Roadmap to sound economy
Nirmal Sandhu
ICTs and Indian Economic Development
eds Ashwani Saith and M.Vijayabaskar. Sage Publications. Pages 474. Rs 850.
THIS book raises important, so-far largely unaddressed issues arising out of the IT revolution and India’s global recognition as an economic power. But don’t expect the contributors to show the way how technology can be used for mundane problems like rural development, citizen empowerment, loosening government controls through e-governance, how technology can provide tele-education and tele-medicine or ease economic pressures on individuals and how to prepare them for the present rapid change as has been done earlier by Alvin Tofler’s Future Shock.

When it goes beyond medicine
Rajdeep Bains
The Hills of Angheri
by Kavery Nambisan. Penguin. Pages 392. Rs 350.
Medicine is about life and death, surgery even more so. Patients are not just specimens to be studied, but humans with a mind as well as a body, a fact that doctors are constantly reminded of. No one, however, ponders over the humanness of the doctors themselves, who can vary between being saviours, next only to God, or Devils incarnate, at least for those who suffer from their errors.

Temperaments unravelled
Amarinder Sandhu
Rage
by Balaji Venkateswaran. Penguin. Pages 407. Rs 395.
SET in Southern India, Rage is Balaji Venkateswaran’s debut novel. It is the story of Lakshmi, a child born out of wedlock to a Brahman mother and a Moplah father. Gifted with unusual intelligence and the beauty of an "apsara", the protagonist is raised by her grandmother. At a young age, she learns never to reconcile with anyone who hurts her.

Simple writing, superior intellect
People tended to rate the intelligence of authors who wrote essays in simpler language, using an easy-to-read font, as higher than those who authored more complex works.
A new study published in the recent issue of Applied Cognitive Psychology has found that writers who use long words needlessly and choose complicated font styles are seen as less intelligent than those who stick with basic vocabulary and plain text.

Soulful flow of yearnings
Rubinder Gill
Tale of a Cursed Tree
by Beeba Balwant. Translation from Punjabi to English by Rana Nayar. Ravi Sahit Parkashan, Amritsar. Pages 328. Rs 160.
Translation is not an easy undertaking, especially of soulful poetry. Rana Nayar has succeeded to a large extent in his endeavour of putting forth Beeba Balwant’s poems for the English reading public, managing to retain the emotional yearnings of his poetry in Tale of a Cursed Tree.

Feared, not respected
A.J. Philip
Warrior of the Fourth Estate
Ramnath Goenka of the Express
by B.G. Verghese Penguin Viking, PP 342, Rs 450
RAMNATH GOENKA lived by the norms he himself set. But to search for those norms is to search for a needle in a haystack. He was a bundle of contradictions. He believed in the freedom of the Press so long as he could hire and fire his editors. He built his "fourth estate" on the solid foundations of his real estate.

From conquest to dialogue
Amar Chandel
Our Future: Consumerism or Humanism
by J.C. Kapur Published by Kapur Surya Foundation Pages 297; Price Rs 395
Consumerism and capitalism of the American kind dazzle many. After all, these are the reigning religions of today. But there are some who find these to be synonymous with decadence and the antithesis of everything that humanity stands for. The writer belongs to that select group.

Love and longing for Lahore
The city that nurtured the talent of Amrita Pritam, took the lead in holding a large literary meet in the memory of the writer mid-November while no such function has yet been organised on this side of the border, writes Nirupama Dutt
IT was announced in the function held at Alamhara Hall by World Punjabi Congress, in collaboration with several Lahori literary groups, that an Amrita Pritam Chair for Studies in Punjabi Poetry would be set up at Panjab University, Lahore. The WPC has instituted an annual poetry award in Amrita’s name.

Literary legacy
My Ear At His Heart
by Hanif Kureishi, Faber & Faber, £7.99
A touching but tough-minded memoir by one writer who became famous and fulfilled, about another writer who did not. The twist—and what a ferocious emotional grip it creates—is that the failed author was Hanif Kureishi's father. Subtitled "reading my father", My Ear At His Heart revisits the suburban childhood and bohemian youth that Kureishi has filtered, fictionally, through previous works such as The Buddha of Suburbia.

Back of the book

• Lifeguard
  by James Patterson & Andrew Gross, Headline Pages 311. Rs 395
  

• Pardonable Lies
  by Jacqueline Winspear John Murray. Pages 328. £10.99
  

• The Trouble With Islam Today
  by Irshad Manji imprintOne. Pages 258. Rs 295
  

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