India, May 23 -- What began as a conversation among retired civil servants on a WhatsApp group has taken shape as a book illustrating development and governance in the state of Kerala. Edited by former cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar and former Indian ambassador TP Sreenivasan, The Kerala Club: Keepers of the Flame features 29 essays on public administration, development policy, policing and local self-governance. Contributors include former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, former foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon, former chief secretaries of the state SM Vijayanand and Joy Vazhayil, and former National Dairy Board chairman T Nandakumar. "When Winston Churchill described the Soviet Union in 1939 as 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma', he could well have been speaking about Kerala today," state the editors in the preface. The book provides perspective from the drivers of Kerala's journey, of a state with a much-debated model of development and governance, and addresses both its unique achievements and the challenges ahead....