‘Accelerating India’s Improvement: A State-Led Roadmap for Efficient Governance’, written by Indian economist Karthik Muralidharan, has been awarded the distinguished Gaja Capital Enterprise E-book Prize 2025. The award was introduced on the Gaja Talks occasion, following a dialogue with the shortlisted authors. The e-book was awarded for providing an efficient blueprint to unlock India’s subsequent section of development by specializing in stronger state capability and efficient public service supply. The piece of writing systematically appears at India’s governance challenges, notably in sectors like schooling, well being, social safety and jobs and presents evidence-based reform methods that may be executed on the state-level to make sure that financial development results in enhancements within the lives of residents.
The creator and the blueprint
‘Accelerating India’s Improvement: A State-Led Roadmap for Efficient Governance’ affords a complete evaluation of why India’s improvement is constrained not by an absence of ambition or assets, however by weak state capability and uneven service supply. Muralidharan argues that sustained progress requires a strategic deal with strengthening the core features of the state, specifically personnel administration, knowledge methods, accountability, fiscal federalism, and program design, somewhat than merely increasing spending or creating new schemes.
The e-book proposes politically possible and virtually implementable reforms to enhance outcomes in areas resembling schooling, well being, social safety and jobs, with a robust emphasis on state-level innovation and decentralisation. Written in a transparent and interesting fashion, it brings rigorous concepts into the mainstream and might develop into a priceless information for anybody curious about understanding India’s financial trajectory.
Muralidharan serves because the Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics on the College of California, San Diego and holds a PhD diploma from Harvard College. Drawing on greater than twenty years of analysis, coverage engagement and expertise from the sector, he combines tutorial depth with sensible insights to display how better-designed establishments, smarter public spending and stronger state capability can enhance improvement outcomes. The e-book stands out for the way in which it breaks down advanced financial and governance concepts into an actionable roadmap for policymakers, practitioners and residents alike, who’re curious about constructing an inclusive and efficient Indian state.
An alumnus of Harvard College and the College of Cambridge, Muralidharan spent a decade as a marketing consultant on the World Financial institution earlier than transitioning to academia. His areas of analysis embody improvement and labour economics, with a deal with enhancing the effectiveness of public spending within the social sector. Along with advising analysis establishments all over the world, Muralidharan based the Centre for Efficient Governance of Indian States (CEGIS), an organisation devoted to bettering lives by serving to state governments in India ship stronger improvement outcomes, in 2019.
Shaping India’s future at Gaja Talks 2025
The award was conferred at Gaja Talks 2025. The occasion noticed attendance from entrepreneurs, buyers, policymakers and thinkers who deliberated concepts to form India’s future. The night featured a panel with the shortlisted authors, who mentioned points starting from institutional reform and federalism to management, innovation and India’s evolving financial panorama.
“This 12 months’s successful e-book combines mental rigour with sensible imaginative and prescient to point out how India can convert its huge potential into tangible outcomes for each citizen, by investing in a stronger, extra succesful state. In shining a lightweight on governance and state capability, it aligns carefully with the Prize’s mission to rejoice concepts that form India’s enterprise and improvement story, and that encourage the following era of leaders, policymakers, and entrepreneurs,” stated Gopal Jain, Co-Founder and Managing Accomplice, Gaja Capital.
The 2025 jury introduced collectively leaders from enterprise, investing, public coverage, economics and governance, persevering with the custom of a multidisciplinary panel that evaluates books for originality, depth of analysis, readability of argument and real-world impression. “Accelerating India’s Improvement is greater than a e-book on economics or coverage; it’s a sensible information to creating the Indian state work higher for its individuals. The jury was notably impressed by how the creator balances ambition with feasibility, providing reform pathways which are grounded in proof, delicate to political economic system, and centered on execution, not simply intent,” added Manish Sabharwal, Chairman of the Gaja Capital Enterprise E-book Prize Jury.
Now in its seventh version, the prize has emerged as a benchmark recognition for authors who illuminate India’s entrepreneurial journeys, institutional evolution and broader financial and social transformation. The jury for this 12 months’s version comprised of Manish Sabharwal, Vice-Chairman of TeamLease (who serves as Chairman of the Jury), Imran Jafar, Co-founder and Managing Accomplice of Gaja Capital, Arindam Bhattacharya, Senior Advisor and Emeritus Accomplice at Boston Consulting Group, Dr Lakshmi Venu, Managing Director of Sundaram-Clayton, Dr Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospitals, Neelkanth Mishra, Chief Economist and Head of World Analysis at Axis Capital, Prithvi Haldea, Founder Chairman of Praxis Consulting, Shailesh Haribhakti, Founder and Managing Accomplice of Shailesh Haribhakti & Associates, and UK Sinha, former Chairman of SEBI and Head of the RBI Knowledgeable Committee on MSMEs.
Gaja Capital Enterprise E-book Prize
The Gaja Capital Enterprise E-book Prize was established in 2019 and carries a handbag of INR 20 lakh for the winner. It honours authors and their works that commemorate the spirit of entrepreneurship, economics and enterprise management in India.
Some previous winners of the prize embody ‘The Tatas: How a Household Constructed a Enterprise and a Nation’ by Girish Kuber and Vikrant Pande, ‘Huge Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story’ by Mihir Dalal, ‘Indian Icon: A Cult Referred to as Royal Enfield’ by Amrit Raj, ‘Broke to Breakthrough’ by Harish Damodaran, ‘In opposition to All Odds: The IT Story of India’ by Kris Gopalakrishnan, N Dayasindhu, and Krishnan Narayanan, ‘Profitable Center India: The Story of India’s New-Age Entrepreneurs’ by TN Hari and Bala Srinivasa and ‘Entrepreneurs Who Constructed India – Lala Shri Ram: The Man Who Noticed Tomorrow’ by Sonu Bhasin.
Word to the Reader: This text has been produced on behalf of the model by HT Model Studio and doesn’t have journalistic/editorial involvement of Mint.
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