost in recent times and citizens around the world are losing confidence in institutions of government and democracy, free markets and capitalism. Reforming institutions has thus become the most urgent task for leaders across the world. Not an easy task: it is as risky as redesigning an aero plane while flying in it; it shakes up the foundations of stability. This insightful book, penned by a member of India's Planning Commission, looks at how India, the world's largest democracy, which embraced capitalism twenty years ago, has become the principal laboratory for institutional reform. It provides new ways to think about institutions and the process of reforming them and explains how we should go about reformation as a nation. The principles given in this book apply to institutions of government and business in all countries. Timely and incisive, Redesigning the Aero plane While Flying addresses the most essential need of the hour.