New Delhi: The novel coronavirus pandemic has revealed a number of fundamental and chronic problems in India, from inequality in society to problems in rural economy and public health infrastructure. In his book Invertonomics: 8 ideas to transform India, architect and urbanist Goonmeet Singh Chauhan aims to address these problems and gives eight ideas that, he writes, could transform India.
The book is published by HarperCollins and is due to be released on 20 July on SoftCover, ThePrint’s new e-venue to launch select non-fiction books.
It features a foreword by Navin B. Chawla, the former chief election commissioner of India, who is a founder trustee of the Darshan Trust and the Lepra India Trust, which work with differently abled children and with leprosy patients and their families, respectively.
In his book, Chauhan uses a new methodology to invert India’s socioeconomic problems and look at them as economic opportunities. Chauhan identifies problems right from the time of independence in India, such as women feeling unsafe in public places, poor management of traffic, hazardous air quality, low rate of basic education, garbage on the roads and an overall governance deficit. And from these, he then identifies eight problem areas and proposes well-explained, pragmatic and successfully implemented models to achieve a solution.
Having studied architecture from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, Chauhan is a futurist, urbanist and a practising architect. After graduating from IIT, he started a practice called the Design Forum International, with his course-mates. Some of his projects as an architect include Select CITYWALK mall and the ITO Delhi Skywalk, in the capital.
Through the eight chapters of his book, Chauhan aims to provide solutions that will make people realise the dream of a great India. The book is dedicated to all of Chauhan’s teachers and his parents who, he says, gave him the courage to dream and confidence to follow his passion of problem solving and transformation.
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