Each chapter presents personal stories of women living in cities, small towns and villages in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the three lands to which Nighat Gandhi belongs. In writing their stories, she attempts to break the silence enshrouding Muslim women's sexuality and the ways in which they negotiate the restrictions placed on their freedoms within the framework of their culture. Women like Ghazala, who prefers the life of a second wife, 'living like a married single woman', to being bound within the ties of a conventional marriage, Nusrat and QT who believe theirs is a normal marriage, except that they are both women. Nisho, who refuses to accept that her trans-sexuality should deny her the right to love and Firdaus, writer and feminist, who can walk out of a loveless marriage but not give up on love, with or without marriage. Nighat also explores her own story as a woman who dared to make choices that pitted her against her family and cultures. Alternative Realities is her jihad or struggle to deconstruct the demeaning stereotypes that prevail about all Muslim women. It is a reflection of the myriad ways in which, despite these misogynistic forces, they continue to weave webs of love and peace in their own lives and in the lives of those they live with.

    This book provides an account of the life of LTTE chief Prabhakaran, who led an armed struggle against the Sri Lankan state to create Eelam, a separate nation for the Sri Lankan Tamils.The book begins from Prabhakaran’s childhood days in the aftermath of India’s and Sri Lanka’s independence from Britain. The Sri Lankan Tamils were following Gandhi’s non-violent methods to fight for their rights as citizens of Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran, an ardent fan of Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose, felt that non-violence would not work against a Sinhala dominated government and began experimenting with violent acts against the Government to send a message. His initial success became the nucleus for the formation of LTTE, which became the quintessential guerrilla organization fighting the State.The book details various incidents of Prabhakaran’s life including terror attacks, assassination of politicians, heads of States and militant leaders; India’s role in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict; Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka; the Eelam wars, negotiations, betrayals and elections; through to his killing in May 2009.

    Buzz had thought that he would only need to sacrifice one weekend a month and two weeks a year for training to earn the money that would help pay for his college tuition. He had no idea that even the newest reservists could find themselves on the battlefield in a matter of weeks. "Spare Parts recounts Williams's harrowing deployment to the Persian Gulf after only four weeks of combat training. Enduring both the condescension of full-time Marines and the danger of his limited preparation, he manages to form a core group that struggles to gain respect from a military machine that views them as mere "spare parts." In gripping, you-are-there detail, "Spare Parts articulates the grueling physical and emotional trials that Williams and his comrades must face on the killing fields of Kuwait--where some of the woefully underprepared men are able to rise to the challenge and others are broken by the horrors of battle. A compelling portrait of the more than 1.2 million reservists who stand ready to leave civilian life to defend our nation at a moment's notice, "Spare Parts adds a moving new perspective to the literature of war.

    Making two dangerous journeys beyond the frontiers of the Indian Empire, he reported back via the East India Company to Downing Street on the geography and politics of the kingdoms that lay to the northwest as far as fabled Bokhara. He travelled simply, disguised as a local, but with his rapier-like mind, an ear for languages and an infectious charm and curiosity, he had a formidable arsenal of talents at his command. In 1835, the publication of Burnes's Travels into Bokhara made him a celebrity in London, where he lectured to packed halls and was even given an audience by the King. This edition brings the heady sense of excitement, risk and zeal bursting from the pages.

    In this book, Rakesh Bakshi attempts to demystify the director's invisible and omnipotent presence in films. He documents the lives and experiences of some of the finest Hindi film-makers - Ashutosh Gowariker, Mahesh Bhatt, Prakash Jha, Shyam Benegal, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Vishal Bhardwaj, Zoya Akhtar, Santosh Sivan, Subhash Ghai, Farah Khan, Imtiaz Ali, Govind Nihalani. In fascinating interviews, these directors reveal the many and unexpected turns their lives have taken, how and why they came to direct their first films and what influenced the choices they made. About the AuthorFilm scriptwriter, director, actor, author, photographer, swimmer, walker and cyclist, Rakesh Anand Bakshi is the son of the legendary lyricist Anand Bakshi. He is the founder of Bicycle Angels, a non-profit social initiative that helps donate bicycles to the underprivileged as a means of livelihood. He loves reading biographies, self-help books and novels and watching different kinds of cinema and documentaries.

    Born to privilege as the daughter of one of Pakistan’s great feudal families, she was groomed for a diplomatic career and was thrust into the political arena when her father, Pakistan's charismatic and controversial prime minister, was executed. She then led Pakistan, one of the most turbulent and impoverished nations in the world, through two terms as prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, but she struggled to ward off charges of corruption and retain her tenuous hold on power and was eventually forced into exile. Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 2007, only to be assassinated in Rawalpindi after a triumphant speech.Including interviews with key figures who knew Bhutto and have never before spoken on the record, Benazir Bhutto: Favored Daughter illuminates Bhutto’s tragic life as well as the role she played as the first female prime minister of Pakistan. Celebrated literary critic Brooke Allen approaches Bhutto in a way not many have done before in this taut biography of a figure who had a profound effect on the volatile politics of the Middle East, drawing on contemporary news sources and eyewitness reports, as well as accounts from her supporters and her enemies.

    A rare treasure of true stories that offer a deep insight into the glamorous and sensuous Lives of the Indian and European Maharanis of India. Intriguing as well as valuable. Maharani is at once a historical romance and a sociological document, as it vividly recounts a bygone era, an era perhaps never to return again. The author served Indian Maharajas for over 50 years accompanying them on their amorous trips to private retreats in India and abroad. He brilliantly recounts the extraordinary lives of the Maharanis of the richest Men the World has ever seen."

    Its members were inspired by religious fanatics and came from many faiths, yet they worshiped one goddess, Kali. In her name, they murdered more than one million Indian travelers—all without spilling a drop of blood. Their weapon was the handkerchief, their sacrament sugar, and the gang was supposedly eradicated by the British in the 1830s.Today, a modern-day bandit named Veerappan is India's most-wanted man and most notorious criminal, responsible for more than one hundred murders. Some say he is a freedom fighter, others that he is a vicious killer. Still at large in the jungles of southwestern India, he avoids capture, his followers claim, by magical powers.In Children of Kali, Kevin Rushby researches these two criminal legends, both of which have been distorted and misused by those in power. As intrepid an investigator as he is an elegant writer, Rushby recounts his quest both to gain a meeting with Veerappan and to untangle the legends of the Thug Cult and the British policeman, William Sleeman, responsible for its suppression. He visits prisons and gangster hideouts, exploring the nature of crime and punishment in a country where good and evil may be as murky as the Ganges.A compelling blend of travel journalism and history, infused with Rushby's infectious spirit and with memorable characters, Children of Kali connects past with present and reexamines the legacy of the British Raj.

    His father, Akbar, transformed the Mughal kingdom into an empire, and his reign is often considered an epoch in itself. Jahangir's son Shahjahan built the tomb that Tagore famously described as a 'teardrop on the cheek of time', and was sometimes upheld as Akbar's true heir. Jahangir, on the other hand, has the reputation of a weak man, at best: an alcoholic with an eye for art and greed for pleasure, controlled by a powerful wife. But far from being a disinterested prince and insignificant ruler, Jahangir showed tremendous ambition and strength throughout his life. When his succession was threatened, Jahangir set up a rebel court in the face of the mighty Akbar himself. While he made no conquests to match his father's, Jahangir was the first Mughal to win the allegiance of the fearsome Ranas of Mewar. And, for all his reputed frivolity, Jahangir was the emperor who won his dynasty its glorious association with things of beauty and splendour - and who wrote one of the most perceptive and entertaining imperial memoirs of all time. The man who is most often defined by his relationships is here presented holistically as a canny ruler and conscientious administrator, an astute observer of human society and a connoisseur with wide-ranging interests. In this marvellous work of popular history, Parvati Sharma tells a compelling story of one of the most fascinating and undervalued rulers of India.

    At one swoop, it led to the creation of Bangladesh, and it tilted the balance of power between India and Pakistan steeply in favor of India. The Line of Control in Kashmir, the nuclearization of India and Pakistan, the conflicts in Siachen Glacier and Kargil, the insurgency in Kashmir, the political travails of Bangladesh--all can be traced back to the intense nine months in 1971.Against the grain of received wisdom, Srinath Raghavan contends that far from being a predestined event, the creation of Bangladesh was the product of conjuncture and contingency, choice and chance. The breakup of Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh can be understood only in a wider international context of the period: decolonization, the Cold War, and incipient globalization. In a narrative populated by the likes of Nixon, Kissinger, Zhou Enlai, Indira Gandhi, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Tariq Ali, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, and Bob Dylan, Raghavan vividly portrays the stellar international cast that shaped the origins and outcome of the Bangladesh crisis.This strikingly original history uses the example of 1971 to open a window to the nature of international humanitarian crises, their management, and their unintended outcomes.

    

    Known collectively as Henry Lawrence's young men, each had distinguished himself in the East India Company's wars in the Punjab before going on to make his name as a political on the Frontier - Herbert Edwardes, who pacified Bannu; John Nicholson, a forebear of the author, who became the terror of the Sikhs as Nikkal Seyn; Uncle James Abbot of Hazara, and many others.

    In the 1960s hundreds of thousands of young Westerners, inspired by Kerouac and the Beatles, blazed the 'hippie trail' overland from Istanbul to Kathmandu in search of enlightenment and a bit of cheap dope.Since the Summer of Love, the countries that offered so much to these dreamers have confronted the full force of modernity and transformed from worlds of Western fantasy to political minefields.Through a landscape of breathtaking beauty Rory MacLean retraces the path of the once well-worn 'hippie trail' from Turkey to Iran, Afghanistan to Pakistan, India to Nepal, meeting trail veterans and locals on his way, and relives wide-eyed adventures as he witnesses a world of extraordinary and terrifying transformation.

    Nobody has done more harm to me than Jawaharlal Nehru,' wrote Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939.Had relations between the two great nationalist leaders soured to the extent that Bose had begun to view Nehru as his enemy? But then, why did he name one of the regiments of the Indian National Army after Jawaharlal? And what prompted Nehru to weep when he heard of Bose's untimely death in 1945, and to recount soon after, 'I used to treat him as my younger brother'?Rudrangshu Mukherjee's fascinating book tracks the growth of these two towering figures against the backdrop of the independence movement, delicately tracing the contours of a friendship that did not quite blossom as political ideologies diverged, and delineates the shadow that fell between them-for, Gandhi saw Nehru as his chosen heir and Bose as a prodigal son.Nehru and Bose: Parallel Lives brings to light the riveting story of two contrasting personalities who would go on to define modern India.

    His unique knowledge of this complex, war-torn region gives him a panoramic vision and grasp of nuance that no Western writer can emulate.