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Career in Law
by Manish Arora; Universal
Law Publishing Co., Delhi; Pages 136; Rs 95.
 A second edition
within the span of one year can be a matter pride for any book
and its author. And this is what this book has achieved. First
published in 2001, it is now running its second edition, telling
students why they should opt for law as a profession, where to
study law and, above all, what career opportunities law opens to
them.
Step by step, it
explains to the young entrants such details of a legal career as
they would want to know. He begins with law and justice and
moves on to the whole range of the legal system. There are tips
on how to gain success at the bar, and an interesting chapter on
cyber connection, explaining the role of technology in law
practice.
The book tells
young lawyers how to choose a senior and what to look for in a
senior. There is a chapter on women lawyers which explains the
confidence the presence of a woman lawyer gives to the victims
of crime against women.
A useful section
deals with where to study law in this country and abroad.
Symbol of
Humanity — Nehru
by Harish Chander and
Padmini; Tara Art Printers, Noida: Pages 159; Rs 300.
 Anecdotes
connected with the life of India’s first Prime Minister are
legion. The husband-wife team of Harish Chander and Padmini has
taken pains to collect such tit-bits from several members of the
household staff of Pandit Nehru, and when Harish Chander took
these stories to newspapers, they were not willing to accept
these, saying that these were the figments of his imagination.
Undeterred, Harish Chander started his own paper from Noida
which gained considerable popularity because of these stories
serialised in it. He also published these stories in book form
in Hindi which won an award from the Ministry of Human Resource
Development. The present volume is an English translation of the
Hindi book.
It is a collection
of 51 anecdotes which highlight different aspects of Nehru’s
personality. The stories include Nehru’s efforts to bring
peace to Nepal when the Ranas were up against King Tribhuvan;
How the Prime Minister apologised to Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee
for a misunderstanding over a Lok Sabha speech of the latter;
how the Prime Minister organised the burial of his childhood
companion, a poor man called Khalid, who had become Indira
Gandhi’s driver. These and other anecdotes listed in the book
illustrate the human side of India’s first Prime Minister and
how his gestures brought joy to others. The authors could have,
however, done without the elaborate rhetoric that accompanies
each piece.
Edgar Allan
Poe’s Influence on Detective Fiction
by Anupam Bansal; Prakash
Book Depot, Bareilly; Pages 152; Rs 120.
 This is the work
that earned its author a doctorate. She presents Poe as the
pioneer of detective fiction, as distinct from mystery and
horror stories, and traces his stamp on the works of such
eminent detective story writers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K.
Chesterton and Agatha Christie. Even if these writers, with
their artistic excellence, elevated detective fiction to great
literary heights, the author traces in their writings the
pattern and broad principles laid down by Poe.
She picks up three
stories of Poe "The Mystery of Marie Roget", "The
Murders in Rue Morgue", and "The Purloined
letter" as the models of nineteenth century detective
fiction and explores Poe’s influence on major detective
writings. Poe introduced scientific methods and principles in
the detection of crime. Poe’s detective, Dupin, employs these
tools to solve the murder mystery in The Mystery of Marie
Roget.
Several writers in
the early decades of the 19th century, Anupam Bansal points out,
had the ingredients of detective fiction but none could
formalise the technique of writing detective stories. The reader
had to wait till 1841 when Poe’s The Murders in the Rue
Morgue was published. His detective, Dupin, who figures in
the three stories selected by the author for this study, became
the prototype of fictional sleuths such as Sherlock Holme,
Father Brown, Hercule Poirot and many others. Poe. she
maintains, has left his imprint on detective fiction from his
time to the present day.
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HUMAN
rights are universal but their violation is so widespread that
it is impossible to limit them to any particular country or
region. Nazi atrocities during the second world war prompted
the United Nations to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights in 1948. This document has since become the cornerstone
of all human rights work done all over the globe. Some results
have been achieved — apartheid has ended and there is
worldwide awareness about respect for the rule of law. Yet
challenges remain and here and there we witness instances of
mass murders and people continue to be discriminated against
because of their race, religion or gender.
