Dr D. K. Rangnekar was a leading public intellectual noted for his editorship at the Economic Times and later the Business Standard. This collection brings together a careful selection of his writings that are organized across four themes: social and political dimensions of development, international context to India's experiment, planning and budgets, and industrial and economic policy. The writings begin in the early 1960s and end in 1984-at the cusp when India's economic policies and political fabric were being radically transformed-thus, providing an important handbook of the times. Dr Rangnekar often placed India's unique experiment in an international context, revealing his critical allegiances to the 'dependency' school. Apart from a commentary on PL480 and the accompanying devaluation, the collection also includes reflections on the 1970s call for a New International Economic Order and the problems of development in an unequal world. Given his well-known areas of expertise in planning, budgets (what he characteristically called the 'annual Indian rope-trick'), and black money, the collection includes his commentary on the transition from Nehruism and planned development, to the genesis of the contemporary marvel of India's economic performance. Evident here are prescient observations on the need for changes to industrial policy and gentle reminders to the social perils of an 'export-led strategy'. The selection is accompanied by essays from TN Ninan, Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Sanjaya Baru.