Following in the tradition of her first book, Monsoon Diary: a memoir with recipes, award-winning author, Shoba Narayan explores themes of family, culture and identity. In vivid and heartfelt prose, Shoba Narayan describes the trajectory of her immigrant life from the salty plains of South India to the high rises of New York and Boston. From the exhilarating thrill of being a new immigrant to becoming an angst-ridden mother grappling with hyphenated identities, Narayan describes the life of an immigrant with humour and insight. She talks about why she yearned for America and became a citizen of the land she would ultimately leave. Return to India is about love and loss; about family and identity; and about the quest for a place called home. Return to India is about the costs of chasing the American dream and the complications of returning to your homeland. Rich in detail and empathetic in tone, this book will resonate with immigrants and diaspora from all cultures.

    As time passed, railways were built and newspapers appeared, isolated villages like vilakkudi were exposed to social and cultural change. It is this transition that the author, Ranganathans great -great-great grandson, tries to trace through the story of his family.

    So great was his stature as an Urdu poet that he never had to mould his poetry to suit the demands of film songwriting; instead, producers and composers adapted their requirements to his poetry. His songs in films like Pyaasa, Naya Daur and Phir Subah Hogi have attained the status of classics. This exhaustive biography traces the poet’s rich life, from his troubled childhood and his equally troubled love relationships, to his rise as one of the pre-eminent personalities of the Progressive Writers Movement and his journey as lyricist through the golden era of Hindi film music, the 1950s and 1960s.

    The monograph vociferouslydemanded that socialism be sacrificed for a competitive market economic system, so India cangrow at 10 per cent per year, achieve self-reliance, full employment and produce nuclear weaponry.The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi denounced the plan as dangerous.Fifty years later, Swamy redefines his path-breaking ideas on India-specific economic developmentin his seminal work, Reset. It undertakes a nuanced analysis of the manner in which the highlyprosperous Indian economy witnessed a long, accelerated decline due to persistent British imperialistaggression, and compares the distinctive manner in which Asian giants—India and China—sufferedat the hands of imperialism. He critically analyses the highs and lows of the Nehruvian model ofcentralized economic planning borrowed from the Soviet Union, and the debilitating circumstancesthat impelled him, as Commerce Minister in Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s government, todraw up a blueprint for economic reforms.

    But where did he get his military experience? Why was picked to take command of the army? Why was he the only American president ever to be elected unanimously (twice!), and did he really chop down that cherry tree as a kid?In this book entitled George Washington: First Guardian of American Liberty by author Michael Crawley, you'll follow the course of George Washington's life, from his birth at Ferry Farm in Virginia in 1732, to his death at his Mount Vernon estate in 1799. You'll learn how his early fame as a hero of the French and Indian War, and his illustrious marriage to a wealthy widow, led to this farm boy becoming one of the most important men in Virginia, a delegate at the Continental Congress where the Founders of America gathered to decide the nation's fate. The first guardian of American liberty looks serene in his portraits, but he didn't always rise above the fray. Washington fought for what he believed in, and his political convictions shocked contemporaries like Thomas Jefferson. Do you know what kind of country George Washington wanted America to be?

    Lesser known is assassin Nathuram Godse’s motive. Until now, no publication has dealt with this question, except for the naked text of Godse’s own defence speech during his trial. It didn’t save him from the hangman, but still contains substantive arguments against the facile glorification of the Mahatma.Dr Koenraad Elst compares Godse’s case against Gandhi with criticisms voiced in wider circles, and with historical data known at the time or brought to light since. While the Mahatma was extolled by the Hindu masses, political leaders of divergent persuasions who had had dealings with him were less enthusiastic. Their sobering views would have become the received wisdom about the Mahatma if he hadn’t been martyred. Yet, the author also presents some new considerations in Gandhi’s defence from unexpected quarters.

    Before the adversaries could discover his presence, he dashed straight towards Abhiram Das, the vairagi who was holding the idol in his hands and leading the group of intruders. […] The sadhu quickly freed himself and, together with his friends, retaliated fiercely. Heavy blows began raining from all directions. Soon, the muezzin realized that he was no match for the men and that he alone would not be able to stop them.22 December 1949: A conspiracy that began with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi culminated in the execution of the Ayodhya strategy. Late that night, a little-known sadhu, Abhiram Das, and his followers entered the Babri Masjid and planted an idol of Rama inside it. While it is known that the Hindu Mahasabha had a role in placing the idol in the mosque, the larger plot and the chain of events that led to that act have never been subject to rigorous scrutiny. Through intrepid research and investigation, Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K. Jha bring together the disparate threads of the buried narrative for the first time.Through a series of first-hand interviews with eyewitnesses and the unearthing of archival material, the authors take us behind the scenes to examine the motivations and workings of the Mahasabha members who pulled the strings. They also examine the liaison between Mahasabhaites and Hindu traditionalists in the Congress – an association that Jawaharlal Nehru sought to break in his cautious battle with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and the right-wing forces. Ayodhya: The Dark Night uncovers, in vivid detail, what really transpired on the fateful night that was to leave a permanent scar on the Indian polity.

    The issue of Kashmir still is a crucial issue discussed across forums in the global arena and is one of the major hindrances in improving relationship with India’s neighbour and kin of one time. Much has been written about Kashmir and the separatist movement in Kashmir. But the beautifully scripted account of the brutality with which the separatist movement is carried on till date has no precedence. The book, Curfewed Nights, gives an honest, crude, and truthful account of what goes on in the paradise of India which is under the spell of the separatist movement.The author of the book, Basharat Peer, being a Kashmiri himself has related to each and every detail provided in the book from the first hand experiences gathered by him. Since independence of India, many Kashmiri youths have been mesmerised by the terrorism to the extent that they want to join the terrorist organisations even without thinking about their families or themselves. They have illusioned godfathers in the leaders of such terrorist outfits. In fact, the author was sent out of Kashmir by his family, just to keep him away from these painful romances with the militants.The book, Curfewed Night, has a lot of heart-rending accounts of how a mother watches her son who is forced to hold an exploding bomb or how a poet discovers his religion when his entire family is killed or how the politicians are tortured inside the refurbished torture chambers or how villages have been rigged with landmines which kills innocent civilians, and how temples have converted into army bunkers while ancient Sufi shrines have been decapitated in bomb blasts.

    

    Deep Halder is one of them.' - Amitava Kumar In 1978, around 1.5 lakh Hindu refugees, mostly belonging to the lower castes, settled in Marichjhapi an island in the Sundarbans, in West Bengal. By May 1979, the island was cleared of all refugees by Jyoti Basu's Left Front government. Most of the refugees were sent back to the central India camps they came from, but there were many deaths: of diseases, malnutrition resulting from an economic blockade, as well as from violence unleashed by the police on the orders of the government. Some of the refugees who survived Marichjhapi say the number of those who lost their lives could be as high as 10,000, while the-then government officials maintain that there were less than ten victims. How does an entire island population disappear? How does one unearth the truth and the details of one of the worst atrocities of post-Independent India? Journalist Deep Halder reconstructs the buried history of the 1979 massacres through his interviews with survivors, erstwhile reporters, government officials and activists with a rare combination of courage, conscientiousness and empathy.

    It is published by Mula-Mutha Publishers. The book has 392 plus 28 preliminary pages and 12 art pages (432 pages in all), 27 pictures and 22 maps with the narrative. The book has 36 chapters divided into five sections. Besides maps and illustrations, it has a timeline, genealogies, introduction to principal characters, appendices, references, bibliography, glossary and an index.

    Over the next 3 centuries, it would grow to become one of the mightiest empires in the world, the Vijayanagara Empire. An empire dazzling in it's achievements, in it's riches, in it's arts. From it's founding, to it's fall after the Battle of Tallikota to the heights it achieved under Sri Krishna Deva Raya, City of Victory aims to recreate the splendor and glory of one of the most magnificent empires ev

    One of modern day's most articulate statesmen, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a on a wide variety of subjects. Describing himself as "a dabbler in many things," he committed his life not only to politics but also to nature and wild life, drama, poetry, history, and science, as well as many other fields. These two volumes help to illuminate the depth of his interests and knowledge and the skill and elegance with which he treated the written word!!

    Laxman’s Brushing Up The Years: A Cartoonist's History Of India: 1947 To The Present deals with the author’s cartoons that were regularly published in the Times of India. His cartoons were not just humorous but provided satirical comments on the political scenario of India during his time.Summary Of The BookBrushing Up The Years: A Cartoonist’s History Of India 1947 To The Present by R.K. Laxman is a compilation of cartoons by the author published over sixty years. These cartoons provide Laxman’s own satirical and comical perspective of the Indian common man, the politicians, and the state of the country.These cartoons were part of every Indian man’s morning ritual with the newspaper. The subjects of his cartoons ranged from common marital problems to complex issues like social injustice, corruption, financial crisis, and political power plays. Brushing Up The Years: A Cartoonist’s History Of India 1947 To The Present display cartoons that refer to specific events such as the wars between Pakistan and China, Indira Gandhi and the state of Emergency, Nehru’s Five Year Plan, and more. He even provides comments, through his cartoons, about the rise and fall of the Congress and the BJP.Laxman’s cartoons were philosophical and mischievous at the same time.

    A disconcerting read, but indispensable.'-ASHLEY J. TELLISIndia's relations with the People's Republic of China have captured the popular imagination ever since the 1950s but have rarely merited a detailed understanding of the issues. Individual episodes tend to arouse lively debate, which often dissipates without a deeper exploration of the factors that shaped the outcomes. This book explores the dynamics of negotiation between the two countries, from the early years after Independence until the current times, through the prism of six historical and recent events in the India-China relationship. The purpose is to identify the strategy, tactics and tools that China employs in its diplomatic negotiations with India, and the learnings for India from its past dealings with China that may prove helpful in future negotiations with the country.