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East
India Story
Company
dead, credo survives
A.J. Philip
The Corporation That Changed The World
How the East India Company Shaped the Modern
Multinational
by Nick Robins Orient Longman
Pages 218. Rs 295
THE
First War of Independence as the Sepoy Mutiny is referred to in
nationalist narratives is 150 this year but the country does not know
whether to celebrate it or not. Celebrations mean having to overlook the
roles many states played in suppressing the rebellion and helping the
British re-establish their control of the country.
When
peasants take their own lives
Nirmal Sandhu
Farmers Suicide
by Meeta and Rajivlochan. Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development
Administration. Pages 263. Rs 495.
Driven
by competition and profit,
the media quite often loses balance and resorts to exaggeration, little
realising the inherent dangers. One familiar instance is the recent
"spate of suicides by farmers".
Remarkable
lives
Rumina Sethi
Freeing the Spirit: The Iconic
Women of Modern India.
Ed. Malvika Singh. Penguin.
Pages 215. Rs 295.
The
end of the last century and
the beginning of the present have produced voluminous literature about
women, for women, written by women. The achievement of the last 20 years
in terms of the sheer weight of this scholarship is incredible.
Many
ways of being fit
Amar Chandel
Yoga For Every Athlete
Secrets of an Olympic coach
by Aladar Kogler
Fusion Books; Pages 310; Rs 195
Tall
claims made by some yoga
experts that it can cure everything from cancer to AIDS has caused some
misgivings, but the fact remains that the ancient science is an ideal
blueprint for leading a happy and peaceful life. It admirably takes care
of one’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs.
A
re-look at history
Randeep Wadehra
The Partition of India
by Anita Inder Singh.
National Book Trust. Pages 91. Rs 35.
Even
after six decades, Partition does not fail to arouse deep
interest—both at emotional as well as intellectual levels. There have
been serious attempts in the past to find out whether the Partition was
avoidable and/or who was primarily responsible for it. This book takes a
re-look at the events and tries to ascertain the culpability of main
actors in the tragic drama.
Food
for thought
Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu
The Table is Laid: The Oxford
Anthology of South Asian Food Writing
Eds. John Thieme and Ira Raja.
Oxford University Press. Pages 384. Rs 595.
The
Table is Laid is a feast with a difference, replete with courses
offering the reader much food for thought. The master chefs, in the
guise of editors John Thieme and Ira Raja, have brought together musings
by some of the most celebrated writers from the subcontinent. This
anthology draws on expressions by literary greats such as Ismat Chugtai,
Dom Moraes and R. K. Narayan, as well as, works by V. S. Naipaul, Salman
Rushdie and Kiran Desai, alongside translations from regional Indian
languages.
Behind
politics
Kanwalpreet
India’s Political Parties
Eds Peter Ronald deSouza and E.Sridharan. Sage, New Delhi.
Pages 418. Rs 450.
The
first and foremost aim of
each political party is to prevail over the others to get into power or
stay in it, says Joseph Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism and
Democracy. And Indian political parties have done full justice to
Schumpeter’s comments on political parties. The parties in our country
leave no stone unturned to attain power.
His
father’s son
Andrew Buncombe
All
aboard for Middle Earth!
Christopher Tolkien, son of the late, legendary creator of The Lord
of the Rings, has completed an unfinished story started by his
father which will be published this year. Tolkien has spent the past 30
years working on The Children of Hurin, which his father began in
1918 and later abandoned.
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