More in Books
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Minibook: Fighting Red
Downloadable minibook which is a collection of essays on left wing extremism.
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Review of Londonistan
Book Review of Londonistan, By Melanie Phillips.
The author casts a critical eye on the direction British society and the nation have taken that seem to have resulted in a radicalization of the Islamic community in the country. -
Book review: Le miasme et la jonquille
Le miasme et la jonquille: L’odorat et l’imaginaire social, XVIIIe-XIXe siècles by Alain Corbin. Alain Corbin nobly wants to rescue the sense of smell from its ignored position as a baser and less important sense, and put it in its rightful place in the narrative of modern French history....
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The Profession and the Training of a Journalist – Part 1
Note: This is a translation of one of D.V. Gundappa’s essays in the Kannada book titled, Vruttapatrike (Newspaper) first published in 1928. The essay in the original Kannada is titled, Kasabu, Tayari (Literally: Profession, training). This translation has omitted a few sentences from the original for the sake of brevity,...
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Book Review: Lokamanya Tilak – a biography
Late Prof. A. K. Bhagwat and Prof. G. P. Pradhan have compiled the biography of Shri Bal Gangadhar Tilak, commemorating his birth centenary in 1956, with a foreword by Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Jaico Publishing House has published it in 2011. I got this copy from Crosswords Mumbai (R city, Ghatkopar)....
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Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II
Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, by Madhushree Mukherjee Eye-opening, gut-wrenching account of the horrors of famine, of genocide and war-crimes perpetrated on an occupied landBetween 3 and 5 million people died of starvation and famine in Bengal in India in 1943. The...
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Book Review: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, by Christopher Hitchens “There Was Less to The Mother Than Met The Eye, and Worse Than We Wanted To See” Christopher Hitchens’ iconoclastic polemic against Mother Teresa makes for riveting reading. Uncomfortable questions are raised that beget even more uncomfortable answers. An...
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Book Review – Our Moon Has Blood Clots
A journey to the center of the Heart Truth has a remarkable quality about it. It reverberates loud and clear even when it is whispered. It can travel a long way even when it is feeble. Truth never gets tired, it never rests nor does it ever die. In fact,...
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“Our Moon Has Blood Clots” – Review
Rahul Pandita’s “Our Moon has Blood Clots” is an eye opener in many ways. The first generation of victims’ fear of facing the past, the next generation’s apathy, the rhetoric of the political class and the propaganda of anti-national forces have all pushed the tragic story of the exodus of...
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The Incredible Savagery of War, to Restore & Uphold Dharma
Mahabharata, Vol. 6. Translated by Bibek Debroy The sixth installment of Bibek Debroy’s translation of the unabridged Mahabharata, based on the Critical Edition by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, features perhaps the fiercest fighting in the 18-day war, as well as a descent into an all-out, no-holds barred bloodfest with no rules left...
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Interrogating Pankaj Mishra’s Weltanschauung
From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia, Pankaj Mishra, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012, 356 pages Pankaj Mishra is a fascinating creature. He was born to a family of pauperized Brahmins in Jhansi, a small town in the north of India in 1969. By the age of...
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The Gujarat Electoral Calculus -Downloadble PDF
Predicting electoral outcomes in India is almost an occult science that involves a lot of mysteries like imagined caste-vote tilts and representative sample sizes that try to fathom voter perceptions regarding government’s performance et al. For a nation of 1.2 billion people with a million castes/religions/languages/ethnic groups, even after 65...
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Durbar and Idea of India
Durbar and Idea of India Some words and phrases gain traction from time to time in our daily discourse. One such word that I have noticed being used quite often these days is ‘Idea of India’. It is a lofty phrase and a flexible one too. Suddenly in every discussion...
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Indianomix – Wait for the Movie!
Indianomix: Making Sense of Modern India by Vivek Dehejia and Rupa Subramanya A Good Freakonomics-Style Book on India Will Have to Wait The trend, the craze, the fashion, that Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist sparked makes it way to an Indian context with this book, but the effects are less than spectacular. A plethora...