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Tuesday, September 17, 2024
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Book Excerpts

Harappa’s 5 mega-urban sites were located on a grid, at calculated distances

In 'Discovering India Anew: Out of Africa to its Early History', Alan Machado (Prabhu) reconstructs the history of Indian peoples from its point of origin in Africa.

IC 814 was first India-Taliban contact. So New Delhi sent a young officer to test the waters

In 'An Indian Woman in Islamabad', Ruchi Ghanashyam narrates her experience in Pakistan during the IC 814 hijack.

Bengali bhadralok culture in Tripura — Tribal women wore saris to look ‘respectable’

In 'But I Am One of You', edited by Samrat Choudhury and Preeti Gill, Jamatia recalls Tripura of the 1980s—when tribal women started covering up in urban spaces.

Wokes are destroying beauty of language. Being blunt is better than inoffensive

In 'A Wonderland of Words' Shashi Tharoor demystifies punctuation, guides us through the arcane rules of spelling and grammar, and explains a wide array of essential components of the language.

Punjabi women missing from discussions on Jallianwala Bagh—as if they didn’t suffer at all

In 'The Jallianwala Bagh Journals', Sarmistha Dutta Gupta gives more than an account of the 1919 Amritsar massacre. Her pedagogic experiment also serves as a chronicle of our own troubled times.

A visit to Pizza Hut reversed the roles between these Indian diplomats & Pakistani agents

In ‘An Indian Woman in Islamabad’, Ruchi Ghanashyam recalls her adventures in Pakistan between 1997 and 2000, when she was stationed there as a diplomat.

A Pakistani software company earned millions selling fake degrees. Its main market was India

In 'The Maz Files: Scoops, Scams, and Showdowns', journalist Mazhar Farooqui shares the events behind his thrilling stories that led to legal action against more than 250 criminals.

How a journalist discovered the middlemen making millions off Chhattisgarh Maoist-State conflict

In 'The Company of Violent Men', Siddharthya Roy reveals the personal journeys behind his reporting of violent conflicts in South Asia.

AR Rahman to Nandan Nilekani—how ‘outliers’ view failure, uncertainty

Pankaj Mishra's 'Against The Grain' dives deep into the minds of those who dared to defy convention.

Sufi saints and Sultans in Delhi—a delicate balance of asceticism and politics

In his book 'Sufi Rituals and Practices', Kashshaf Ghani traces the origin, spread, and influence of the Chishti and Suhrawardi orders of Sufism.

On Camera

The fight to revive story of Goa’s son Faria also defines its place in India today

'Goans by and large, have no sense of history. We don’t write history, unlike the Portuguese who had a record of everything,' said Konkani author Uday Bhembre.

Five debt defaults, two NPAs & 100% value erosion. MTNL barrels towards a major financial crisis

Since 2019, govt has pumped Rs 3.22 lakh crore into MTNL & BSNL. Both remain in losses. MTNL has begun to default on loans & bond payments, possibly the first large PSU to become NPA.

Did Captain & fiancée ‘attack’ cops or were they ‘manhandled’? Army to take up case with Odisha authorities

While police are quoted as saying that officer & fiancée created fracas & injured four police personnel, Army’s situational reports and his statement present a different picture.

BJP’s Northeast policy has lit new fires & reopened old wounds. And it still won’t blink

Manipur represents BJP’s unique ideological approach to governing Northeast by playing identity politics jiu-jitsu. It hasn’t gone well yet, is getting worse, but the party insists on continuing.