Shailendra Kumar

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Shailendra Kumar has been a long-time student of gold. An Indian national living in Mumbai, India, he began his studies about gold in a routine manner, but slowly the subject grew on him, and today he manages Commodity Research Group, a commodity research and advisory outfit from Mumbai, India's financial capital.

Since gold happens to be intimately related with the global as well as Indian economy, Mr. Kumar observes the two very closely. Mr. Kumar particularly looks at fundamental aspects of any economy, and believes that economy of any region or country is best observed not on the spreadsheets or power-point presentations but on the ground level.

To do so, he has traveled extensively around India, the country he is mad about. During 1994-5 he drove 40,000 kms during an 8-month stretch. He followed this journey with yet another, a 16 month tour during 1998-99. These travels allowed him to look at the real India at close quarters, the India that is made up of 700,000 villages, the India that is often rooted in glorious traditions, and the India that is trying hard to catch up with the Western world.

These journies also allowed him to study agriculture, the most important industry in India. During those long months on the road, he travelled to hundreds of villages, thousands of farms, and even lived with farmers for days on end. His extended travels in rural India have helped him to understand the rural economy first hand, and thus have given him an edge over many arm-chair economists. Simultaneously, these travels have given Mr. Kumar a very special perspective: that of connecting the cold numbers with the ground reality. He has made the most of this advantage while penning GOLD: God's Own Country, a book that makes very strong pitch for investment in gold.

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