Books

The study of national societies as “systems” is of recent origin. For reasons of the complexities which are involved in such systems, their study has been considered out of reach for social scientists. Yet such studies are the crux of any broad spectrum effort to move societies in the desired direction , which incidentally is the essence of modern planned development. The book looks at the aggregate societal system in India and to examines the viability of both the approach and the model. Few people in the country are more qualified to do such a study than Prof. P. N. Rastogi. Prof. Rastogi applies the cybernetic model to the Indian societal system. He views a society as a self-governing system which steers itself through its information and control system. Steering of a society means guiding and directing its course in an intelligent manner. Despite some of the essential quantification, Prof. Rastogi’s model and study is reasonably simple to comprehend, and its various scenarios for the country and conclusions deserve a careful study by national planners and policy makers, even after his caveat that this is only a modest beginning. In particular, his finding of two basal levers of system change, viz. (1) Investible resources , and (2) Education, deserve serious consideration. Author

P N Rastogi s an internationally known social scientist who has done pioneering work in the fields of social and management cybernetics, computer simulation of complex social systems and methodology of unstructured problem solving. He has done advanced research work at M.I.T (1967-68) and London School of Economics (1971 -72) and has been an invitee to international conferences In Cybernetics, Computer Science, Political Science, Sociology and Systems Research. Apart from numerous research papers and reports, he has also written The Nature & Dynamics of Factional Conflict (Macmillan, New Delhi, 1975), The Behaviour of Societal System (lIAS, Simla, 1978), Cybernetic Analysis of Indian Societal System (CPR, New Delhi, 1978), Social and Management Cybernetics (Affiliated East West Press, New Delhi 1979) and Intelligent Management Systems. He is associated with management systems studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.