Book Releases
The SBI Story: Two Centuries of Banking – Vikrant Pande, PGP 1992
About the Book
From princes to peasants, musicians to masons, cement plant owners to casual labourers—the State Bank of India (SBI) has been the bank for Indians. Widely trusted and near-ubiquitous, the SBI has come to symbolise banking across the length and breadth of the nation.
The Presidency banks of the 1800s—the Bank of Bengal, the Bank of Madras and the Bank of Bombay—set up by the British to facilitate trade and the repatriation of remittances to England were its forebears. The SBI Story narrates the compelling circumstances that prompted the founding of the Presidency banks, how they fared back in the day and why they coalesced to emerge as the Imperial Bank in 1921, which came to be the State Bank of India in 1955.
Vikrant Pandey traces the SBI’s deep connection to India’s economic progress, and the bank’s proactive approach to change and to reinventing itself to meet the evolving needs of a growing nation. From banking for the classes to banking for the masses, it has striven to blend business goals with social obligations.
A history of the SBI is the story of how banking emerged in the last two centuries, and of how closely it participated in the key events that shaped a nation. Indeed, it is another way of looking at Indian history itself. Deeply researched and written in vivid prose, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in business and economic history.
About the Author
Vikrant Pande has to date translated twelve Marathi works into English, including Sambhaji (Vishwas Patil) and Duryodhan (Kaka Vidhate). His recent book (co-authored with Neelesh Kulkarni),In the footsteps of Rama: Travels with the Ramayana, was published in 2021. Vikrant’s translation of Girish Kuber’s Marathi work, Tatayan, The Tatas: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation won the Gaja Capital Best Business book award of 2019. Vikrant is a graduate of IIM Bangalore.
You can get your copy at Amazon.in, Amazon.com and other channels.
AN ATHEIST GETS THE GITA – Rahul Singh, PGP 2015
About the Book
‘Will this make us happy?’
This question troubles 25-year-old IIM graduate Anveshak Jigyanshu, an investment banker in Singapore, as he meets his two-decade senior Charan Saket. Their conversation reminds the reader of the dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna. Anveshak, a self-proclaimed atheist, is mesmerized by the compelling arguments put forth by Charan as they both explore the world of science and its limitations, what proof means, the dilemma of ethics and finally, what real and everlasting happiness is. In a way, Charan explains the essence of the Bhagavad Gita. Slowly turning from a disbeliever to one who accepts logic, Anveshak discovers the key to his question.
In a tightly gripping narrative, the authors gently persuade the reader to relook and understand the essence of the Bhagavad Gita in the modern world. Anveshak represents the modern intellectual who seeks happiness but does not want to follow anything blindly. This book will change the way one looks at happiness.
About the Author
Rahul Singh is a banker, author and community builder. He is the principal of corporate advisory group at IIM Udaipur and the president of IIM Bangalore alumni association in Singapore. He regularly speaks at corporates and universities at international level on topics that concern millennials such as careers in the twenty-first century, conscious capitalism and cross-cultural understanding. He has co-authored Engineering to Ikigai and You Know the Glory, Not the Story.
Brought up in Lucknow, he received a full scholarship to study B.Eng. (Honours) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and has an MBA from IIM Bangalore.
You can get your copy at Amazon.in and other channels.
