Vagabond author has picked up today a book which takes you through
the brief history of Indian Banking. Written by Pakhtiar K. Dadabhoy,
Barons
of Banking highlights
the contributions of six distinguished personalities from the world
of banking - Sir Sorabji Pochkhanawala, Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas,
Sir Chintaman D. Deshmukh, R.K. Talwar, A.D. Shroff, and H.T.Parekh-
who not only played a pioneering role in the growth of the
institutions which they founded, or were actively associated with,
but left an indelible mark on the banking industry as a whole.
Through the narration of the history of five key institutions—the Central Bank of India; the Reserve Bank of India; the State Bank of India; the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India Ltd; and the Housing Development and Finance Corporation Ltd—the author gives us a keen insight into the history of banking in India. Anybody who loves to know how our financial institutions grew, flourished and expanded over the year would like to know the important turning points that shaped up the banking system in the country.
Through the narration of the history of five key institutions—the Central Bank of India; the Reserve Bank of India; the State Bank of India; the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India Ltd; and the Housing Development and Finance Corporation Ltd—the author gives us a keen insight into the history of banking in India. Anybody who loves to know how our financial institutions grew, flourished and expanded over the year would like to know the important turning points that shaped up the banking system in the country.
Divided
into four parts, the book claims to use hitherto unused archival
material recently put in the public domain by the RBI. The book
synopsis reads, “Of particular interest is a discussion of the
acrimonious relationship between Sir James Grigg, the Finance Member
of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, and Sir Osborne Smith, the
first Governor of the RBI, which throws fresh lighton a spat which
remains unprecedented not only in the bank’s history, but possibly
in all of banking history.”
The
publisher Random House claims that it is a meticulously researched
and engagingly written book which will be of interest to both the
academic and general reader and, of course, to the professional
banker interested in relishing a slice of India’s banking history.
To
give you a brief about Bakhtiar K Dadabhoy, he is a civil servant
based in Mumbai and was educated at Hindu College, Delhi University
and at the Delhi School of Economics. He is the author of five books
including the best-selling Jeh:
A Life of JRD Tata and
Sugar
in Milk: Lives of
Eminent
Parsis.
Dadabhoy also contributes articles to newspapers and magazines. He
did a daily column ‘This Day in History’ for the Hindustan
Times and
HT
Next for
five years.
Comments
Post a Comment