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Acts of
resistance
Shelley Walia
Listening to Grasshoppers:
Field Notes on Democracy
By Arundhati Roy.
Hamish Hamilton.
Pages 252. Rs 499.
EMiliano
Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary, said in a speech in 1914:
"It is not only by shooting bullets in the battlefield that
tyranny is overthrown, but also by hurling ideas of redemption, words
of freedom and terrible anathema against the hangmen that people bring
down dictators and empires."
Bapu
in sync with Nature
Nonika Singh
Gandhi and the Environment
By T. N. Khoshoo and John S. Moolakkattu.
TERI Press, New Delhi.
Pages 152. Rs 250.
MoST
Indians identify the father of the nation as the man who led India’s
freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi’s admirers swear by his philosophy
of swadeshi, satyagraha, truth and above all remember
him as an apostle of non-violence.
The
forgotten world
Rachna Singh
Recovering the Lost Tongue:
The Saga of Environmental Struggles in Central India
By Rahul Banerjee
Prachee Publications
Pages 345. Rs 250.
Snippets
of environmental and social struggles of the indigenous populace of
Central India have often reached urban centres through the media. But
such stories go through a process of dehumanization even as they
become print in a newspaper.
Complexities
of economy
B.S. Thaur
India and the Global
Financial Crisis
By Y.V. Reddy.
Orient Blackswan.
Pages 397. Rs 595.
THIS
book is the need of the time when the world economies are reeling
under the worst kind of financial meltdown that emanated from the US.
Though the recession started brewing in 2007, it burst in the last
quarter of 2008 when big banks like Lehman Brothers with worldwide
operations became bankrupt.
‘I
wanted a gay protagonist’
Madhusree Chatterjee
Writer-reviewer
Neel Mukherjee, whose book Past Continuous has won the Vodafone-Crossword
Books Award 2008, feels that writings on alternative sexuality are
gradually coming out of the closet in India.
The sound of music
Pandit
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt needs
no introduction in the world of music. Creator of Mohan Veena and
winner of Grammy Award, Bhatt has taken Indian classical music to new
heights. Over the years he has become the cultural ambassador of
India. The government has also recognised his contribution to Indian
music by awarding him Padma Shri.
They
filled the Met with treasures
Christopher Knight
A profile of Thomas P.
Campbell in a recent issue of the New Yorker limns the
Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new director in what instantly became
the standard portrait when news broke that he got the job last
September. He’s a scholarly and unassuming curator, not known for
being adept at the social razzle-dazzle that generates publicity and
philanthropy, and therefore a surprising choice to lead a major
American art museum.
India
still caged
AS
India steps into the 62nd year of Independence, renowned sociologist
Dipankar Gupta questions its "rags-to-riches" story and says
the country is still "caged in backwardness". In his new
book The Caged Phoenix — can India Fly? Gupta draws a
comparison between a phoenix and free India.
SHORT TAKES
An eerie love story
Randeep Wadehra
The Eternal Bond
By Ujjal Singh Cheema.
Punjab Book Centre.
Pages 164. Rs 120.
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