Review of the book - A feast for Vultures: The hidden Business of Democracy in India.

This is one of the book, I finished at a single go. Though the author is journalist the content is easy to read and I trust the editor has...

August 19, 2017

This is one of the book, I finished at a single go. Though the author is journalist the content is easy to read and I trust the editor has taken a lot of efforts to make it easy to read.

Coming back to this book. If you want to know how the system (the state) works, this book is an essential primer. The books starts with a classic rural village and the trials of a village activist to get a road to his village. You would know a lot about Indian villages after reading this first chapter. Did you know over 56% of rural Indian population in India still don’t have electricity? Unbelievable

The central chapter talks extensively about the airline industry which was born out of liberalisation. Remember East west Airlines? The owner was gunned down one evening outside his office. Also the meteoric rise of Naresh Goyal the billionaire behind Jet airways. #Imho the chapters on the airlines is the best part of this entirely fabulous book.

It talks about how the Judiciary has over 3 crores pending cases, which might take 320 years to dispose off. This is crazy isn’t it?

The books then heads over to central India into the business of mining and coal blocks. It talks about Jindal and Vedanta and a bit about the rich billionaires owners behind these corporations. It has all the details but the scope of the book is not to delve deep, but to give an overview of how corporate power works in India.

To sum it up. It’s a quick read, you can finish it over a weekend or a couple of weekends. The book ends on a positive note. Read the book to find out.

By the way the author Josy Joseph is one of those great journalist. He has done some extensive investigative journalism on Adarsh and Common wealth games scam.

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