Preserving heritage
Reviewed by Gurpreet K. Maini
Journal of Heritage Studies: An Indian Journal on Conservation
Thomson Press. Pages 379.
IF today graffiti is diminishing our monuments, particularly the unlisted ones, there are fewer ‘pan’ splurges; they are no longer open-air urinals or defecating hubs, we owe it to the pivotal catalyst INTACH, a concept which coalesced into an NGO, seeded by Rajiv Gandhi and Pupul Jayakar in 1984.

Books received: english

Beyond the IIT dream
Reviewed by Aditi Tandon
Zero Percentile
By Neeraj Chhibba.
Rupa.
Pages 220. Rs 95.

IT's when you think you have nothing left to learn that life teaches you the best lessons. Zero Percentile, a tiny, breezy piece of work by an untried author tells you how. A few pages into the plot and you know that Neeraj Chhibba will be tried again.

Valuable lessons from life
Reviewed by Jyoti Singh
English Lessons and Other Stories
By Shauna Singh Baldwin.
Rupa. Pages 206. Rs 195.

THIS collection of short stories is a significant contribution to the genre of short story. As almost all stories revolve around the lives of various women, it would not be a hazard to state that the work is mainly "gyno-centric".

The blessed land of Gurus
Reviewed by Kanwalpreet
Life-style of the People of Punjab
Pages 204. Rs 295.

Sikh Religion: Democratic Ideals and Institutions
Pages 179. Rs 250. Both the books by Dr Sudarshan Singh. 
Singh Brothers, Amritsar.

A fertile State with robust, hard-working people and home to a young but a modern, dynamic religion, Sikhism, Punjab has been the focus of research by various scholars. Sudarshan Singh has dealt deftly with Punjab and its various facets in his two books.

Focus on changing status of Dalits
Reviewed by Rajesh Kumar Aggarwal
Mapping Dalits
by Paramjit S. Judge and Gurpreet Bal.
Rawat Publications, New Delhi.
Pages 234. Rs 575.
PRIMARILY based on the information collected from 1,600 Dalit households, divided equally among the rural and urban areas from Amritsar and Jalandhar districts, the book attempts to know the changing status of Dalits in Punjab by examining the extent of social change brought about by four variables namely education and occupation, empowerment, entrepreneurship and emigration.

Rustic ramblings
Madhusree Chatterjee
Author Radhika Jha travels into the heart of rural India with a new novel
J
ournalist-cum-social worker-turned novelist Radhika Jha, winner of the French Prix Guerlain award, has journeyed into the heart of rural India— scripting a story of change—in her new novel Lanterns on Their Horns.

Chain reaction
Forget libraries, now borrow from book chains
L
eNDING and borrowing of books is common among acquaintances. But ever imagined borrowing a book from a complete stranger? The British Council has struck upon such a concept, which it calls 'book chain', under which books can be borrowed and lent out free of cost even among strangers.

Write cause
A coffee-table book has been published to raise funds for Bahadur Shah Zafar's descendants
S
ultana Begum, the great granddaughter of the last Mughal emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar, has found an unusual saviour: a coffee-table book on the former prime ministers of India.

The President is Coming now in book form
H
aving done around 100 shows as a play and later as a movie starring Konkana Sen Sharma, The President is Coming has taken an entirely different route. It has now come out in book form and writer Anuvab Pal says that this is the last part in its artistic rendition.

Hard times for the hardback industry
Jonathan Brown
SOME of the biggest names in publishing have had a lousy season, posting spectacular sales falls in the run-up to New Year. According to the figures from Nielsen BookScan published in The Bookseller, Ben Elton has seen a 45 per cent drop in hardback sales from last year...





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