In 1991, the Reserve Bank of India had to open its vaults and allow 67 tonnes of gold to be airlifted out of India, which was pledged with different banks abroad to raise a loan of $600 million. Th
Esha Pandey i
A lot has changed in the 21st century. The battle to empower women, to make them stand on a level ground with men is a goal which all of us today don’t see as far-fetched. People have b
What is today the mother of all imbroglios, Kashmir, was a script directed by the wily British rulers, as part of their design to divide India. The British had used Mohammad Ali Jinnah to v
Shiv Visvanathan rightly prefers to be introduced as a social science nomad. He is an itinerant thinker, wandering across boundaries of academic disciplines and professions. An anthology of
The editors of Water: Growing Understanding, Emerging Perspectives faced a considerable challenge in selecting 29 articles that were published previously in the journal Economic and Politi
Physician-turned-author, Devdutt Pattanaik, is known for weaving magic around Indian mythology, making it simpler for the common reader. And when he combines mythology with the concepts of teamwork
Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, is a great fan of Twitter and other social-media forums. As chief minister, this gave him a tech-savvy image, helping to connect with youngsters. As prim
“As president of the Akademi, I may tell you quite frankly I would not like the prime minister to interfere with my work.” – Jawaharlal Nehru, first president, Sahitya
Sahitya Akademi award winning poet Ashok Vajpeyi returned his award in 2015 supporting “the right to dissent”, and was instrumental in the protest against the murder of writers. Vaj
Book: Himalaya: Meditation, Adventure, Life Edited by: Ruskin Bond and Namita Gokhale Pages: 444
Democracy today is changing. It is not a passive exercise anymore where the only participation fro
K Vijay Kumar, 64, is the man who headed the special task force (STF) that hunted down notorious bandit Koose Muniswamy Veerappan on October 18, 2004 in an operation code-named Cocoon. Kumar, a
Ever since the rise of subaltern history in India in the 1980s, there is a widespread attention to marginalised groups which were earlier ignored by mainstream historians. However, the inco
What does philanthropy mean to India? For a country battling with inequalities at so many levels – health, gender, income – international aid has been a major support since inde
Book: Health Care Reforms in India: Making up for lost decades Author: Rajendra Pratap Gupta Publisher: Reed Elsevier India Pvt.
I Ramamohan Rao, a former principal information officer, passed away on May 13. A professional communicator, Rao had been witness to crucial chunks of history like 1971 war with Pakistan, and fight
In 1998, as a 12-year-old, I was fascinated by the spectacle on display in t
Fragmented and dysfunctional. K Sujatha Rao has no reluctance in referring to these two words when describing the Indian healthcare scenario in her magisterial overview, “Do We Care? India&rs
What is the biggest crisis India’s health care sector is going through? It is a loaded question. As you have seen in my book [‘Do We Care: India’s H
Heavily sweetened dirty deals have always raised a stink and there is no end to insatiable greed. The problem in this country is that the morbid stench of corruption is no longer ov
In 2007, Shyamlal Yadav, then a senior journalist with India Today magazine, decided to use the RTI law, enacted only two years ago, to find out the details of foreign trips made by union ministers
Bimal Roy – synonymous with the aesthetics of cinema… evolved into a legend in his lifetime, writes Shoma A Chatterji in her book which is an in-depth account of the great filmmaker&rs
If water had memory, the Ganga would tell a story that begins in pure joy in the Himalayas and ends in the tragedy of pollution. It would remind us of its simple and holy beginnings in the hills,
When Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski – who became the writer Joseph Conrad – was christened, his father Apollo Korzeniowski wrote him a poem that is in retrospect chillingly poig
Idealism of youth often meets with an anti-climax. And when that happens one surely gains perspective. In 2003, when I first read Raag Darbari by Shrilal Shukla, which was part of self-education cu
While judging a book by its cover is considered unfair, judging it by its title should not lead to the same charge, especially when the author – a veteran of legal profession, an acclaimed co
For a novice reader, MK Gandhi presents a formidable challenge.
There’s no dearth of self-help books. They come in a multitude of single-topic and hybrid varieties: habit change, management, habit change in management, spirituality, spirituality in manage
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the new president of Sri Lanka, won the November elections that were held amid continued polarization in the island nation. As defence secretary, he had led the government&rsquo
Sit Your Self Down A Novice’s Journey into the Heart of Vipassana By Gayatri Jayaraman Hachette India, 212 pages, Rs 399
