Book Review

Articles

• A Gripping Autopsy of Japan | M R Narayan Swamy
  3 September 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  __0__ ’Orienting: An Indian in Japan’ by Pallavi Aiyar
  HarperCollins India https://harpercollins.co.in/product/orienting/ 2021 Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages ₹ 499.00 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9354227643 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9354227646
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  Life in Japan can be stranger than fiction.
  Indian journalist and author Pallavi Aiyar realized this during a four-year stay in Japan as she probed the inscrutable Japanese and their way of life, discovering in the process why people in the (…)

• Review of Nandita Haksar’s Shooting the Sun | Md Umar Faruque
  5 April 2025

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Shooting the Sun: Why Manipur Was Engulfed by Violence and the Government Remained Silent
  by Nandita Haksar
  Speaking Tiger
  ISBN: 978-93-5447-701-0
  Year:2023
  Price: Rs 399/-
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  Manipur has been engulfed in violence since May 3, 2023. So far, hundreds have lost their lives, countless homes have been destroyed, and thousands remain displaced in relief camps. The economy has collapsed, and the education system lies in ruins. (…)

• Review of Singh’s My Tributes to Socialist Leaders | Harish Sharma
  12 July 2025

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  My Tributes to Socialist Leaders by Prem Singh
  Foreword by Ravela Somayya, Dr. A. Raghu Kumar
  Southern Springs Publishers (under the auspices of Rammanohar Lohia Samata Nyas), Hyderabad ISBN:978-81-962788-1-6 pp. 125, Price Rs 250
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  It has rightly been asserted that the socialist tradition in India deserves a place in the narrative in the making of modern India. This assertion is made in the context of the contribution (…)

• Social justice warriors effecting the change | Joydip Ghosal
  10 February 2023

  Review Joydip Ghosal *
  __0__ Being the Change: In the Footsteps of the Mahatma
  by Ashutosh Salil, Barkha Mathur
  HarperCollins India (23 September 2022) Paperback ‏ : ‎ 176 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9356291985 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9356291980
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  The only way to find God is to see Him in His creation and be one with it. This can only be done by service of all…..My countrymen are my nearest neighbours. They have become so helpless, so resourceless, so inert that I must concentrate myself on (…)

• Choices, Priorities, Freedoms and Mahbub ul Haq | Aijaz Ahmed
  25 May 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Reflections on Human Development Edited by Mahbub ul Haq
  Oxford University Press Inc. UK
  1996, 272 pages Price: 34 pounds
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  The central theme of Mahbub ul Haq’s book, Reflections on Human Development, revolves around a novel development paradigm centered on human well-being. It argues that while income growth is important, it should not be seen as the sole indicator of development nor as the ultimate goal of human life. (…)

• When Sonu Sood Beat Santa Claus | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  5 March 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  Title: I Am No Messiah; Author: Sonu Sood with Meena K. Iyer; Publisher: Ebury Press (Penguin Random House); Pages: 215; Price: Rs 399
  This is a heart-warming and a candid account of how actor Sonu Sood achieved the impossible: in the worst nightmarish months of Covid-19, he became a one point of hope and instant action for countless people across the country and beyond. At a time when administrations appeared to collapse and “celebrities” retreated into safe cocoons, this man from Moga (…)

• Scholarly Inauguration Of New Genre Of Biography | Vijay Kumar
  26 July 2024, by Vijay Kumar

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Of Law And Life by Upendra Baxi
  in conversation with Arvind Narrain, Lawrence Liang, Sitharamam Kakarala, Sruti Chaganti
  Orient BlackSwan 2024 Pages 582 | Price Rs.2300/-
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  The Book: OF LAW AND LIFE: Upendra Baxi in conversation with Arvind Narrain, Lawrence Liang, Sitharamam Kakarala, Sruti Chaganti is a unique book. It has inaugurated radically new genre which straddles rich and varied forms. It is certainly not an (…)

• A Reality Check on Operation Sindoor |
  19 March, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]

• When Thugs and Dacoits Defied the British | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  19 November 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
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  Tales of Crimes Past: A Casebook of Crime in Colonial India
  by Sunil Nair
  Hachette India
  Pages: 226; Price: Rs 599
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  They were thugs, they held the authorities in contempt, they strangled innocent travellers at will, and they never showed remorse for the innumerable cold-blooded murders they committed. But they were a bizarre lot. Before they set out to kill, they studied good and bad omens. Welcome to the world of thuggery in British India.
  According to (…)

• Hao Chen Review of Price’s Cold War Deceptions
  21 September 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Cold War Deceptions:
  The Asia Foundation and the CIA
  by David H. Price
  University of Washington Press
  2024. 358 pp.
  (paper), ISBN 978-0-295-75224-2
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  Reviewed by Hao Chen (Dartmouth College)
  In his most recent book, Cold War Deceptions: The Asia Foundation and the CIA, anthropologist and historian David H. Price offers one of the most comprehensive accounts that examines the covert operation and financial maneuvering (…)