Mumbai | 21st September 2021: The Gaja Business Book Prize today announced its 2021 shortlist of five best non-fiction books on contemporary Indian business. The selected titles comprise a diverse range of stories of business leaders, entrepreneurial journeys and the spectre of leadership.
The 2021 shortlist includes: Azim Premji: The Man Beyond the Billions by Sundeep Khanna and Varun Sood; Getting Competitive: A Practitioner’s Guide for India by R.C. Bhargava; Indian Icon: A Cult called Royal Enfield by Amit Raj; Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver by Urjit Patel; and Yes Man: The Untold Story of Rana Kapoor by Pavan C. Lall.
The Gaja Capital Business Book Prize was instituted two years ago, to encourage Indian entrepreneurs, writers, and journalists to tell their stories for the world. It offers a prize money of INR 15 lakh, making it the biggest book prize in the country to honour authors transforming the business ecosystem with their creativity. It recognises the narratives of Indian companies and bolsters entrepreneurial spirit with its literary impetus.
Gopal Jain, Managing Partner and Co-founder at Gaja Capital said,“Business bookshelves are dominated by western stories of business and entrepreneurship. As the Indian economy scales and the Indian entrepreneurial and investor ecosystem matures, we will have many more stories and lessons for the world, from India,” Gopal Jain, Managing Partner, Gaja Capital, said.
“As Investors and entrepreneurs in the Indian market, we have witnessed several such journeys first-hand. We would like to make a small contribution in encouraging Indian writers, journalists and entrepreneurs to tell our stories and tell them well, for the world.”
Mint journalist Mihir Dalal had won the Gaja Capital Business Book Prize 2020 for his debut book, Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story. The 2019 prize was won by Girish Kuber, the author of The Tatas: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation.
This year’s shortlist of Gaja Capital Business Book Prize honours the painstaking pursuit of notable homegrown businesses as well as offers a commentary on business ecosystems. Titles delve into Azim Premji business and philanthropic journey, building of cult of Royal Enfield, building India’s manufacturing prowess and the roller coaster ride of YES Bank along with the larger bad debt challenge in Indian banking system. These chronicles of Indian business stories are canonizing the struggle and joys of entrepreneurship, creating a repository of pioneers and their experiences.
Commenting on the shortlist of 2021 and the overall reading experience, Manish Sabharwal, Chairman Teamlease and Chairman of the Gaja Capital Business Book Prize Jury said,“A poet once said that the universe isn’t made of atoms but stories. The Gaja Capital Business Book Prize jury felt the shortlist this year has multiple stories of triumph and tragedy yet mostly reflects a new breed of confident, ambitious and rising corporate India.”
