Breaking through is the autobiography of Isher Judge Ahluwalia. Married to a great technocrat and economist, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, she too was an economist in her own stride.
The book is the life story of Isher, a leading economist of her generation. Born in a modest, lower-middle-class Sikh family, she did well in academics, graduated from Presidency College, Kolkata, and did her post graduation from Delhi School of Economics where her professors were Amritya Sen and Jagdish Bhagvati. She did her Ph. D from MIT, USA and got a job with IMF. In the USA she met Montek Singh Ahluwalia, working with IMF, and they married.
Isher returned to India, where she authored two books on the slow Economic Growth of India where she advocated liberal economic policies and the opening of the economy to the world. She was a professor at the Centre for Policy Research and director and later Chairperson of ICIER, an institution, conceptualized and developed by IG Patel. She further developed ICIER into a leading global think tank. She also served as Chair of the Board of International Food Policy Research Institute and Chair of the High Powered Committee on Urban Infrastructure Services set up by Govt of India in 2008.
Her life story is narrated in candor and from the heart and also portrays a career woman balancing here work and family and also trying to be close to her roots. She was deeply religious and caring for her family of two sons. She died soon after the book was published in 2020.
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