"In The Turn of the Tortoise, T N Ninan explores the paradox of a 'premature superpower' (as Martin Wolf once described India in the Financial Times). India has grown from the 12th largest economy in 2008 to what IMF reckons is the 7th largest in 2015, even as its people are poorer than those in Laos and Sudan. Ninan assesses India's position as a natural counter-weight to China, though fundamentally different from that country and overshadowed by it in an unequal military balance and in the contest for influence in a region that stretches beyond Asia to Africa. And finally, Ninan looks at how the third-largest contributor to global economic growth remains troubled by slow economic reform and the poor standards of governance that make it a difficult place in which to do business." -- Amazon.com.

Originally published by Allen Lane, New Delhi, in 2015.

We're (Not) Like That Only. 1. A Question of Size -- 2. The Last Great Frontier -- 3. Not Twins and Not Alike -- Quick, Slow ... Quick?. 4. Enterprise Losing the Plot -- 5. Cronyism in an Arbitrary State -- 6. Manufacturing : A Handicapped Sector -- 7. What Works (and What Doesn't) in India -- The State and the Citizen. 8. The Underperforming State -- 9. Patchwork Experiments -- 10. Corruption : Hope after the Heists? -- 11. A Way to End Poverty? -- Emerging Realities -- 12. Aam Aadmi and a Universe of Realities -- 13. Politics : A Fourth Master Narrative --14. Growth or Environment : A False Choice -- India and the World. 15. Default Choice or a Defaulting Power? -- 16. The Race to Re-Arm -- 17. Dealing with the World : Time to Grow Up -- Looking Ahead. 18. The Next Ten Years.