Anticipating India : The best of National Interest


Shekhar Gupta - 2014
    A riveting first draft of modern Indian history, Anticipating India interprets everything from the successes and failings of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh to the ascent of Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal, from the forces that have deepened Indian federalism and constitutionalism to the public mood that keeps a check on excesses in the use of political power.Each chapter in Anticipating India, in its questioning of power, its use and abuse, carries within it ideas of India that challenge conventional wisdom, shatter stereotypes and, in the end, question our long-held assumptions of who we are as a nation and a people.

Into Egypt Again With Ships: A Message To The Forgotten Israelites


Elisha J. Israel - 2009
    This book also reveals the biblical solution that will lead to the complete liberation of a people. All those who have descended from slaves, and consider themselves to be "Negro", "Black", or "African American" should have the audacity to read this book.

The Secret Diary of Kasturba


Neelima Dalmia Adhar - 2016
    But for Kastur, the child bride who married the boy next door, Mohandas was a sexually-driven, self-righteous, and overbearing husband.Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was sworn to poverty, celibacy and the cause for India’s freedom; Kastur spent sixty-two years of her life, juggling the roles of a devoted wife, a satyagrahi and sacrificing mother, who was eclipsed because of a man who almost became God for India’s multitude. Gandhi was an intolerant father to Harilal, his wayward son, driven to debauchery; Kasturba paid the price for her son’s unending misery.Kastur is long dead, but she lives on in the pages of her diary…. Renowned author Neelima Dalmia Adhar lays it bare to tell the world what it meant to be Kasturba Gandhi, wife of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi –- in a gripping tale of unconditional love, passion, sex, ecstasy and the ultimate liberation that every woman seeks.

Whole Numbers and Half Truths


Rukmini S - 2021
    It is also defined by progressive and liberal young Indians, who vote beyond the constraints of identity, and paradoxically, by an unchecked population explosion and rising crimes against women. Is it, though?In 2020, the annual population growth was down to under 1 per cent. Only thirty-one of hundred Indians live in a city today and just 5 per cent live outside the city of their birth.As recently as 2016, only 4 per cent of young, married respondents in a survey said their spouse belonged to a different caste group. Over 45 per cent of voters said in a pre-2014 election survey that it was important to them that a candidate of their own caste wins elections in their constituency. A large share of reported sexual assaults across India are actually consensual relationships criminalised by parents. And staggeringly, spending more than Rs 8,500 a month puts you in the top 5 per cent of urban India.In Whole Numbers and Half Truths, data-journalism pioneer Rukmini S. draws on nearly two decades of on-ground reporting experience to piece together a picture that looks nothing like the one you might expect. There is a mountain of data available on India, but it remains opaque, hard to access and harder yet to read, and it does not inform public conversation. Rukmini marshals this information—some of it never before reported—alongside probing interviews with experts and ordinary citizens, to see what the numbers can tell us about India. As she interrogates how data works, and how the push and pull of social and political forces affect it, she creates a blueprint to understand the changes of the last few years and the ones to come—a toolkit for India.This is a timely and wholly original intervention in the conversation on data, and with it, India.

Sikkim: Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom


Andrew Duff - 2015
    But as tensions between India and China spilled over into war in the Himalayas, Sikkim became a pawn in the Cold War ideological battle that played out in Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. Rumours circulated that Hope was a CIA spy. Meanwhile a shadowy Scottish adventuress, the Kazini of Chakung, married to Sikkim's leading political figure, coordinated opposition to the Palace. As the geopolitical tectonic plates of the Himalayas ground together forming the political landscape that exists today, Sikkim never stood a chance. On the eve of declaring an Emergency in India, Indira Gandhi brazenly annexed the country. Thondup died a broken man in 1982; Hope returned to New York; Sikkim began a new phase as India's 22nd state.Based on interviews, archive research as well as a retracing of a journey the author's grandfather made in 1922, this is a thrilling, romantic and informative glimpse of life in Shangri La.

Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Languages


Peggy Mohan - 2021
    Delving into the fascinating early history of South Asia, this original book reveals how migration, both external and internal, has shaped all Indians from ancient times. Through a first-of-its-kind and incisive study of languages, such as the story of early Sanskrit, the rise of Urdu, language formation in the North-east, it presents the astounding argument that all Indians are of mixed origins. It explores the surprising rise of English after Independence and how it may be endangering India’s native languages.

Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition


Nisid Hajari - 2015
    Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi’s protégé and the political leader of India, believed Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand. But in August 1946, exactly a year before Independence, Calcutta erupted in riots. A cycle of street-fighting — targeting Hindus, then Muslims, then Sikhs — spun out of control. As the summer of 1947 approached, all three groups were heavily armed and on edge, and the British rushed to leave. Hell let loose. Trains carried Muslims west and Hindus east to their slaughter. Some of the most brutal and widespread ethnic cleansing in modern history erupted on both sides of the new border, searing a divide between India and Pakistan that remains a root cause of many evils. From jihadi terrorism to nuclear proliferation, the searing tale told in Midnight’s Furies explains all too many of the headlines we read today.

My life and struggle; autobiography of Badshah Khan


Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan - 1969
    Narang. Badshah Khan was the leader of the Khudai Khidmatgar (also known as the Red Shirts) in NWFP.

Saffron Swords - Centuries of Indic Resistance to Invaders


Manoshi Sinha Rawal - 2019
    Hundreds and thousands of our warriors won battles and many fought until their last breath defending the motherland.Indian History text books have hardly glorified these real warriors of the soil. We have grown up reading more about the glories of our invaders. A nation’s citizens, who are ignorant about the brave feats of their ancestors, tend to deviate away from their roots, historicity, and their sense of belongingness for the motherland. Saffron Swords that contains 52 tales of valor, is a tribute to the unsung warriors of India, both men and women, from the last 1300 years. This book is the first in its series.

Making Excellence A Habit: The Secret to Building a World-Class Healthcare System in India


V. Mohan - 2021
    While hard work, passion and focus emerge as winning lessons, delicate and tender learnings from Dr Mohan's life, such as empathy or spirituality, are not forgotten.Written in Dr Mohan's sagacious and affable voice, and peppered with examples of his bold and unusual ideas such as planning a diabetes expo or conducting a country-wide diabetes study, this book is a behind-the-scenes account of a person honoured internationally for delivering path-breaking care to hundreds of thousands of people with diabetes.

The Opium War


Brian Inglis - 1979
    

India's Legal System: Can It Be Saved?


Fali S. Nariman - 2006
    But how are lawyers and the judicial system in India perceived today? It is no secret that the very thought of facing the courts in India leaves the common man with a sense of dread and despair; cases drag on interminably, and justice sometimes seems like an afterthought. Who or what is responsible for this situation? Where have we lost our way? It is at times good to see ourselves as others see us, and the picture is not a very flattering one, argues Fali S. Nariman, renowned constitutional expert, practising lawyer and president of the Bar Association of India. In this frank and thought-provoking book, he realistically appraises the performance of those in the profession and what they need to do in the years ahead, and addresses some home truths about our country's legal system.

African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan


Thomas Lockley - 2019
    Samurai. Legend.The life of history’s first foreign-born samurai, and his journey from Northeast Africa to the heights of Japanese society.When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s, he had already traveled much of the known world. Kidnapped as a child, he had ended up a servant and bodyguard to the head of the Jesuits in Asia, with whom he traversed India and China learning multiple languages as he went. His arrival in Kyoto, however, literally caused a riot. Most Japanese people had never seen an African man before, and many of them saw him as the embodiment of the black-skinned (in local tradition) Buddha. Among those who were drawn to his presence was Lord Nobunaga, head of the most powerful clan in Japan, who made Yasuke a samurai in his court. Soon, he was learning the traditions of Japan’s martial arts and ascending the upper echelons of Japanese society.

Inferno: The Fall of Japan 1945


Ronald Henkoff - 2016
    atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the ensuing death and destruction that led to the end of World War II. The events that culminated in the fall of Japan - which forever changed the course of diplomacy, geopolitics, and warfare in the twentieth century - are vividly recreated through dramatic first-hand accounts of the major participants on both sides of the Pacific. They include: Harry Truman, the inexperienced American president who made the decision that would lead to unprecedented death and destruction; the war-mongering, but mysterious, Japanese Emperor Hirohito, who ultimately presided over his country's surrender; General Leslie Groves, the no-nonsense director of the Manhattan Project; and Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane, the Enola Gay, which dropped the very first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.

Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars


Sonia Faleiro - 2010
    In a city where almost everyone is certain that someone, somewhere, is worse off than them, she fights to survive, and to win.Beautiful Thing, one of the most original works of non-fiction from India in years, is a vivid and intimate portrait of one reporter’s journey into the dark, pulsating and ultimately damaged soul of Bombay.