Third Curve - Book by Sandeep Singh

Book Review

Third Curve – Sandeep Singh   Viva Books                   Rs.595/-

Sandeep Singh has impressive set of management degrees, did  post graduation in Rural Development from prestigious Xavier Institute of Social Sciences, Ranchi, also specialized in Media Planning from MICA, Ahmedabad, did his course in General Business Management from IIM, Banglore. Singh worked in a number of advertising agencies in various capacities, worked in few television channels.

So when a person with such a rich academic background like Sandeep decides to write a book on sensitive topic like women and child development in a particular state, he is not expected to prepare a kind of propaganda document for the government where the premise is solely supported by the government data. He would have travelled across the State and to meet with cross section of people to have a first hand feel of various initiatives taken by the Government. I would like to give some gems from the book to show that the writer has a preconceived notion to glorify Gujrat Government in general and Narendra Modi in particular :

                    *    State Government has implemented motivational awards for Anganwadi Workers, who can be easily called the backbone of Women and Child Development program. The award was named Mata Yashoda Award by the Chief Minister Narendra Modi himself. He says that its Mata Yashoda who groomed Lord Krishna when his parents were jailed by Kansa.

     ** On the second day of the three-day long Praveshotsav in 2009, Narendra Modi, taught poet Botadkar’s poem “Janani ni jod sakhi nahi jade re lol” to students of the primary school in Jhamp village in Sanand taluka. He not only recited the poem but explained the essence of poem and of the word “Maa”.

       *** The Economic Times on 22 March 2012 reported that “Narendra Modi's Gujarat has many celebrated firsts to its credit but what the public relations team might have missed out on is an experiment with technology that appears to be bearing fruit. With a few million mobile connections and a thousand-odd health workers, Gujarat sought to reduce avoidable child and maternity-linked deaths, and had some success in a short span of two years prompting the central government to adopt it across the country.”

The matter of fact is that Gujarat had already been a progressive state from the very beginning as entrepreneurship is in the DNA of Gujrati Community it is not because of one leader like Narendra Modi. Blaming the previous governments it totally futile, development, social empowerment is an ongoing process, Narendra Bhai should be given credit for repackaging and rebranding the initiatives.