Sunday,
December 1, 2002 |
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Books |
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Off the Shelf
Stafford
Cripps, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru
V. N. Datta
SOME of us still remember
Sir Stafford Cripps’s visit to India. A general feeling prevailed
then that his visit to India would free us from the fetters of
British rule and lead to a dawn of freedom. We thought that his
visit was an American gift because that inveterate foe of India, the
arch-imperialist Winston Churchill, had been forced by the then US
President Roosevelt to put pressure on him to take concrete steps
for establishing self-government in India.
A
General holds out for his men in olive
Himmat Singh Gill
Officially At Peace
by Shankar Roychowdhury. Viking Penguin, India. Pages: 326. Rs 495.
GENERAL
Roychowdhury, who became the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) in
November 1994 after the sudden demise of Gen Bipin Joshi, has
written a candidly honest account of the worrisome meanderings of
the fourth largest army in the world in the political and
bureaucratic corridors of New Delhi.
Motivation
is not just carrot and stick
Peeyush Agnihotri
The Coaching Manager
by James M. Hunt and Joseph R. Weintraub. Response Books, Sage
Publications. Rs 295. Pages 252.
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
— John F. Kennedy
WE need to learn certain
things second hand. There is not enough time for us to make all
mistakes ourselves. This axiom holds true in the world of corporate
management where one mistake might prove to be a boon for the
competitors and nemesis for the one who made the error.
Bhai
Gurdas, more than a chronicler
Nirbhai Singh
Bhai Gurdas: The First Sikh Scholar
by Surinderjit Singh Pall. Amritsar: Chattar Singh Jiwan Singh.
Pages 216. Rs 200
THE book under review is on
Bhai Gurdas, scribe of Guru Granth Sahib. It is an addition
in Sikh literature, an exegetical work rendered into English for the
benefit of those who don’t know Punjabi. It can be useful for the
Sikhs living in foreign countries. The author makes it clear that he
banked upon two earlier English translations of Bhai Gurdas’s Vaar.
Love
in the time of John Company
Rajnish Wattas
White Mughals: Love and
betrayal in eighteenth century India
by William Dalrymple. Viking India. Rs 650. Pages: 501.
"THE story of James
Achilles Kirkpatrick and Khair un-Nissa, shows East and West are not
irreconcilable and never have been. Only bigotry, prejudice, racism
and fear drive them apart. But they have met and mingled in the
past; and they will do so again." This is essence of the
tragic-tale of love in White Mughals.
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