The allegation that sections of and individual Indian Muslims indulged in "terrorism" surfaced for the first time with the ascent of the Hindutva forces in mid-1990s and became state policy with the BJP coming to power at the Centre. With even "secular" media joining the role as stenographers of security agencies, this became an accepted fact so much so that common Indians and even many Muslims started believing in this false propaganda. This book, by a former senior police officer, with a distinguished career that included unearthing the Telgi scam, peeps behind the propaganda screen, using material mostly in the public domain as well as his long police experience. It comes out with some startling facts and analysis, the first of its kind, to expose the real actors behind the so-called "Islamic terrorism" in India whose greatest feat was to murder the Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare who dared to expose these forces and paid with his life for his courage and commitment to truth. While unearthing the conspiracy behind the murder of Karkare, this book takes a hard look at some of the major incidents attributed to "Islamic terrorism" in India and finds them baseless.

    . . [A] mega-ambitious project' —The Hindu 'A gem of a book that is a joy to read . . . You can almost touch and feel the centuries and millennia as they pass by' —Tony Joseph'Deepens our sense of the wonder that was India' —Pankaj Mishra'Illuminating, absorbing and a joy to read. I defy anyone to peruse it and not feel richly rewarded by its insights' —John KeayA BRILLIANT, ORIGINAL BOOK THAT REVEALS INDIA'S RICH AND DIVERSE HISTORIESWhat do we really know about the Aryan migration theory and why is that debate so hot?Why did the people of Khajuraho carve erotic scenes on their temple walls?What did the monks at Nalanda eat for dinner?Did our ideals of beauty ever prefer dark skin?——————————Indian civilization is an idea, a reality, an enigma. In this riveting book, Namit Arora takes us on an unforgettable journey through 5000 years of history, reimagining in rich detail the social and cultural moorings of Indians through the ages. Drawing on credible sources, he discovers what inspired and shaped them: their political upheavals and rivalries, customs and vocations, and a variety of unusual festivals. Arora makes a stop at six iconic places—the Harappan city of Dholavira, the Ikshvaku capital at Nagarjunakonda, the Buddhist centre of learning at Nalanda, enigmatic Khajuraho, Vijayanagar at Hampi, and historic Varanasi—enlivening the narrative with vivid descriptions, local stories and evocative photographs. Punctuating this are chronicles of famous travellers who visited India—including Megasthenes, Xuanzang, Alberuni and Marco Polo—whose dramatic and idiosyncratic tales conceal surprising insights about our land.In lucid, elegant prose, Arora explores the exciting churn of ideas, beliefs and values of our ancestors through millennia—some continue to shape modern India, while others have been lost forever. An original, deeply engaging and extensively researched work, Indians illuminates a range of histories coursing through our veins.

    We were life-going-to-seeders.' Living in a sunny barsati in south Delhi, Saurav Jha and Devapriya Roy are your average DINK couple, about to acquire a few EMIs and come of age in the modern consumerist world. Only, they don't. They junk the swivel chairs, gain a couple of backpacks and set out on a transformational journey across India. On a very, very tight budget: five hundred rupees a day for bed and board. And the Heat and Dust project begins.Joining the ranks of firang gap-year kids and Israelis fresh out of compulsory army service, they travel across a land in which five thousand years of Indian history seem to jostle side by side. It is, by turns, holy and hectic, thuggish and comic, amoral and endearing. In buses that hurtle through the darkness of the night and the heat of the day, across thousands of miles, in ever new places, the richness of this crowded palette spills over into their lives. From rooms by the hour to strange dinner invitations, from spectacular forts to raging tantrums, this is a youthful account of wanderlust and whimsy, of eccentric choices that unfold into the journey of a lifetime ... and a supreme test of marriage.

    

    Critiquing the sensibility which equates Indian tradition with Hinduism, and Hinduism with Brahmanism which considers the Vedas as the foundational texts of Indian culture and discovers within the Aryan heritage the essence of Indian civilisation it shows how even secular minds remain imprisoned within the Brahmanical vision. It looks at the alternative traditions nurtured within Dalit movements, which have questioned this way of looking at Indian society and history. Written in a lucid and readable style, the author elucidates how Dalit politics and the Dalit vision require going beyond even the term Dalit and how it has contributed to being symbolic of the most oppressed and exploited sections within the graded hierarchies of caste. Alongside the ascendance of Hinduism, the book traces the invasive trends of resistance and revolt in the tenets of Buddhism and radical bhakti, in the anti-patriarchal stands of early feminists, in the pervasive radicalism of the Dalit activists from Phule and Periyar, Ramabai and Tarabai, to Kabir, Tukaram and Ambedkar, even for that matter Buddha himself. This book brings to the reader the failures and triumphs of the many efforts that have aimed to dissolve the oppressive facets of Hinduism and its caste ideology, and continue to organise in newer ways for 'another' possible world where equality and human freedom reign supreme. It also makes visible the logic of Dalit politics and the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party, as a major alternative to the rise of Hindutva. This important and essential reading will be an invaluable primer on the subject to students of Dalit and caste studies and politics.

    But what does all that mean to the modern Hindu today? Why do Hindus call themselves so? Is it merely because their parents were Hindus? In what way does the faith speak to those who profess to follow it? What does Hinduism mean to the everyday-practicing or sometimes-accessing ordinary Hindu? Away from the raucous debate around religions, this is the journey of a common Hindu—an attempt to understand why, for so many Hindus, their faith is one of the most powerful arguments for plurality, for unity in diversity, and even more than the omnipresent power of God, the sublime courage and conviction of man. Being Hindu is the exploration of Hinduism in a way you have never seen before—almost through your own eyes.

    in Economics & Politics, Bombay University (D.G. National College. Hyderabad, Sindh; Fergusson College, Pune and School of Economics & Sociology, Bombay).Joined RSS in 1941. Lecturer, D.G. National College: 1945-47; sub-editor. Hindustan Times: 1948: Editor, The Motherland daily: 1971-75; MISA detenu: June 1975-March 1977.Nieman Fellow, Harvard University: 1961-62; General Secretary, Editors Guild of India: 1978-79; Member, Press delegation of China: 1978; Vice-Chairman, Deendayal Research Institute, Delhi: 1983-91; Vice-President, BJP: 1991-94; Member, Rajya Sabha: 1994-2000; Lt-Governor of Pondicherry: 2002-03.Death: Pondicherry. October 27,2003.Publications: The Midnight Knock (1977), The RSS Story (1980), The Sindh Story (1984), Ayodhya and Hindu-Muslim Relations (1993), India First (2002).

    The journey to salvage the lost friend can still offer myriad opportunities of redemption and self-discovery. It is up to us how we decide to tread this formidable path leading to self-actualization. Time has made us realize that it is not fair to stereotype a person suffering from cancer from the point of view of cure or recovery. Many a time, such stereotyping comes from our own society, and sometimes, ironically, from the medical fraternity, for its inability to go beyond a point, after which you feel you are condemned and vegetative. All these negativities passively entrap the patients and their parents in the viciousness of the disease where they die many times before the actual death. This is the worst form of cancer which has plagued our mindset. In the case of Divyansh Atman, the authors’ son, it was not so. Divyansh was the embodiment of courage and self-determination in the face of adversities. His life journey shows us how the path of opportunities can still be paved in the middle of adversities. He lived a big and a meaningful life that made a huge impact on the lives of people around him. Cancer can bring in self-evolution, both for the sufferer and his caregivers.

    You will find yourself in the middle of a torrid liaison in The Affair , revel in the euphoria of budding romance in Just One Glance and discover what it means to let go of your loved one in The Impasse .Love can also be brutal and unconventional as The Unseen Boundaries of Love and Something about Karen will show you. But most of all, as Death of a Widower and Siddharth show, you will see that love is all about hope and taking the leap of faith.Selected from a nationwide Romance Contest conducted by Rupa Publications, this heart-warming collection of stories urges you to believe that love is eternal...and forever.

    The men who live through the plane crash must make their way toward the mountains separating NWT from the Yukon Territory while surviving off the land, facing tragedy and the wild, and uncompromising land and animals they come across. This is a story of extreme survival, and a rescue attempt that is beyond belief.

    What makes an Indian recognizably so to the rest of the world, and, more importantly, to his or her fellow Indians? For, as the authors point out, despite ethnic differences that are characteristic more of past empires than modern nation states, there is an underlying unity in the great diversity of India that needs to be recognized.Looking at what constitutes a common Indian identity, the authors examine in detail the predominance of family, community and caste in our everyday lives, our attitudes to sex and marriage, our prejudices, our ideas of the other (explored in a brilliant chapter on Hindu-Muslim conflict), and our understanding of health, right and wrong, and death. In the final chapter, they provide fascinating insights into the Indian mind, shaped largely by the culture’s dominant, Hindu world view.Drawing upon three decades of original research and sources as varied as the Mahabharata, the Kamasutra, the writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Bollywood movies and popular folklore, Sudhir and Katharina Kakar have produced a rich and revealing portrait of the Indian people.

    To some, the numbers of Modi's victory came as something of a surprise; for others, the BJP's triumph was a vindication of their belief in the government and its policies. Irrespective of one's political standpoint, one thing was beyond dispute: this was a landmark verdict, one that deserved to be reported and analysed with intelligence - and without bias. Rajdeep Sardesai's new book, 2019: How Modi Won India, does just that. What was it that gave Modi an edge over the opposition for the second time in five years? How was the BJP able to trounce its rivals in states that were once Congress bastions? What was the core issue in the election: a development agenda or national pride? As he relives the excitement of the many twists and turns that took place over the last five years, culminating in the 2019 election results, Rajdeep helps the reader make sense of the contours and characteristics of a rapidly changing India, its politics and its newsmakers. If the 2014 elections changed India, 2019 may well have defined what 'new India' is likely to be all about. 2019: How Modi Won India takes a look at that fascinating story, which is still developing.

    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.

    Combative and lyrical, moving and relentlessly inquiring, "Ammi" offers a way of seeing our history and our future that is impossible to ignore.

    "Joothan" refers to scraps of food left on a plate, destined for the garbage or animals. India's untouchables have been forced to accept and eat joothan for centuries, and the word encapsulates the pain, humiliation, and poverty of a community forced to live at the bottom of India's social pyramid.Although untouchability was abolished in 1949, Dalits continued to face discrimination, economic deprivation, violence, and ridicule. Valmiki shares his heroic struggle to survive a preordained life of perpetual physical and mental persecution and his transformation into a speaking subject under the influence of the great Dalit political leader, B. R. Ambedkar. A document of the long-silenced and long-denied sufferings of the Dalits, Joothan is a major contribution to the archives of Dalit history and a manifesto for the revolutionary transformation of society and human consciousness.