Rights over needs
Rumina Sethi
Grass-roots NGOs by Women for Women: The Driving Force of Development in India.
Femida Handy, Meenaz Kassam, Suzanne Feeney and Bhagyashree Ranade. Sage, New Delhi. Pages 236. Rs 320.
Feminist studies have grown at such a pace in the last three decades that the connection between grassroots activity and theory is well nigh lost. Jargon-ridden gender studies departments at universities can scarcely accommodate the real struggles of women, their frustrations, their marginalised status at home and in the public space and their changing relationships with a rapidly mushrooming global world.

Majestic and imposing
Roopinder Singh
Mansion Nonpareil—Marvel on Raisina Hill
Satish Mathur. President’s Secretariat, Rashtrapati Bhavan, Delhi. Pages 163. Rs 2,100.
THE most magnificent residence of the head of any democratic state, Rashtrapati Bhavan towers above the other edifices of Lytton’s Delhi. Inaugurated in 1931, the building had taken 20,000 workers and 3,000 stonecutters 17 years to build, mainly because of World War I.

Labour reforms, Asian experience
J. Sri Raman
Labour Market Regulation and Deregulation in Asia, Experiences in Recent Decades.
Ed. Caroline Brassard and Sarthi Acharya. Academic Foundation (in association with Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore), New Delhi. Pages 229. Rs. 595.
Labour market reforms are less often talked about than market reforms themselves. And, when the subject is raised, it is usually as a result of a headline-hitting instance of labour unrest that represents only a minuscule section of the employment market.

Unanswered questions
Amarinder Sandhu
Letters for Paul
Anu Kumar. Mapin. Pages 202. Rs 295.
ADITI, the protagonist, is a school-going teenager whose police officer father is transferred to Cuttack. As she adjusts to the relocation, an acid-throwing incident happens not far from the Circuit House where the family stays. The attack victim happens to be the granddaughter of an author who "wrote several novels glorifying the heroes of the Naxalite movement".

Got lynched, almost
Harish Dhillon
First Proof II (The Penguin Book of New Writing in India)
Penguin, New Delhi. Pages 288. Rs 275.
I have never been able to understand the business of negative reviews. I cannot understand how the reviewer forces himself to wade through a book he does not like reading, and then spends so much time and effort tearing it to pieces.

Of people and places
Jamila Verghese
So Many Journeys
by Shiela Gujral Allied publishers. Pages 142 Rs 295
THE rust gold gleam of placid water on the cover of Sheila Gujral’s latest book says it all. So Many Journeys is a panorama of a life experienced in many places and on several planes of existence. She extols the joys of solitude and writes with sensitivity. She pleads for rehumanising of the mind.

Hitler jokes throw light on Third Reich
Hitler may have been a fascist, but Germans living under his iron fist made full use of humour as a stress buster, says a new book. Here is a sample of "Nazi humour" from German film director and screenplay writer Rudolph Herzog’s "Heil Hitler, The Pig is Dead"—the punch-line to another Hitler joke—that releases this month: "Hitler visits a lunatic asylum.

Chomsky tops best-seller list
Chris Lee
NOAM Chomsky's 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, shot to No. 1 on the Amazon.com best-seller list just two days after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez held it up during a speech to the United Nations.

PUNJABI REVIEW
Govt rules and poetic prose
Surinder Singh Tej

• Sarkari Karamcharian Virudh Sazaa Ate Appeal Niyma Adhin Karvaai
  by Dr. Arvinder Singh Lokgeet Parkashan, Chandigarh Pages 259. Rs 250
  

• Malkauns
  by Pritam Singh Rahi Ravi Sahit Parkashan, Amritsar Pages 120. Rs 125
  

• Thari Yaad Chokhi Aave
  by Vishal Roopi Parkashan, Amritsar Pages 119. Rs 100
  

• Anhad Naad
  by Harchand Singh Giani Dit Singh Memorial Trust, Ludhiana Pages 40. Price not stated
  

HOME