Penguin book and Pen celebrates Vikram Sarabhai 'A Life'by Shah

Mumbai, Aug 10 (UNI) Leading printers Penguin Books India and Pen All-India Centre celebrated the publication of the book 'Vikram Sarabhai 'A Life' authored by veteran columnist and journalist Amrita Shah here yesterday.

The book dwelt on the life of Vikram Sarabhai (1919-71), the renaissance man of Indian science, who visualized the impossible and often made it happen. Founder of India's space programme, Sarabhai dreams of communication satellites that would educate people at a time when even a modest rocket programme seemed daring; of huge agricultural complexes serviced by atomic power and desalinated sea water.

He envisioned research technology that would free Indian industry from foreign dependence, and of a world-class management college that would train managers for the public sector. Amrita Shah's book is the story of this dynamic visionary.

Shah takes the readers into an immensely wealthy and politically conscious business family, where Sarabhai was born and had an early understanding of the power of money and the problems of a newly independent nation, to which he married a deep love for physics.

Between 1947 and 1971, he built a thriving pharmaceutical business, conducted research into cosmic rays, set up country's first textile research cooperative, ATIRA, the first market research organization, ORG, the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and the dance academy Darpana. He also headed the Atomic Energy Commission and laid the foundations for the world's first entirely peaceful space programme, the book reveals.

Shah's book gives an unbiased insight about the country's best knowing visionary of his time. Sarabhai's eccentric managerial style, his sensitivities and his idiosyncrasies are well documented in the book', opined Business India.

An attribute of the book is its approachability; drawing the reader effortlessly into the life and times of one of India's greatest sons, it must not be missed, observed Business Standard Shah a journalist, columnist and writer was an author of a pioneering series of articles on the Mumbai mafia in the 1980s, she has worked for Imprint and the Time-Life News Service and edited features magazines Debonair and Elle andcurrently a contributing editor with the Indian Express. She is the author of Hype, Hypocrisy and Television in Urban India (1997).

UNI