A.N Sridhar....is the best...nothing to cram up.....there is a method to read shridhar go to the illustrations read the headin(eg. INT RATE SWAP) then read the theory under that heading in theory section go to the illustrations after reading the thory topic by topic first reading may take 20 days...but the result is awsome......dont know much abt bala but read A.N.Shridhar old edition withot the new changes incorporated and i got 59...even after making silly mistakes and bad presntation in the exam...absolute conceptual clarity...