Between Em, the mother, driven frequently to hospital after her failed suicide attempts, and The Big Hoom, the father, trying to hold things together as best he could, they tried to be a family.

    Set in Bengal, it tells the story of a family of executioners with a long lineage, beginning in the fourth century BC. The protagonist of the novel, Chetna, is a strong and tenacious woman who struggles to inherit this profession.According to noted literary critic M. Leelavathy, Aarachaar is one of the best literary works produced in Malayalam and follows the legacy of O. V. Vijayan's classic work Khasakkinte Itihasam. The novel received the 2013 Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award. It was also awarded the prestigious Odakkuzhal Award in 2013 and Vayalar Award in 2014.

    His wife Mariamma stretches their money, raises their two boys, and, in her spare time, gleefully fantasizes about Ousep dying. One day, their seemingly happy seventeen-year-old son Unni—an obsessed comic-book artist—falls from the balcony, leaving them to wonder whether it was an accident. Three years later, Ousep receives a package that sends him searching for the answer, hounding his son’s former friends, attending a cartoonists’ meeting, and even accosting a famous neurosurgeon. Meanwhile, younger son Thoma, missing his brother, falls head over heels for the much older girl who befriended them both. Haughty and beautiful, she has her own secrets. The Illicit Happiness of Other People—a smart, wry, and poignant novel—teases you with its mystery, philosophy, and unlikely love story.

    Relying heavily on official records bulk of them still security classified in violation of democratic norms the book uncovers a systematic obstruction of justice by the Government of India. First for any book in India, the narrative has been augmented with the excerpts and images of still secret records. Archival material and information obtained under the freedom of information acts of India, the US and the UK has also been made use of.

    Over 3 lakh copies sold.'It was like any other day on the Anna University campus in Chennai. As I was returning to my room in the evening, the vice-chancellor, Prof. A. Kalanidhi, fell in step with me. Someone had been frantically trying to get in touch with me through the day, he said. Indeed, the phone was ringing when I entered the room. When I answered, a voice at the other end said, 'The prime minister wants to talk with you.' Some months earlier, I had left my post as Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India to return to teaching. Now, as I spoke to the PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, my life was set for an unexpected change.'Turning Points takes up the incredible Kalam story from where Wings of Fire left off. It brings together details from his career and presidency that are not generally known as he speaks out for the first time on certain points of controversy. It is a continuing saga, above all, of a journey - individual and collective - that will take India to 2020 and beyond as a developed nation.

    K. Laxman. It presents a collection of some of Laxman's cartoons based on The Common Man, a character that appeared in Laxman's daily cartoon strip (titled You Said It) for the Times of India publication.The Common Man, an average man representing the hopes and fears of the masses in India, remains one of the best characters in the history of Indian cartooning and illustration. He is depicted as a silent witness to all the socio-political happenings that are presented in the cartoons.Through the Common Man cartoons, Laxman explores every aspect of living in contemporary India. From political instability to economic crises, from the deeply entrenched corruption to the woes of householders, Laxman portrays exactly what it means to live and experience the real India.The book presents some of the best cartoons featuring The Common Man in all his mute glory.This edition of The Very Best Of The Common Man was published in 2012 by Penguin India.

     It is also the story of the young men who travelled with him, far from home, serving their King in a country they came to love, while coping with the complex differences between East and West.

    Combining stories from the Adi Parva which precede the main narrative of the Pandav-Kaurav war for succession.

    The hoardings are markers of the ‘popular’ history of India and have been followed by fans for decades. Timeless and ageless, this long-running campaign has captivated Indians of all ages. The key character in this saga is the little girl in polka dots, who helped Amul Butter win over an entire nation. This book celebrates her journey through the eyes of prominent writers, public figures and the subjects of the hoardings themselves. It contains a series of vignettes, creating a patchwork quilt of essays, snippets and selections of classic hoardings. It offers us an inside peek into the back story of the creation of the ads. Amul’s India is a celebration that would be of enormous interest to an observer of contemporary India, be it a brand manager, a management student or a fan of Amul. Or just somebody who wants a rollicking good time.

    With sparkling wit and intelligence, Sanjeev Sanyal sets off to explore India and look at how the country’s history was shaped by, among other things, its rivers, mountains and cities. Traversing remote mountain passes, visiting ancient archaeological sites, crossing rivers in shaky boats and immersing himself in old records and manuscripts, he considers questions about Indian history that we rarely ask: Why do Indians call their country Bharat? How did the British build the railways across the subcontinent? What was it like to sail on an Indian Ocean merchant ship in the fifth century AD? Why was the world's highest mountain named after George Everest?

    It tells of the escape of one hostage, the secret letters another wrote and hid in his clothing as he contemplated his situation, and how, with a brutal beheading, the kidnappers took an irreversible step into the abyss.

    He argues that these turning points in the country’s history were not the result of foresight or careful planning but were rather the accidental consequences of major crises that had to be resolved at any cost.

    Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter - Annawadi's "most-everything girl" - will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call "the full enjoy." But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi. With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.

    Set in and around Shillong, Cherrapunjee and pockets of Assam, these tales are shaped against a larger historical canvas of the early days of the British Raj, the World Wars, conversions to Christianity, and the missionaries.Spanning a sweep of centuries, from the mid-1800s to the present day, the stories work as a historical, sociological documentation of a place and its people, interweaving the quotidian and the mythic, the mundane and the extraordinary.This is a world in which the everyday is infused with folklore and a deep belief in the supernatural. Here, a girl dreams of being a firebird. An artist watches souls turn into trees. A man shape-shifts into a tiger. Another is bewitched by water fairies. Political struggles and social unrest interweave with fireside tales and age-old superstitions.

    Coming at a time when the specter of state sponsored terror and instability in Pakistan and the prospect of war in the Indian subcontinent regularly occupy news headlines, Operation Triple X is not just a thrilling spy story, but a very timely reminder that many of the issues we see today in the subcontinent have their roots in events that happened dozens of years ago.The fact that it is written by someone who spent more than thirty years in India’s Intelligence Bureau, and was a witness and active participant in many of the events that formed the basis for this novel elevates Operation Triple X from being just another thriller to one that lays bare many of the gritty and dark realities of espionage as practiced in the Indian subcontinent.ABOUT THE AUTHORMaloy Krishna Dhar began life as a journalist and a teacher, but ended up spending more than thirty years as an officer in India’s Intelligence Bureau, retiring as its Joint Director. During his highly decorated career, he handled the sensitive Pakistan and Counter-terror desks, when he got a first-hand exposure to fighting the specter of Islamic terror that many Western readers were to remain blissfully unaware of till the tragic events of 9/11. After his retirement, he went back to his original love, and became a bestselling author and a recognized and highly respected authority on security matters. He passed away in May 2012, and his son, Amazon.com bestselling author Mainak Dhar, is now bringing his work to readers worldwide. Learn more about Maloy’s remarkable life and work at www.maloykrishnadhar.com.

    you will feel, why, yes, I do know this person. I've seen this man. With these words, Manoranjan Byapari points to the inescapable roles all of us play in an unequal society. Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit is the translation of his remarkable memoir Itibritte Chandal Jivan. It talks about his traumatic life as a child in the refugee camps of West Bengal and Dandakaranya, facing persistent want--an experience that would dominate his life. The book charts his futile flight from home to escape hunger, in search of work as a teenager around the country, only to face further exploitation. In Kolkata in the 1970s, as a young man, he got caught up in the Naxalite movement and took part in gang warfare. His world changed dramatically when he was taught the alphabet in prison at the age of 24--it drew him into a new, enticing world of books. After prison, he worked as a rickshaw-wallah and one day the writer Mahasweta Devi happened to be his passenger. It was she who led him to his first publication. Today, as Sipra Mukherjee points out, 'issues of poverty, hunger and violence have exploded the cautiously sewn boundaries of the more affluent world', rendering archaic the comfortable distances between them. Despite 'Chandal' explicitly referring to a Dalit caste, this narrative weaves in and out of the margins.

      No matter where one goes in India, one will find a landscape in which mountains, rivers, forests, and villages are elaborately linked to the stories of the gods and heroes of Indian culture. Every place in this vast landscape has its story, and conversely, every story of Hindu myth and legend has its place. Likewise, these places are inextricably tied to one another—not simply in the past, but in the present—through the local, regional, and transregional practices of pilgrimage.  India: A Sacred Geography tells the story of the pilgrim’s India. In these pages, Diana Eck takes the reader on an extraordinary spiritual journey through the living landscape of this fascinating country –its mountains, rivers, and seacoasts, its ancient and powerful temples and shrines.  Seeking to fully understand the sacred places of pilgrimage from the ground up, with their stories, connections and layers of meaning, she acutely examines Hindu religious ideas and narratives and shows how they have been deeply inscribed in the land itself.  Ultimately, Eck shows us that from these networks of pilgrimage places, India’s very sense of region and nation has emerged. This is the astonishing and fascinating picture of a land linked for centuries not by the power of kings and governments, but by the footsteps of pilgrims.  India: A Sacred Geography offers a unique perspective on India, both as a complex religious culture and as a nation. Based on her extensive knowledge and her many decades of wide-ranging travel and research, Eck's piercing insights and a sweeping grasp of history ensure that this work will be in demand for many years to come.

    Even many of those critical of the inequalities of Indian society underwrite such claims. "The Indian Ideology" suggests that the roots of the current ills of the Republic go much deeper, historically. They lie, in the way the struggle for independence culminated in the transfer of power from British rule to Congress in a divided subcontinent, not least in the roles played by Gandhi as the great architect of the movement, and Nehru as his appointed successor, in the catastrophe of Partition. Only an honest reckoning with that disaster, Perry Anderson argues, offers an understanding of what has gone wrong with the Republic since Independence. The "Idea of India," widely diffused not only in the official establishment, but more broadly in mainstream intellectual life, side-steps or suppresses many of these uncomfortable realities, past and present. For its own reasons, much of the left has yet to challenge the upshot: what has come to be the neo-Nehruvian consensus of the time. "The Indian Ideology," revisiting the events of over a century in the light of how millions of Indians fare in the Republic today, suggests another way of looking at the country.

    Are we ready? In 1998, Dr Kalam and Y.S. Rajan published the now iconic India 2020, a vision document for the new millennium that charted how India could become one of the top five economic powers in the world by 2020. Sixteen years later, as the year 2020 approaches, it is time to take stock of how much India has achieved and what lies ahead. In many ways, India s growth story in the twenty-first century has been hamstrung by missed opportunities and slowdowns in project execution; but it has also been marked by new opportunities and emerging technologies that make faster and more inclusive growth viable. A renewed policy focus is now needed for agriculture, manufacturing, mining, the chemicals industry, health care and infrastructure to invigorate these sectors and boost economic growth, argue Kalam and Rajan. Alongside, education, job creation, emerging technologies, biodiversity, waste management, national security and the knowledge economy are some of the other vital areas that we need to build on as we look beyond 2020. India can still make it to the list of developed nations in a decade. Beyond 2020 provides an action plan for that transformation.

    Emotionally rich yet philosophically precise, sumptuously enigmatic yet crisply structured, these poems are as sensuously evocative as they are charged with an ecstatic devotion. Stripping away a century of Victorian-inflected translations and paraphrases, and restoring the jagged, colloquial power of Lalla’s voice, in Ranjit Hoskote’s new translation these poems are glorious manifestos of illumination.

    This book is a collection of comic strips based on the character Guddu and his gang. The language used in this comic is Hindi written in English script.About the Author:Faisal Mohd is a Delhi based cartoonist, began his career in Raj Comics. While he discontinued his career to found a game design studio called Greek Mentors, the talented artist soon started exploring cartooning further through gags, under the smelly and very attractive banner of "Garbage Bin".

    A violent uprising has been instigated all across Tibet as Beijing moves to establish control while the Dalai Lama’s health deteriorates further and questions on the future of the Tibetan leadership are raised. As Beijing pursues the rebels and their benefactors within India, both nations are plunged into a spiraling descent to war. Now each side must navigate their widely different paths to victory as vast armies on both sides wage all-out war in their bid to become the dominant power in Asia… Book Edition: II

    This book puts together the information that shows:• How and why Max Muller started the theory,• The damage it has done,• Objections to it and lack of evidence for it,• The misleading dates for it,• The Sarasvati River described in the Rig Veda and geographical proof of its existence,• The date of its demise,• The false argument of no horse in Harappa,• The Urban or rural argument,• Deciphering the Indus seals,• How genetics show an east to west movement rather than a migration into India, and more.All of this proves there never was any Aryan Invasion, and that the advanced Vedic Aryan civilization was indigenous to India. (Taken from a chapter in “Advancements of Ancient India’s Vedic Culture”)

    In India, Every Year, 1 among 10000 goes to the pilgrimage of Kashi & Rameshwaram, 1 among 25000 visits to pilgrimage of Badrinath & Kedarnath, 1 among 1 lac walks for Narmada Parikrama, 1 among 10 Lacs marches towards Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage and 1 among 50 Lacs climbs to the pilgrimage of Swarga Rohini... But hardly one fortunate person out of 1 crore can enter into th Divine place of Kardaliwan... Only one's self desire will not help to visit Kardalllliwan... The Avadhoota Shri Dattatreya and Shri Swami Samarth should also desire to allow you... Then only one may reach Kardaliwan. * Divine Experience of Kardaliwan * Total Guidance : How to reach Kardaliwan * A Research Book with scientific and Modern Technology

    It is simultaneously an investigation into the political economy of hunger whereby one in every two children is malnourished despite the creation of wealth and economic growth. Mander critically examines the increasing economic inequalities, the range of State failures and public indifference, in general, and brings out how they have contributed to creating this grim situation. While doing so, he argues passionately for the passage of a universal right to food law which guarantees food to all persons not as State benevolence but as a legal entitlement.

    Exploiters have exploited others by taking name of different Gods / Goddesses to satisfy their greed or lust. There is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of Upnishads / Vedas / Bhagwatgeeta. After reading my technical and scientific analysis of Bhagwat Geeta, World is going to see a revolution in thought more extensive and more powerful than that which was witnessed due to Industrial / Information technology revolution. Those who keep their eyes open, those who understand the working in the minds of the different human beings, those who are thinkers and study different fields of science will find the immense change in the literature of the World by this slow and never ceasing permeation of thoughts. These sages do not belong to India alone. Sages or knowledge of sages belong to the universe. Characteristic of human bio machines is to struggle, think beyond time, beyond non existence. NASA or Bill Gates and many known and unknown (names are not important) are serving the humanity. When you add spiritual energy to the means available with individuals, than only humanity can progress / discover / develop/ create. Capital accumulation is the side effect of this cause. Verses of Bhagwat Geeta are very difficult to explain as meaning of verses changes with new scientific and technological developments. It is always new. So read my new tatwa theory about bio creations, atmic amino acids, rebirth, food and human characteristics.

    Transforming Indians to Transform India takes its first, bold step through this compilation of short stories which explore seven different dimensions of the human personality which, when honed, will birth a complete citizen and with him, a new society. The first story lights the spark of patriotism in the reader. The next three stories delve into the physical, emotional and intellectual aspects of the individual person, empowering him to grow into a well-balanced human being, ready to serve his nation. The final three stories expound on culture, spirituality and universal outlook – aspects that characterize a civilized person and an advanced society. As a collection, the stories transform the reader into a truly cosmopolitan citizen who can see beyond borders – both in his personal life and in his vision of society

    Along the way you'll meet Sufi saints, fake fakirs and homesick soldiers. You'll get stuck in an icy road river and be miraculously rescued. You'll feel the stress an average Kashmiri experiences everyday. You'll see how blind and dangerous religion can be if it is only followed in rituals and illogical beliefs.You'll see how friendly and hospitable everyone is on the roads of India.You'll come away feeling exhilarated, entertained and yes, also exhausted by the physical arduousness of the motorcycle ride. Witty, reflective and honest, One Life to Ride is a daring, real-life adventure guaranteed to keep you turning the pages. Maybe even make you wish you were riding pillion.

    Take Vishnu, who achieves every material success but never knows happiness; or Venkat, who talks so much that he has no time to listen. In other stories, a young girl goes on a train journey that changes her life forever; an impoverished village woman provides bathing water to hundreds of people in a drought-stricken area; a do-gooder ghost decides to teach a disconsolate young man Sanskrit; and in the title story, a woman in a flooded village in Odisha teaches the author a life lesson she will never forget.

    From being a household name in the Calcutta of 1930s, when he first created, to a popular face on TV in the 1990s, Byomkesh along with his friend-cum-foil Ajit is perhaps the best-loved of India's literary detectives. This collection brings together three of his classic whodunnits. From a murder in a boarding house with too many suspects to a mystery with a supernatural twist, and then busting a black - marketeering ring in rural bengal, these stories take the super sleuth to different locales on his quest for truth, and bring out his ingenuity and astuteness. Translated into English for the first time by award-winning translator Arunava Sinha, the breathless pace and thrilling plots of these action-packed adventures will win Byomkesh a new genertion of admirers.

    This omnibus edition will be loved and treasured, and brings together the Nobel Prize winner's most popular novels in translation, including A Grain of Sand (Chokher Bali), The Shipwreck (Noukadubi), Gora, Quartet (Chaturanga), Home and the World (Ghare Baire), Nexus (Yogayog), Farewell Song (Shesher Kabita), The Garden (Malancha), and Four Chapters (Char Adhyay).

    RD revolutionized Hindi film music in the 1970s, and with his emphasis on rhythm and beats, this Pied Piper of Hindi film music had young India swinging to his tunes. At the same time, this genius proved his many detractors who criticized him for corrupting popular taste wrong by composing some of the most influential raga-based songs in Hindi cinema and showing an immense comfort with all kinds of music, including Indian folk. RD: The Man, The Music looks at the phenomenon called R.D. Burman and how he changed the way Indians perceived Hindi film music. Through anecdotes and trivia that went into the making of Pancham’s music – the many innovations he introduced, like mixed rhythm patterns, piquant chords and sound mixing – and through interactions with the musicians who were part of RD’s team, the authors create a fascinating portrait of a man who, through his music, continues to thrive, even fifteen years after his death.

    As he put it, mistakenly, 'Asians milked the cow, but did not feed it to yield more milk.' It was the beginning of a nightmarish five months for Niranjan Desai, who had been sent from India as officer on special duty to help tackle the crisis. The role of the Indian diplomat is a varied one, as Desai's and others' accounts in The Ambassadors' Club show, and Krishna V. Rajan, himself a skilful diplomat, has brought together, for the first time, a selection of experiences that shows the Indian Foreign Service in a remarkable new light.

    When she meets Bookworm, she stops wishing and starts writing. With him, she rides on the Thought Express to the Marketplace of Ideas, the Superhero Salon and the Bargain Bazaar, and encounters a motley crew of characters.Along the way, she discovers the creative process by which anything beautiful and lasting is created, a process in which Faith, Luck and Destiny play no mean part.Roger Dahl’s zany illustrations bring Wisha’s imaginative world to life. Join Wisha on this rollicking writer’s adventure and find out how she finally fulfils her dream of becoming a writer!

    From these, Sri Karapatra Swami condensed the salient points into twelve chapters of Sanskrit verse. Those chapters were later translated into Tamil.This translation into English of the first eight chapters by Munagala Venkataramaiah (the recorder of "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi) was thoroughly revised in the presence of the Maharshi.pp110

    Listening can reveal wondes like how to befriend an elephant, how to talk to a tiger and how to live in the jungle. Many such amazing experiences crowd this volume containing the unpublished writings from the early and last years of the well-known naturalist, the late E.R.C. Davidar, besides his acclaimed book Cheetal Walk. a lawyer by profession and a shikari-turned-photographer, he established maybe the first ever private elephant corridor in India, near his jungle-cottage, and undertook the first census of the Nilgiri tahr along the entire range. Charmingly told, funny and brimming with insights, the book, enriched with photographs from the family album, not only enlightens us about wildlife and conservation in the Nilgiris but becomes a memoir of a jungle lover and his family.

    We accompany him on expeditions deep into the mountains of the Himalaya, high desert landscapes of Ladakh, leopard and bear-infested forests of Kumaon, scenic meadows of Garhwal, and all manner of other habitats, as he attempts to capture rare and interesting species an all-black butterfly that hasnt been spotted for over a century, drunken moths that behave no differently from their human counterparts when they are tipsy, high-elevation butterflies that sail over mountain peaks, and caterpillars that are worth more than their weight in gold. Along the way, in prose that is lucid, witty and always entertaining, he illuminates for the reader the mysterious world of the elusive insects he has spent a lifetime with, and explain why the well-being of butterflies is of vital importance to us all.

    Moreover, the people forced to carry out this degrading work remain invisible to the rest of us, pushed to the margins of society without any recourse to help or hope. Now, for the first time, award-winning journalist Bhasha Singh turns the spotlight on this ignored community. In Unseen, based on over a decade of research, she unveils the horrific plight of manual scavengers across eleven states in the country while also recording their ongoing struggle for self-empowerment. Previously published in Hindi to both critical and commercial success, this is an explosive work of reportage on a burning issue.

    One of India’s most original and audacious writers, Uday Prakash, weaves three tales of living and surviving in today’s globalized India. In his stories, Prakash portrays realities about caste and class with an authenticity absent in most English-language fiction about South Asia. Sharply political but free of heavy handedness.

    Mutual suspicion and sporadic face-offs have ever since bedevilled relations between the two Asian giants, based on their still-unsettled borders. What caused the tragic estrangement of Asias leading lights? In this cogent and comprehensive analysis, the author traces the origins of the discord to a legacy flawed by the flip-flops of imperial Britains unilateral border delineation, and the ebbs and flows of Chinese activism in Tibet. The gripping narrative carries us from the post-1947 scenario of initial Panchsheel bonhomie, yielding place to mutual distrust, aggravated, among other causes, by Chinese paranoia over Tibet and the unrelenting pressure of Indian public opinion. Indias cataclysmic defeat in the war, which remains a young nations humiliation, is attributed to the ill-advised forward policy and failure of the politico-military leadership of the time.

    The house is ruled over by her grandfather, a dignified despot, whom everyone but Ayman, her mother and sister, call 'Sarkar' (master). Her mother, 'the eternal rebel,' is irreverent, progressive and a communist: a bomb waiting to explode. Ayman herself alternates between being the 'ugly duckling' of the house and its little princess. Huma Kidwai's sensitive and vivid portraits of the characters who teem around the House, offer a window into the customs and mores of a traditional Hyderabadi Muslim family. Narrated by the 40-year-old Ayman as she recalls the events of her past, The Hussaini Alam House is an elegy to a vanished way of life, a lovesong to the people she has loved and lost, and a psychologically nuanced portrait of the women of the household as they tread a fine line between society's expectations and their own yearning for freedom.

    Your grandparents lived in fear of him. The twang of his bow sent them running. Then something happened to change that forever . . . ” In this ancient parable from India, a forest-dwelling hunter learns that cruelty has consequences and that compassion has rewards. When the hunter meets the wise man Narada, “Do unto others as they would do unto you” takes on a very concrete meaning as the sage leads the hunter on an imagined journey in which the hunter becomes the hunted. When the hunter realizes how his actions affect other living things, he has a change of heart and begins to live in peace with the animals he once pursued. Kosa Ely adapts this traditional Indian tale into an inviting narrative that presents the universal golden rule in a new and appealing way. Anna Johansson’s richly detailed illustrations evoke the animal kingdom and enchanted forests with fine lines and luminous colors. The Peaceable Forest is the ideal picture book for inspiring young readers to respect life in all its forms.

    Seeking to understand the chronic and widespread poverty in India, the world's fourth largest economy, Gupta conceives of the relation between the state in India and the poor as one of structural violence. Every year this violence kills between two and three million people, especially women and girls, and lower-caste and indigenous peoples. Yet India's poor are not disenfranchised; they actively participate in the democratic project. Nor is the state indifferent to the plight of the poor; it sponsors many poverty amelioration programs.Gupta conducted ethnographic research among officials charged with coordinating development programs in rural Uttar Pradesh. Drawing on that research, he offers insightful analyses of corruption; the significance of writing and written records; and governmentality, or the expansion of bureaucracies. Those analyses underlie his argument that care is arbitrary in its consequences, and that arbitrariness is systematically produced by the very mechanisms that are meant to ameliorate social suffering. What must be explained is not only why government programs aimed at providing nutrition, employment, housing, healthcare, and education to poor people do not succeed in their objectives, but also why, when they do succeed, they do so unevenly and erratically.Akhil Gupta is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for India and South Asia at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India and a coeditor of Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, both also published by Duke University Press. He is also a coeditor of The State in India after Liberalization: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science, The Anthropology of the State: A Reader, and Caste and Outcast. "This long-awaited book is a masterful achievement that offers a close look at the culture of bureaucracy in India and, through this lens, casts new light on structural violence, liberalization, and the paradox of misery in the midst of explosive economic growth. Akhil Gupta's sensitive analysis of the everyday practices of writing, recording, filing, and reporting at every level of the state in India joins a rich literature on the politics of inscription and marks a brilliant new benchmark for political anthropology in India and beyond."—Arjun Appadurai, author of Fear of Small Numbers"Why has the postcolonial state in India seemed so incapable of improving the life chances of the country's poor? In his brilliant book Red Tape, Akhil Gupta argues that the structural violence inherent in the state operates as a form of biopower in which normal bureaucratic procedures depoliticize the killing of the poor. Whether exploring corruption, literacy, or population policy, Gupta provides an utterly original account of the deadly operations of state power associated with the ascendancy of new industrial classes and of neoliberal practice in contemporary India. A tour de force."—Michael Watts, author of Silent Violence"This is a landmark study of bureaucratic practices through which the state is actualized in the lives of the poor in India. Akhil Gupta's theoretical sophistication and the ethnographic depth in this book demonstrate how South Asian studies continues to challenge and shape the direction of social theory. This book is a stunning achievement."—Veena Das, author of Life and Words

    Taj Mahal Foxtrot's got the beat.' Suketu Mehta 'The pictures match the words, producing this jewel of a book, which I read with pleasure, profit, and, above all, admiration.' Ramachandra Guha 'For several months now I've been looking forward to the publication of Taj Mahal Foxtrot by Naresh Fernandes. The extracts were fascinating - intensively researched and extremely well written.' Amitav Ghosh In 1935, a violinist from Minnesota named Leon Abbey brought the first 'all negro' jazz band to Bombay, leaving behind a legacy that would last three decades. In a decade, swing would find its way to the streets of India as it influenced Hindi film music - the very soundtrack of Indian life. The optimism of jazz became an important element in the tunes that echoed the hopes of newly independent India. This book tells a story of India - and especially of the city of Bombay - through the lives of a menagerie of geniuses, strivers, and eccentrics, both Indian and American, who helped jazz find a home in the sweaty subcontinent. They include the African- American pianist Teddy Weatherford; Goan trumpet player Frank Fernand, whose epiphanic encounter with Mahatma Gandhi drove him to try to give jazz an Indian voice; Chic Chocolate, who was known as the Louis Armstrong of India; and Anthony Gonsalves, who lent his name to one of the most popular Bollywood tunes ever; and many more. Taj Mahal Foxtrot, at its heart, is a history of Bombay in swing time.

    Within five weeks, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, suspending fundamental rights and imposing press censorship, and soon reckless policies said to be authored by the prime minister's younger son were unleashed on India's citizens. As the country suffered under the iron fist of an elected icon and her chosen heir, Tavleen observed that a small, influential section of Delhi's society people she knew well remained strangely unaffected by the perilous state of the nation. Before long, members of this circle were entrenched in key positions in the Indian government. In 1984, following Indira Gandhi's assassination, Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister, fortified by a huge mandate from a nation desperate for change. But, belying its hopes, the young leader chose for himself a group of advisors, friends and acolytes from the drawing rooms of Delhi, as inexperienced as him and just as unaware of the ground realities of a complex nation. It was the beginning of a political culture of favouritism and ineptitude that would take hold at the highest levels of government, stunting India's ambitions and frustrating its people well into the next century. Seasoned reporter and distinguished newspaper columnist Tavleen Singh's Durbar is a sharp account of these turbulent years. Describing the Nehruvian era of her childhood, the Emergency of her youth and the political shifts that followed, Tavleen writes of the birth and evolution of insurgencies in Punjab and Kashmir, the blood spilt in assassinations and massacres, of crises internal and external and the clumsy attempts to set things right. A remarkable memoir, vivid with the colour of election campaigns and society dinners, low conspiracies and high corruption, Durbar rewards us with this truth: that if India is to achieve a better future the past can no longer be ignored or forgotten.

    His farm is a veritable food forest; and a net supplier of water, energy and fertility to the eco-system, rather than a net consumer. The legendary natural farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka hailed it “the best in the world!” This book relates Save’s way of farming and teachings rooted in his deep understanding of the symbiotic relationships in Nature. Much of the explanation is in Save’s own lucid and down-to-earth idiom. The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) decided to honour Save with the ‘One World Award for Lifetime Achievement’. Its jury declared, “He is one of the most outstanding personalities in the organic world.”

    In his quest to govern India by moral force alone Ashoka turned Buddhism from a minor sect into a world religion and set up a new yardstick for government which had huge implications for Asia. But his brave experiment ended in tragedy and his name was cleansed from the record so effectively that he was forgotten for almost two thousand years. But a few mysterious stone monuments and inscriptions survived, and the story of how these keystones to the past were discovered by British Orientalists and their mysterious lettering deciphered is every bit as remarkable as their author himself. Bit by bit, fragments of the Ashokan story were found and in the process India's ancient history was itself recovered. In a wide-ranging, multi-layered journey of discovery that is as much about Britain's entanglement with India as it as about India's distant past, Charles Allen tells the story of the man who was arguably the greatest ruler India has ever known.

    But there is another Great Game that’s playing out in Asia – one that will significantly impact the course of global politics. Bertil Lintner calls it the ‘Great Game East’. On the eastern fringes of the Indian subcontinent, the rivalry between India and China grows ever warmer. The call of theNehruvian era, Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai, was drowned out by the resistance in Tibet and the unrest in India’s northeast, and the role the two countries played in these. The rivalry resulted in an on-the-ground battle in 1962, and an undeclared war since. Spies and agents from both countries have been stirring up trouble in the volatilefrontier areas all these years. Besides, intelligence agencies of various other countries (the United States, among them) have also been keeping a sharp eye on the developments in the region, particularly India’s northeast.Strategically located at the crossroads of the Indian subcontinent, China and Southeast Asia, the northeastern states of India and the continuing armed strife in that sector hold the key to understanding the true complexity of the hostilities and political ambitions that Asia’s two giants harbour. In the Great Game East: India, China and the Struggle for Asia’s Most Volatile Frontier, Bertil Lintner – acknowledged as one of the foremost experts on insurgencies in the region – unpacks the layers and layers of complex political intrigues and spy networks that define the Great Game East. A must-read for anyone who wishes to understand the political future of a continent, or indeed the world.

    Dave examines the formation of lesbian communities in India from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Based on ethnographic research conducted with activist organizations in Delhi, a body of letters written by lesbian women, and research with lesbian communities and queer activist groups across the country, Dave studies the everyday practices that constitute queer activism in India.Dave argues that activism is an ethical practice comprising critique, invention, and relational practice. She investigates the relationship between the ethics of activism and the existing social norms and conditions from which activism emerges. Through her analysis of different networks and institutions, Dave documents how activism oscillates between the potential for new social arrangements and the questions that arise once the activists' goals have been achieved. Queer Activism in India addresses a relevant and timely phenomenon and makes an important contribution to the anthropology of queer communities, social movements, affect, and ethics.Naisargi N. Dave is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto."An excellent, detailed, and highly nuanced ethnography of the ethical and affective undercurrents of lesbian activism in Delhi, India, from the late twentieth century to the present. Naisargi N. Dave's focus on ethics provides a necessary intervention in the ethnography of social action and movements."—Martin F. Manalansan IV, author of Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora"A beautifully written ethnography, offering a passionately detailed ethnographic perspective on queer politics, feminism, and social movements in India."—Kamala Visweswaran, author of Un/common Cultures: Racism and the Rearticulation of Cultural Difference

    How was it possible that a Muslim, ethnically Turkish, Persian-speaking dynasty established itself in the Indian subcontinent to become one of the largest and most dynamic empires on earth? In this rigorous new interpretation of the period, Munis D. Faruqui explores Mughal state formation through the pivotal role of the Mughal princes. In a challenge to previous scholarship, the book suggests that far from undermining the foundations of empire, the court intrigues and political backbiting that were features of Mughal political life - and that frequently resulted in rebellions and wars of succession - actually helped spread, deepen, and mobilize Mughal power through an empire-wide network of friends and allies. This engaging book, which trawls a vast archive of European and Persian sources, takes the reader from the founding of the empire under Babur to its decline in the 1700s. When the princely institution atrophied, so too did the Mughal Empire.

    Though reluctant at the prospect of an arranged marriage, Stephen is to woo Bella, who seems to be two people - she blows hot, she blows cold and intrigues him enough to make him want to stay on. Meanwhile, her childhood friend Michael and her sister Mira add spice to the proceedings. Are Bella and Michael in love? Will Stephen be able to win Bella over? Or is his trip to India fated to be a fiasco?

    Dubey, the author of this incisive, unsparing and eye-opening book, holds that we Indians have an extra ‘credulity chromosome’ built into our DNA. He believes that we are wired to unquestioningly trust those who exercise authority over us, or those whom we admire, even as they unashamedly scam us. In this book, he sets out to dissect the bullshit that surrounds aspects of modern Indian corporate, social, political and legal life. In doing this, he asks and answers basic questions about our society. Who runs the corporate ship and why? Who is making the stock market tick and how? What are health care facilities here to do? What is the role of sleaze and grease in the determination of public policy? Bullshit Quotient: Decoding India’s Corporate, Social and Legal Fineprint offers radical revelations: Indian industrial might is built on the back of a colossal land grab. Criminal cases are business scores being settled through intimidation. Brands and Trademarks are tools to scam consumers. Corruption is necessary so that we may fund our democracy. If you want to understand what’s really going on out there, this book is for you.

    In fact, it is a boxy, grey building where children walk on tippy toes from fear of the dreadful ‘dragon’ and the crotchety ‘crone’. With Nivi Mallik’s arrival at Cosy Castle, the rules start to change. The bimbli trees become the hang-out spot for two giggly girls and the driveway is a permanent cricket pitch for the boys. But the happy times are soon ended by the ‘dragon’ and the ‘crone’, who gang up against the children and declare war on the bimbli trees. It will take a miracle to challenge the two wily women, leave alone defeat them. But miracles happen only in fairy tales…Or do they? Is it possible for fantasyfan Nivi, geeky boy-next-door Venu, bubbly Sarita and their three pint-sized comrades, Nikhil, Vijay and Rehaan, to conquer an evil much beyond their power? Join the six imaginative spellmakers as they use a very practical kind of magic to conjure potent potions, summon unlikely fairies and engineer a haunting...Does Cosy Castle finally become what it’s called? Make your way to Dorabji Street and find out…

    Born in Northern India to a Seventh-Day Adventist family, she attended elementary school thanks to her grandmother, who worked in the house of a white colonial family. Abused by her father, Aruna was forced into an arranged marriage and eventually immigrated to Canada, where the abuse, now at the hands of her husband, continued without respite. Years later, she walked away from the marriage, at great cultural cost. Behind her remarkable story lies the issue of culturally sanctioned honour crimes and the way that westerners, and the Western media, will willfully turn a blind eye to culture-based iniquities. Compelling, moving, sometimes shocking, Unworthy Creature is ultimately the hopeful and redemptive story of one courageous woman's struggle to survive.

    Ironically, this has remained something of a state secret because Kaviraj’s writings are scattered and not easy to access as a connected body. So the present volume—like its predecessor The Imaginary Institution of India—fills a vital gap in South Asian political thought.Among Kaviraj’s many strengths is his exceptional ability to position Indian politics within the frameworks of Western political philosophy alongside perspectives from indigenous political thought. In order to understand relations between the state and social groups, or between dominant and subaltern communities, Kaviraj says it is necessary to first historicize the study of Indian politics. Deploying the historical method, he looks at the precise character of Indian social groups, the nature of political conflicts, the specific mechanisms of social oppression, and many related issues.In so doing Kaviraj reveals the variety of historical trajectories taken by Indian democracy. Indian political structures, with their developed system of rules and legislative orders, may seem to derive from colonialism. Yet these structures, says Kaviraj, are comparable less to the European nation-states of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries than to the pre-modern empire-states of Indian and Islamic history. Scholars often work with a false genealogy: the convention of starting the story of Indian politics with 1947, or even 1858, has led to misconstructions. Kaviraj shows that there is no serious way into present politics except through a longer past; Weber, Marx, and Foucault may be less important in this enterprise than painstaking reconnections with the vernacular facts of Indian political history.This volume is indispensable for every student and scholar of South Asian politics, history, and sociology.

    Narayan's Malgudi Days, Tamasha in Bandargaon, with its interlinked stories, its effortless dialogue and wry humour, is at once enriching and entertaining.

    From the Vedic culture of ancient India thousands of years ago, we find the origins of such things as mathematics, especially algebra and geometry, as well as early astronomy and planetary observations, many instances of which can be read in the historical Vedic texts. Medicine in Ayurveda was also the first to prescribe herbs for the remedy of disease, surgical instruments for operations, and more. Other developments that were far superior and ahead of the rest of the world include: -Writing and language, especially the development of sophisticated Sanskrit; -Metallurgy and making the best known steel at the time; -Ship building and global maritime trade; -Textiles and the dying of fabric for which India was known all over the world; -Agricultural and botanical achievements; -Precise Vedic arts in painting, dance and music; -The educational systems and the most famous of the early universities, like Nalanda and Takshashila; -The source of individual freedom and fair government, and the character and actions of rulers; -Military and the earliest of martial arts; -Along with some of the most intricate, deep and profound of all philosophies and spiritual paths, which became the basis of many religions that followed later around the world. These and more are the developments that came from India, much of which has been forgotten, but should again be recognized as the heritage of the ancient Indian Vedic tradition that continues to inspire humanity.

    As they build large navies to secure their growing interests, both nations are roiling the waters of the Indo-Pacificthe vast littoral stretching from Africa to Australasia.Invoking a tale from Hindu mythology "Samudra Manthan" or to churn the oceanC. Raja Mohan tells the story of a Sino-Indian rivalry spilling over from the Great Himalayas into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. He examines the prospects of mitigating the tensions and constructing a stable Indo-Pacific order.America, the dominant power in the area, is being drawn into the unfolding Sino-Indian competition. Despite the huge differences in the current naval capabilities of China, India, and the United States, Mohan argues that the three countries are locked in a triangular struggle destined to mold the future Indo-Pacific.

    Whether she is describing the setting sun or the way people are gathered at a village council like ‘thickly strewn grain on the threshing floor’, the varied rhythms of a dalit drum or a young woman astride her favorite buffalo, Shyamala walks us through a world that is at once particular and small, and simultaneously universal. Set in the madiga quarter of a Telangana village, the stories spotlight different settings, events and experiences, and offer new propositions on how to see, think and be touched by life in that world. There is a laugh lurking around every other corner as the narrative picks an adroit step past the grandiose authority of earlier versions of such places and their people—romantic, gandhian, administrative—and the idiom in which they spoke. These stories overturn the usual agendas of exit—from the village, from madiga culture, from these little communities—to hold this life up as one of promise for everyone. With her intensely beautiful and sharply political writing, Shyamala makes a clean break with the tales of oppression and misery decreed the true subject of dalit writing.

    These are either exercises in self-glorification or attempts at pontification.This is an autobiography with a difference. M.K. Kaw, the author of Bureaucrazy fame is known for his style imbued with humour and pen dipped in satire. Here he takes a look at his own life, starting with a zany essay on why he is called Kaw, which means crow in Kashmiri. In one of the chapters, he refers to the phenomenon which led some of his younger colleagues to revel in the appellation Kawboy.The text is peppered with half-remembered lines of a childhood poem celebrating the exploits of Natha Singh, a truck driver of Delhi. He has not omitted to reproduce in its unexpurgated virility a naughty limerick he composed at a party about his chief secretarys non-performing member.There are revelations about the exploits of politicians and bureaucrats, as seen from the perspective of a poet who got trapped in the topsy-turvy world of bumbledom.Kaw has manfully resisted the temptation to deliver high-sounding sermons at hapless juniors in the service. He has instead concluded with tongue-in-cheek aphorisms camouflaged as pearls of wisdom.About the AuthorMaharaj Krishen Kaw is a former member of the Indian Administrative Service (1964 batch). He was allotted to the Himachal Pradesh cadre. He held important posts like Director of Industries, Deputy Commissioner, Solan and Kangra districts, Secretary Personnel, Finance, Education, Culture and Public Relations. He was Principal Secretary to two chief ministers.At the Centre, his postings were in the Ministries of Rural Development, Defence and Finance. He was the Member Secretary of the Fifth Central Pay Commission, Secretary Civil Aviation, Principal Adviser (Education) Planning Commission and Secretary Human Resource Development. He retired in 2001.Kaw has written 15 books. He has published several books of poetry in English and Hindi, a novel, short stories, plays, middles and so on. He runs a monthly column Kawcaw and a blog with the same name.His earlier title Bureaucrazy is still a bestseller and The Science of Spirituality a classic on philosophy. Besides, he has authored a 13-episode serial Kehna Aasaan Hai for Kashir channel of Doordarshan.

    Birbal is one of the best-loved figures in Indian folklore. His wit and wisdom had endeared him not only to Akbar, but also to a vast majority of the subjects of the Mughal empire. He was a good administrator, a good soldier and perhaps what pleased Akbar the most - a good jester

    The author has chosen an interdisciplinary approach that combines the studies in cultural anthropology, literary and historical sources, art history, andhumanistic geography. The central point of the analysis is topophilia (lit. love of place), the term used to describe the strong sense of place or identity among certain peoples and groups. In the present book, topophilia of Lahore is represented through interrelations of different types of urbanlocations, landscapes, architecture and artefacts, on the one hand, and human attitudes, rituals, and manners and customs, - on the other hand. The author's aim is to show how the historical and cultural developments of people build up the cultural landscape of the city and how the geographicalplace and space, in their turn, influence behaviour and identity of Lahore's citizens.

    Acknowledging that the Indian economy has come a long way in the last two decades, the contributors also elaborate upon the essential next steps regarding the human element in future reforms. These 20 essays and scholarly papers comprise an authoritative assessment of two decades of reforms and their impact.

    This is a vital book for anybody interested in diplomacy and conflict in the twenty-first century’ – Stanley A. Weiss, founding chairman, Business Executives for National Security, Washington DCThe battles of yesterday were fought over land; those of today are over energy. But the battles of tomorrow may be over water. Nowhere is that danger greater than in water-distressed Asia.Water stress is set to become Asia’s defining crisis of the twenty-first century, creating obstacles to continued rapid economic growth, stoking interstate tensions over shared resources, exacerbating long-time territorial disputes, and imposing further hardships on the poor. Asia is home to many of the world’s great rivers and lakes, but its huge population and exploding economic and agricultural demand for water make it the most water-scarce continent on a per capita basis. Many of Asia’s water sources cross national boundaries, and as less and less water is available, international tensions will rise. The potential for conflict is further underscored by China’s unrivalled global status as the source of transboundary river flows to the largest number of countries, as it declines to enter into water-sharing or cooperative treaties with these states, even as it taps the resources of international rivers.Water: Asia’s New Battleground is a pioneering study of Asia’s murky water politics and the relationships between freshwater, peace, and security. Brahma Chellaney paints a larger picture of water across Asia, highlights the security implications of resource-linked territorial disputes, and proposes real strategies to avoid conflict and more equitably share Asia’s water resources.

    

    It is the story of notorious gangsters like Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, Varadarajan Mudaliar, Chhota Rajan, Abu Salem, but above all, it is the story of a young man who went astray despite having a father in the police force. Dawood Ibrahim was initiated into crime as a pawn in the hands of the Mumbai police and went on to wipe out the competition and eventually became the Mumbai police’s own nemesis.The narrative encompasses several milestones in the history of crime in India, from the rise of the Pathans, formation of the Dawood gang, the first ever supari, mafia’s nefarious role in Bollywood, Dawood’s move to Karachi, and Pakistan’s subsequent alleged role in sheltering one of the most wanted persons in the world. This story is primarily about how a boy from Dongri became a don in Dubai, and captures his bravado, focus, ambition, and lust for power in a gripping narrative. The meticulously researched book provides an in-depth and comprehensive account of the mafia’s games of supremacy and internecine warfare.

    Combining authoritative analysis, new ideas, and diverse perspectives, they discuss subjects which are topical yet enduring, as also emerging areas of study and debate.The highly complex, dynamic, and enduring social reality of caste in India remains an anathema for social theorists. Combining up-to-date research with accessible and systematic exposition, this short introduction provides an exciting synoptic view of all the main aspects and dimensions of caste in India today. Looking at caste as tradition, as a constitutive element in power politics, and its inherent strands of humiliation and contestation in modern times, this book covers the many themes and issues around the lived reality of caste in India. It will prove indispensable for scholars, students, and general readers interested in this all-pervasive element of Indian social life.

    Drawing on a wide range of textual sources, from poetry to medical texts, he shows the significant religious and cultural role of smell in India throughout the first millennium CE.McHugh describes the arts of perfumery developed in royal courts, temples, and monasteries, which were connected to a trade in exotic aromatics. Through their transformative nature, perfumes played an important part in every aspect of Indian life from seduction to diplomacy and religion. The aesthetics of smell dictated many of the materials, practices, and ceremonies associated with India's religious culture. McHugh shows how religious discourses on the purpose of life emphasized the pleasures of the senses, including olfactory experience, as valid ends in themselves. Fragrances and stenches were analogous to certain values, aesthetic or ethical, and in a system where karmic results often had a sensory impact-where evil literally stank-the ethical and aesthetic became difficult to distinguish. Through the study of smell, McHugh strengthens our understanding of the vital connection between the theological and the physical world.Sandalwood and Carrion explores smell in pre-modern India from many perspectives, covering such topics as philosophical accounts of smell perception, odors in literature, the history of perfumery in India, the significance of sandalwood in Buddhism, and the divine offering of perfume to the gods.

    Once our constant internal analysis abates, we’re more open to flowing with what is unfolding around us. To say that the environment there is over stimulating would be an understatement. People, vehicles, cows, even the colours are de trop, but my approach has been, “bring it on. I was thirsty for India after waiting for her so long and I wanted to soak in every tiny little detail." Ellen and her partner Don have now made three journeys visiting India, in 2007, 2009 and again in 2012. They made lifelong friends, volunteering and tutoring Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, India. From Ellen "I invite you to join me on my journey, through the ups and downs of travel and volunteering, meet the people we developed strong friendships with, and enjoy the fascination and wild rides that are India. This book is also about the heartfelt stories of refugees, fellow travellers and the Indian people themselves and the effort of trying to understand cultures very different from ours. Ultimately though it is the moments when we are not so far apart that define An Indian Sojourn."

    The book shows how rivers, traditionally revered by the people of the Indian subcontinent, have in recentdecades deteriorated dramatically due to economic progress and gross mismanagement. Dams and ill-advised embankments strangle the Ganges and its sacred tributaries. Rivers have become sewage channels for a burgeoning population.To tell the story of this enormous river basin, environmental journalist Cheryl Colopy treks to high mountain glaciers with hydrologists; bumps around the rough embankments of India's poorest state in a jeep with social workers; and takes a boat excursion through the Sundarbans, the mangrove forestsat the end of the Ganges watershed.She lingers in key places and hot spots in the debate over water: the megacity Delhi, a paradigm of water mismanagement; Bihar, India's poorest, most crime-ridden state, thanks largely to the blunders of engineers who tried to tame powerful Himalayan rivers with embankments but instead createdannual floods; and Kathmandu, the home of one of the most elegant and ancient traditional water systems on the subcontinent, now the site of a water-development boondoggle.Colopy's vivid first-person narrative brings exotic places and complex issues to life, introducing the reader to a memorable cast of characters, ranging from the most humble members of South Asian society to engineers and former ministers. Here we find real-life heroes, bucking current trends, trying to find rational ways to manage rivers and water. They are reviving ingenious methods of water management that thrived for centuries in South Asia and may point the way to water sustainability and healthy rivers.

    story about nature

    The Oxford Companion to Economics in India (2007) was the first comprehensive A-Z guide to contemporary Indian economy. This new edition of the Companion has more than 80 revised entries that take into account recent developments in the field, policy changes, and latest data. It also includes about 25 fresh entries on topics that have grown in significance since the first edition came out, such as 'Growth during the Global Crisis', 'Financial Inclusion', 'Land Acquisition for Industry', and 'Unique Identification'.Culled from the collective wisdom of distinguished contributors, including economists, policymakers, and corporate chiefs, the volume provides diverse perspectives on of the trends and issues across various sectors of the Indian economy. More than 325 pertinent entries cover the evolution of the Indian economy from relative obscurity to an emergent global force.

    Forced into an arranged marriage and subsequently widowed, she faces a life of eternal penance, praying for a miracle that she may find the father who has abandoned her. Paul Haston's critically acclaimed novel is based on a true story: the shipment of indentured Indian 'coolies' recruited by white colonials to work in slavery on the sugar plantations in 1870's Natal.

    The book and its accompanying audio files on CD contain all that is needed to complete one full year of study, including clear explanations of language structures; useful, fun, and engaging activities; and an organizational format that makes it easy to chart student progress.FEATURES- Develops all four skills--listening, speaking, reading, writing--through a wide range of tasks and activities, including role plays, games, and short conversations- Beautifully illustrated with full-color, authentic images and written in an accessible style- Introduces the sound system and script of Urdu- Organized around functional themes such as home and family, everyday life, the marketplace, personal responsibilities, and travel- Features straightforward grammatical explanations and topically organized vocabulary lists for each of the 34 chapters- Integrates cultural information within the thematic units and also presents culture through aphorisms, poetry, and photographs- Provides an activity set for each unit along with review activities, including tips for increasing fluency and sets of questions to help personalize learning- Contains Urdu-English and English-Urdu glossaries- Includes three appendices--Urdu numbers, additional grammatical structures for moving to advanced levels of proficiency, and a suggested syllabus Beginning Urdu covers approximately 150 contact hours and is designed to bring learners to the ACTFL proficiency level of mid- to high-intermediate in all four skills. The book also serves as a valuable resource for independent learners.

    

    This engaging little book paints Buddhism as the way of the world to come but yet explains patiently why it is all right to fail at trying to become a Buddhist.With lucid style and characteristic wit, Ms Fields deftly interweaves the past, the present and the future, science and spirituality, the East and the West, earth and space, and prose and poetry to produce a rich tapestry studded not only with gems of stupefying similes and mesmerising metaphors, but also drenched with the distilled wisdom of the ages infused with original inspirational insight.Buddhism is a religion for wealthy intellectuals, according to Fields. But read this beautifully crafted book to find out just who might be one.(The print version of this book appeared earlier under the title "I am not a Buddhist". The digital edition is being offered, with the permission of the author, under the name "Battle Against Infinity". In accordance with the author's wishes, the first 10,000 downloads are to be offered "free" under the honour system, requesting the buyer to please donate 5 units of their base currency (e.g. USD or GBP) to Amnesty International.)

    Over the past three decades, socialism has been replaced by pro-business policies as the way forward. And yet, in this 'new' India, grinding poverty is still a feature of everyday life. Some 450 million people subsist on less than $1.25 per day and nearly half of India's children are malnourished. In his latest book, Atul Kohli, a seasoned scholar of Indian politics and economics, blames this discrepancy on the narrow nature of the ruling alliance in India that, in its new-found relationship with business, has prioritized economic growth above all other social and political considerations. This thoughtful and challenging book affords an alternative vision of India's rise in the world that its democratic rulers will be forced to come to grips with in the years ahead.

    Readers will get an authentic account of their tribulations through the first-person account of a young Polish orphan's hair-raising journey to India and his experiences during the stay. Author Anuradha Bhattacharjee includes a historical perspective culled out from archival documents in India, the UK and Poland. This is a unique mix of a diary, oral history and historical viewpoint placed adjacent to a compilation of archival personal photographs. The book beautifully brings out a little-known aspect of European exiles in India during the Second World War.

    Deploying a variety of methodological and disciplinary techniques, the volume discusses changing contours and notions of territoriality, migrations, and diaspora; language and literary cultures; colonial experience; religious identities; Sikh studies and identity; cultural and religious syncretism; and middle class and urban spaces; conversion and politics of difference. Through a careful analyses of aspects of Punjabi social, cultural, political, and religious history, it explores areas like mentalities and social texts, symbols and cultural representations, elite and popular cultures, social codes and their performance and reception.This book will interest scholars, students, and researchers of history, particularly modern India, as well as sociology and cultural studies.

    Thus power, and particularly electricity, assumes top priority in maintaining a stable growth rate and ensuring energy security. After almost 10 years since the enactment of the ElectricityAct, 2003 (a major landmark in second generation reforms), this book reviews the reform process and undertakes a detailed analysis of electricity policy, regulation, and performance, and comprehensively covers power infrastructure and management in India.Starting from a historical perspective of reforms in the power sector, the book covers the paradigm shift in the strategy of reforms after the Electricity Act, 2003, and its salient features. The authors have been active participants in and keen observers of the reforms and regulation in the sectorover the last decade. Therefore, the book presents an authentic account of the evolution of the regulatory framework and the gap between vision and ground reality in the sector. The book also engages with policy challenges facing the sector and provides a framework for the way ahead.

    The action moves from an English stately house near a growing Midlands industrial town, to India during the Mutiny (as it was then called). At the centre of the action are two ruthless murders which cause the hero of the story and his sister to be driven from their home. However, the story cannot be described as a murder mystery as there is never any doubt as to who committed the murders, only how he may be unmasked.The heroine of the story is Beatrix Anstey who inadvertently witnesses some of the events surrounding the murder while she is attempting to escape from the tyranny of her uncle. The Reverend Ludovic Cakebrede has been forced to take Beatrix into his household by his formidable mother. Old Mrs. Cakebrede will not have Beatrix left with her mother who, bored with life in India with her husband has eloped with a wealthy cavalry officer and is thus regarded by society as immoral and unfit to bring up her daughter. Beatrix finds life at the Rectory unbearable because no one wants her and her uncle resents being forced to house her. She resolves to run away and is caught up in the drama of the murders.Beatrix's father, a very wealthy India merchant is badly injured during the siege and recapture of Delhi. How and by whom he is rescued and nursed back to health; how, informed by his rescuer of Beatrix's unhappy situation is the central part of the story. They embark on a long and dangerous journey across India before Anstey returns briefly to England to take Beatrix from the Rectory and back to India with him. What happens to her there gives the writer a chance to explore some of the attitudes and prejudices of both the British and the Indians at this time.The story end with a dramatic unmasking of the murderer who has escaped detection for years.

    Original, contributed essays by leading academics in the field explore places from Hadar to Xi'an, Salvador to New York, and numerous other locations that have produced historical shockwaves and significant global impact throughout history. With a chronologically organized table of contents, each chapter dissects a particular moment in history, with personal commentary from each contributor, a narrative of the location's historical significance at the time, and a section on significant global connections. Primary sources and discussion questions at the end of each chapter allow students a view into the lives of individuals of the time. Students will experience the narrative of historic individuals as well as modern scholars looking back over documentation to offer their own views of the past, providing students with the perfect opportunity to see how scholars form their own views about history.This text can be purchased as two volumes, providing a breadth of information for survey courses in world history.

    The competition is razor-edged, the temptations myriad. Gone are the days when children played catch in the neighbourhood, ate what they were given, and went to bed by 9. Now it’s all about staying ahead of the game, being in the know, having the latest gizmos. How does one then raise a happy and well-rounded child amid the pressures of this new age? In Who Do You Think You’re Kidding? acclaimed educationist Lina Ashar shows you how to: • prepare your child for a competitive new world by choosing what they want to study • shift focus from book-based studying to creative higher education • deal with adolescence • discover your child’s true potential. Based on her experiences and research, as a parent and teacher, this book will equip Indian parents with the right tools to guide their children on the right path.

    A Sangam House-Kalachuvadu Press co-publication: http://www.sangamhouse.org/wild-girls...

    Racial groups that were perceived as godless and uncivilized were excluded from suffrage, and evangelism among Indians and the Chinese was seen as a politically incendiary act. Joshua Paddison sheds light on Reconstruction’s impact on Indians and Asian Americans by illustrating how marginalized groups fought for a political voice, refuting racist assumptions with their lives, words, and faith. Reconstruction, he argues, was not merely a remaking of the South, but rather a multiracial and multiregional process of reimagining the nation.