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An officer who
danced
Sridhar K Chari
Meandering Pastures of Memories
by Shovana Narayan Macmillan. Pages 275. Rs 285.
A
successful artiste who sets out to detail his or her personal odyssey,
her travails and triumphs on the road to artistic victory, starts out
with an advantage. The subject has an inherent appeal, and an honest
telling can well negate stylistic and structural defects.
The
case for a social leap
S.S. Negi
Judicial Reforms in India
Issues and Aspects
Ed Arnab Kumar Hazra and Bibek Debroy Academic Foundation Rs 795. Pages
330
IN
the age of globalisation, corporate governance has become the buzzword
for turnaround of the economy. The government’s apathy to judicial
reform is viewed, by the editors of this volume, as the biggest
impediment in the public sector shedding its lethargy.
Progressing
through Punjab to South Asia
Arun Gaur
South Asian Cooperation and the
Role of the Punjabs
by Tridivesh Singh Maini, Siddharth Publications, New Delhi. Pages 180.
Rs. 275.
IN
order to make South Asia a zone of power, says this book, India and
Pakistan must have a harmonious understanding and one of the easiest and
most effective ways to achieve this end is to establish a close
relationship between the West (Pakistan-side) and the East (Indian-side)
Punjab.
Ringside
view
Himmat Singh Gill
The Searching Eye
Gurdev Grewal Rupa. Pages 349. Rs 595
THE
account of a senior Bihar cadre Sikh IAS officer posted as a Joint
Secretary in the Home Ministry at New Delhi in the 1980s when Punjab was
up in strife and flame, and a ring-side view of how the self-created
‘problem’ was (mis)handled by its mentors at the Centre and from
within the state.
Beyond
the red tape
Aditi Garg
How to Placate an Angry Naga:
Finding One’s Feet in the IAS
by Leena and Jiwesh Nandan. Penguin. Pages 171. Rs 195.
YOU
can be in awe of them, you can loathe them, but you just can’t ignore
them. Think of the word bureaucrat and a variety of images pop-up in the
mind. These range from the very glamorous to the downright disgusting.
Who doesn’t envy the regal treatment meted out to them?
Poet
with a magical touch
Parwaz Ambalvi
WHEN
Munir Niazi, one of the top-ranking Urdu poets of our times, died
recently at Lahore some time back at the age of 78 years, it was a loss
not only for poets and artists but also for all those who believe in
international peace and amity.
Where
literary giants meet
Aditya Sharma
THE
literary festival at Neemrana, an annual event for the past three years,
is much-awaited because of the interface it provides between readers and
writers. This year, the event was being looked at against the background
of verbal clashes between Sir V S Naipaul and Nayantara Sahgal that took
place a couple of years ago.
Book
this fantasy
Deepika Gurdev
IF
you think you have a book in you, this might be the best time to get the
pen to paper. In the past couple of weeks, the talk in Hollywood has
been all about books that have made it to screen or writer’s lives
that are deserving enough to be lifted from the realms of pages. As more
movies continue to spin off books, recently, the spotlight has fallen on
The Inheritance Trilogy.
Important
Black history books
Carole Goldberg
Black
history, once
shamefully neglected, is a constantly unfolding source of study, as
scholars probe and revisit events and people whose impact and names have
long been known but perhaps not fully or correctly understood. Two
important book released this year are a must read.
Publish
and be awarded
IN
a big thumbs-up to independent publishing and the fight against the
caste system, the Indian Young Publisher Award has gone to a journalist
who has devoted himself to exclusively bringing out books on
caste-related issues.
SHORT TAKES
An icon, life and ecology
Randeep Wadehra
-
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
by Jasleen Dhamija National Book Trust. Pages: xiv+126. Rs 50.
-
The Book of Life
by Vikram Dev Thakur Frog Books, Mumbai. Pages 121. Rs 140.
-
Mosh-Shi
by Ashoo Deep Raina Pages 71. Price not
mentioned.
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