A book of searing drama as well as lucid, incisive analysis, The Great War for Civilisation is a work of major importance for today's world.

    Naxalites are waging war on India with details plans for an overthrow of the State. Urban Naxals act to amplify their message, serve as recruiters and wage a propaganda war through social and conventional media. This gripping story recounts Agnihotri's own grooming in College to be an Urban Naxal and details the plans and modus operandi of the movement. Agnihotri's story is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Buddha in a Traffic Jam", the violent resistance to its screening, and an expose of the world's largest extreme-left terror movement and its penetration into urban India.

    More than 750,000 people were butchered, and 12 million fled their homes -- primarily in caravans of bullock-carts -- to seek refuge across the new border: it was the largest exodus in history. Sixty-seven years later, it is as if that August never ended. Renowned historian and journalist Dilip Hiro provides a riveting account of the relationship between India and Pakistan, tracing the landmark events that led to the division of the sub-continent and the evolution of the contentious relationship between Hindus and Muslims. To this day, a reasonable resolution to their dispute has proved elusive, and the Line of Control in Kashmir remains the most heavily fortified frontier in the world, with 400,000 soldiers arrayed on either side. Since partition, there have been several acute crises between the neighbors, including the secession of East Pakistan to form an independent Bangladesh in 1971, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both sides resulting in a scarcely avoided confrontation in 1999 and again in 2002. Hiro amply demonstrates the geopolitical importance of the India-Pakistan conflict by chronicling their respective ties not only with America and the Soviet Union, but also with China, Israel, and Afghanistan. Hiro weaves these threads into a lucid narrative, enlivened with colorful biographies of leaders, vivid descriptions of wars, sensational assassinations, gross violations of human rights -- and cultural signifiers like cricket matches. The Longest August is incomparable in its scope and presents the first definitive history of one of the world's longest-running and most intractable conflicts.

    In 2009, the Sri Lankan army finally defeated the separatist Tamil Tigers guerrillas in a fierce battle that swept up about 300,000 civilians and killed more than 40,000. More than a million had been displaced by the conflict, and the resilient among them still dared to hope. But the next five years changed everything.Rohini Mohan’s searing account of three lives caught up in the devastation looks beyond the heroism of wartime survival to reveal the creeping violence of the everyday. When city-bred Sarva is dragged off the streets by state forces, his middle-aged mother, Indra, searches for him through the labyrinthine Sri Lankan bureaucracy. Meanwhile, Mugil, a former child soldier, deserts the Tigers in the thick of war to protect her family.Having survived, they struggle to live as the Sri Lankan state continues to attack minority Tamils and Muslims, frittering away the era of peace. Sarva flees the country, losing his way – and almost his life – in a bid for asylum. Mugil stays, breaking out of the refugee camp to rebuild her family and an ordinary life in the village she left as a girl. But in her tumultuous world, desires, plans, and people can be snatched away in a moment.The Seasons of Trouble is a startling, brutal, yet beau­tifully written debut from a prize-winning journal­ist. It is a classic piece of reportage, five years in the making, and a trenchant, compassionate examina­tion of the corrosive effect of conflict on a people.

    A man who in the first part of his life wanted Hindu–Muslim unity yet later became the father of Hindutva. A man who called for complete independence twenty years before the Congress but didn’t participate in the Quit India movement. A man who in his younger days was friendly with Gandhi but was later seen as the inspiration behind his killing.Based on Savarkar’s original Marathi papers, accounts of his contemporaries, several of them untranslated from Marathi, court and government records, and newspapers of the time, this new biography is packed with fresh details. Written in a lively, page-turning style, this is a riveting and unbiased account of Savarkar’s life, and the only book you will need to truly understand him.

    But Britain’s partitioning of Afghanistan will rank asthe greatest crime of the nineteenth century. That arbitrary line which Mortimer Durand drewin 1893 on a small piece of paper continues to bleed Afghanistan and hound the world. Alas,this story remained untold until now.Written in an inimitable style, Durand’s Curse is the result of deep research. Fascinating detailsfrom long-buried archives of history reveal for the first time a tale of intrigue and deceit againstAfghanistan. First the British and then Pakistan had taken away territory that originally belongedto Afghanistan. But the divided Pathan families refuse to accept this division even now and for thelast century and over, there has been a struggle to rub out the cursed line drawn across the sand.Rajiv Dogra brings alive the wars, the tragedies and the Afghan anger against injustice in thisheart-wrenching account of Afghanistan’s misfortunes. This is an absolutely riveting story of theIndian sub-continent's history told by an important writer of our generation.

    Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account: many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated even within a century; its central tenets—karma, dharma, to name just two—arise at particular moments in Indian history and differ in each era, between genders, and caste to caste; and what is shared among Hindus is overwhelmingly outnumbered by the things that are unique to one group or another. Yet the greatness of Hinduism—its vitality, its earthiness, its vividness—lies precisely in many of those idiosyncratic qualities that continue to inspire debate today. Wendy Doniger is one of the foremost scholars of Hinduism in the world. With her inimitable insight and expertise Doniger illuminates those moments within the tradition that resist forces that would standardize or establish a canon. Without reversing or misrepresenting the historical hierarchies, she reveals how Sanskrit and vernacular sources are rich in knowledge of and compassion toward women and lower castes; how they debate tensions surrounding religion, violence, and tolerance; and how animals are the key to important shifts in attitudes toward different social classes.The Hindus brings a fascinating multiplicity of actors and stories to the stage to show how brilliant and creative thinkers—many of them far removed from Brahmin authors of Sanskrit texts—have kept Hinduism alive in ways that other scholars have not fully explored. In this unique and authoritative account, debates about Hindu traditions become platforms from which to consider the ironies, and overlooked epiphanies, of history.

    Not one answer, but many. Not a single history, but multiple tales cutting across laws and boundaries.’ In Bhakti poetry, Radha and Krishna disregard marital fidelity, age, time and gender for erotic love. In Sufi dargahs, pirs (spiritual guides) who were married to women are buried alongside their male disciples, as lovers are. Vatsyayana, author of the world’s most famous manual of sex, insists that he did not compose it ‘for the sake of passion’, and remained celibate through the writing of it. Long hair is widely seen as a symbol of sexuality; and yet, shaved off in a temple, it is a sacred offering. Even as the country has a draconian law to punish homosexuality, heterosexual men share the same bed without comment. Hijras are increasingly marginalized; yet gender has historically been understood as fluid rather than fixed. Menon navigates centuries, geographies, personal and public histories, schools of philosophy, literary and cinematic works, as she examines the many—and often surprising—faces of desire in the Indian subcontinent. Her study ranges from the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho to the shrine of the celibate god Ayyappan; from army barracks to public parks; from Empress Nur Jahan’s paan to home-made kohl; from cross-dressing mystics to androgynous gods. It shows us the connections between grammar and sex, between hair and war, between abstinence and pleasure, between love and death. Gloriously subversive, full of extraordinary analyses and insights, this is a book you will read to be enlightened and entertained for years.About the AuthorMadhavi Menon is professor of English at Ashoka University, and writes on desire and queer theory. She is the author of Wanton Words: Rhetoric and Sexuality in English Renaissance Drama; Unhistorical Shakespeare: Queer Theory in Shakespearean Literature and Film; and Indifference to Difference: On Queer Universalism. She is also the editor of Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

    After a brilliant academic career, he quickly became one of India's most sought after lawyers and remained at center stage for five decades. Famous for his phenomenal power of concentration and persuasive advocacy, he was a supremely successful lawyer. Early in his career, he authored one of the finest commentaries on the law and practice of income tax. His reputation as a constitutional lawyer is deservedly formidable. Between 1965 and 1995, he argued nearly all important constitutional law cases before the Supreme Court of India: Golak Nath, Bank Nationalization, Privy Purses, Kesavananda Bharati, St. Xavier's, Mandal Commission and the Election Commission matter. Palkhivala also represented India in three major international disputes. A man of many parts and strong opinions, he gave critical lectures on the annual budget, which attracted audiences in excess of 1,00,000. Amazingly, he never referred to a single note. An extraordinary human being, he gave generously, but quietly, to charitable causes.This book chronicles Palkhivala's journey as a lawyer and discusses the important cases in which he appeared and that changed the destiny of the country. The book provides a rare insight into his working methods and style of advocacy. No student of law, no lawyer, no chartered accountant, no member of the judiciary and no well-informed citizen can afford to miss reading this book.

    Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Mahabharata: "What is not in it, is nowhere." But even now, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur of life. The Mahabharata is not a mere epic; it is a romance telling the tale of heroic men and women, and of some who were divine. It is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival.

    Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it 'The Great Game', a phrase immortalized in Kipling's Kim. When play firstbegan the two rival empires lay nearly 2,000 miles apart. By the end, some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India.This book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers, both British and Russian, who risked their lives playing it. Disguised as holy men or native horsetraders, they mapped secret passes, gathered intelligence, and sought the allegiance of powerful khans. Some neverreturned.

    Considered one of American’s most brilliant writers by the journalism community, this long-awaited book debut presents Labash at his very best. A latter day Leibling, Labash’s collection will take its place alongside books by writers such as Calvin Trillin and P.J. O’Rourke..• A unique voice that’s well-connected: Labash’s well-informed insights, self-deprecating wit, and provocative candor feature regularly in The Weekly Standard and have also appeared in Washingtonian Magazine , American Spectator , and on Slate.com. Extremely well-liked and respected, his media contacts are many and varied. He has declined invitations to appear on everything from HBO Sports to Meet the Press —but is finally willing to make the rounds. As LA Weekly wrote after his Detroit piece, “it’s not new to give props to Matt Labash.”.• Remarkable collection: Full of wit, insight, and a trenchant grasp of the American scoundrel, Labash’s masterful profiles of men on the nation’s fringe—Pirate Kingfish Gov. Edwin Johnson, The Right Reverend Dr. Al Sharpton, Dirty Trickster Roger Stone—are published alongside devastating pieces on such dead or dying cities as Detroit and New Orleans; work celebrating such joyous, but overlooked pockets of American culture as Revival music and Rebirth Brass Band; and scathing, hilarious briefs on the nation’s great phonies—Michael Moore, Louis Farrakhan, Donald Trump to name a few..

    He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the communists, and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted to hiding most of his stock—almost ten thousand books—in attics all over Kabul.But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and his hatred of censorship, he also has strict views on family life and the role of women. As an outsider, Åsne Seierstad found herself in a unique position, able to move freely between the private, restricted sphere of the women—including Khan’s two wives—and the freer, more public lives of the men.It is an experience that Seierstad finds both fascinating and frustrating. As she steps back from the page and allows the Khans to speak for themselves, we learn of proposals and marriages, hope and fear, crime and punishment. The result is a genuinely gripping and moving portrait of a family, and a clear-eyed assessment of a country struggling to free itself from history.' to 'This mesmerizing portrait of a proud man who, through three decades and successive repressive regimes, heroically braved persecution to bring books to the people of Kabul has elicited extraordinary praise throughout the world and become a phenomenal international bestseller. The Bookseller of Kabul is startling in its intimacy and its details—a revelation of the plight of Afghan women and a window into the surprising realities of daily life in today’s Afghanistan.'

    More than 400 years after his death, Maharana Pratap is still revered as the supreme symbol of Rajput valour, the indomitable warrior who refused to bow to Mughal emperor Akbar as he fought alone and unaided to preserve his kingdom’s independence.In this stirring retelling of his life, replete with tales of incredible heroism and sacrifice as well as vicious intrigue and murder, renowned historian of Rajasthan Rima Hooja also examines the questions that still engage popular imagination: Who actually won the Battle of Haldighati? How did Maharana Pratap manage to elude capture by the mighty Mughal army for so long? And why did he stubbornly continue to fight on, suffering years of great hardship as he refused to negotiate peace with Akbar? Based on historical sources and contemporary court chronicles but also drawing on Mewari ballads, folklore and legends, this deeply researched yet accessibly written biography of Maharana Pratap is a compelling read.

    Much of Indian art is immediately accessible to the outsider, but much is also enigmatic, needing interpretation and guidance before it can be enjoyed in depth: the strange pantheon of the Hindu gods, the subtle insights of Buddhist mysticism, or the complex symbolism of the miniatures. For this edition, the late Professor Craven thoroughly revised the text and incorporated works by contemporary artists, linking their achievements to the traditions of Indian art. A new glossary and time line are also included.