Rahul bought along the book by Daniel H.Pink called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. This fairly recent book is a must read if you want to understand what motivates the person, the student, the child, the employee, etc. Motivation comes across as a very scientific concept. The kind of incentives that work for a twenty something employee would not work for an employee nearing her forties. The author explains how driving factors today include: autonomy, mastery, and a sense of purpose. He peppers the book with examples of companies who are trying newer models to motivate their staff. Rahul recommends this refreshing assessment of very relevant subject matter and told us about the Japanese concept called Ikigai or the reason for being.

Ari talked about a brand new book called Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. Schwab talks about the new automated future. The technological revolution of this day and age has led to more and more people losing their jobs to bots. Yet he believes that there is an answer to this conundrum- re-skilling. By re-skilling, human beings have a better chance. Comparisons were made to the computerization of railways and banks in India. At the time, people were threatened by the all pervasive influence of technology. Paranoia when it comes to change is quite common. There was some optimism in the group. While change can be threatening, there are simultaneous checks and balances happening in parallel.

Some, however, felt that scare mongering was valid. In India particularly, the percentage of people who could re-skill is very limited, so succeeding in a digital economy becomes suspect. While in many countries print is dying, in India it thrives, so the Fourth Industrial Revolution has a long way to go, geographically at least.

Aditya Sengupta spoke about a book that he picked up a long time ago called Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb by Strobe Talbott. This non-fiction revolves around the diplomatic events that surrounded a very crucial time in India’s military history. In 1998, three nuclear devices exploded under the Thar Desert. This led to a US-India standoff. Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State, and Jaswant Singh, the Ministry of External Affairs, engaged in serious talks for almost two years and this opened a new chapter in Indo-US relations ever since. Aditya found the Indian viewpoint told through the US viewpoint interesting. If you are interested in the Talbott-Singh dialogues, watch this: https://www.c-span.org/video/?195227-1/usindia-relations

With that we wrap up the BYOB Party episodes of July!