Engendering resistance
Rumina Sethi
Writing Resistance: A Comparative Study of the Selected Novels by Women Writers.
by Usha Bande. Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla. Pages 293. Rs. 350.
Resistance and Womanhood have long been contradictory categories since methods of empowerment have never been central to political, cultural or social agendas. Only in terms of a religious iconography, there exist examples of female power, but recent feminist criticism has demystified such well-preserved postulations that are often invoked to quell resistance among women.

Matter of faith
Ashok Vohra
The Sikh Vision of Heroic Life and Death
by Nirbhai Singh. Singh Brothers, Amritsar Pages 288. Rs 595
ONE of the most significant distinguishing characteristics of a community - especially the warrior communities, religions or nations is their conception of heroic life – a life which is worthwhile—and the attitude towards death in accomplishing that vision.

Archives made accessible
Parshotam Mehra
The Emergence of India and Pakistan
ed S.K. Sharma. Pentagon Press. Pages XIV+500. Rs 1,250.
NOT unlike the Rebellion of 1857, the partition that resulted in the birth of India and Pakistan, a respectable six decades away, has spawned an impressive corpus of literature. And in a rich variety of genre. There are the memoirs of those who lived through the trauma and experienced it at first-hand, both its grief and gore. Not a few saw it from a distance and were deeply affected.

Reeds in the wind
Shalini Rawat
Midway Station: Real-life Stories of Homeless Children
by Lara Shankar. Penguin. Rs 150. Pages: 99
According to a report published by the United Nations, there are 150 million children aged three to 18 years on our streets today—and their numbers are growing fast. Some left the harsher realities of the place called ‘home’ on their own accord, some were abandoned, while the rest have known no other place but the pavements as their home since birth.

Praja Mandal struggle
B.S. Thaur
Freedom Struggle in East Punjab States
by Chander Shekhar Azad Azad Publications. Rs. 200. Pages 233
THE book is a compendium of letters from freedom fighters of Patiala and East Punjab States Union who rose to a position of eminence during and after freedom struggle. They include Justice Harbans Lal and Rana Jang Bahadur Singh, Editor of The Tribune when the ‘struggle’ was at its peak.

The world around us
Jayanti Roy
Fourth Estate: Strengthening Environmental Reporting in South Asia
A Handbook on Air, Water and Land pollution
ed. Manraj Grewal and Navdeep Kahol B.R. Publishing Corporation, New Delhi Pages 102. Price not mentioned.
THE other day at a specialised science seminar, one of the scientists made a remark ridiculing journalists/reporters about misreporting the technicality involved in his scientific presentation. It is quite obvious that reporters cannot be expert in each and every field that they report. Nonetheless, a minimum level of understanding is expected of them despite the pressure of deadlines and stressful conditions.

The Potter before Harry came on the scene
Scott Moore
HER name was Beatrix Potter. From the time she was 15, Miss Potter recorded her everyday life in journals written in a secret code. She also made detailed drawings of plants, fungi and insects, and she later painted landscapes of the countryside. Clearly she was talented. And Miss Potter had many friends. But they didn’t look like you and me. She and her younger brother, Bertram, had lots of pets, including lizards, water newts, a frog, a bat and a snake.

In praise of Sonia
Mukul Bansal
Sonia Gandhi: Tryst with India
by N. I. Sarkar Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi Pages 169. Rs 350
THE book is a panegyric on Sonia Gandhi. It performs the task—of describing her political life— reasonably well but for the author’s tendency to put his exuberant seal of approval on every action and gesture of Mrs Gandhi. On tackling corruption, poverty and crime in the country, the author says, "She is with the task (sic) almost as impossible as climbing the Mt Everest but doing her best for that."

Set the market free
Rajiv Lochan
Reviving the Invisible Hand: The Case For Classical Liberalism In The Twenty First century
by Deepak Lal. Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2006. Pages 320 Rs. 895.
THIS is a preachy book written by one of the most well-known exponents of classical economic liberalism. Its basic contention is about getting the government out of controlling the national economy. Using information from across continents and centuries, Lal makes out a case for the importance of allowing a people to find their own economic level of existence without interference from the government.

Archer reinvents Judas
Jonathan Thompson
Jeffrey Archer the disgraced former peer, is to publish a controversial new book entitled The Gospel According to Judas, which will attempt to rehabilitate the most reviled man in Christendom. The book, to be released in March, will attempt to reposition Judas not as the traitor who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, but as a seasoned politician who hands over his master as part of a plan to throw the Romans out of the Jewish homeland.

SHORT TAKES
Farmers and Banda Bahadur
Randeep Wadehra

• Condition of Indian Peasantry
  by G.S. Bhalla National Book Trust. Pages: xvi+94. Rs 40
  

• The IITs: Slumping or Soaring
  by Shashi K. Gulhati Macmillan, N. Delhi. Pages: xii+133. Rs 140
  

• Banda Bahadur
  by M.S. Chandla Aurva Publications, Chandigarh. Pages: xv+238. Rs 250
  

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