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Book Excerpts

Believe it or not — Amitabh Bachchan’s baritone voice was rejected by All India Radio

Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome not only launched the ‘art’ cinema movement, but it also launched the career of Amitabh Bachchan — ironies never cease to exist.

In wrong place at wrong time: Forgotten story of Operation Blue Star’s ‘Jodhpur detainees’

375 unarmed men, women & children were found in Golden Temple when Army entered on 6 June 1984. They remained in Jodhpur Central Jail for the next 4–5 years.

How Rediff On The NeT first created a template for the Hindu Right online in the 1990s

Rediff was, arguably, the first Indian publication, online or otherwise, to unapologetically feature three very strong Hindu Right-wing voices of the time.

How as a young boy, Hariprasad Chaurasia came to choose music over wrestling, flute over sitar

The story goes that one day, the priest, who often saw the young Hariprasad singing bhajans with the others, asked him to sing solo. And this is what followed.

China is intelligently feeding PM Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ dream

From the automobile industry to solar power, China is making its presence felt in India. And it shows on its FDI records.

Mysore’s chief engineer built a dam long before Nehru wanted a modern ‘temple’ in India

The Krishna Raja Sagara Dam project was politically & financially overwhelming. Visvesvaraya once threatened to quit if the Maharaja of Mysore didn't approve it.

Why this MIT student’s paper on Indian liberalisation threatened trade economists

In Good Economics for Hard Times, Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee write about the link between liberalisation and inequality in India.

Chess player memory is a myth. This is my trick before matches, writes Viswanathan Anand

When I was younger, I could recall every chess game I played. Now, I often don’t have complete memory of a game I played a week ago.

How did RSS become Hindu messiah in India? Disaster relief since 1947

The 'dedication' of RSS during riots in 1940s enabled it to 'establish its image as the saviour of Hindus’ and expand its influence in Punjab, J&K, Delhi.

Indians want govts to be run like corporations, but this is why a country is not a company

Former civil servants Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah write that we in India revere success and wealth. We assume good HR practices in TCS will work in govt.

On Camera

Dhankhar’s resignation: How Modi-Shah’s ‘capable’ BJP has served another strong message to RSS

One has to be incredibly credulous to buy BJP spin masters’ argument that the government got rid of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar for harmonious relationship with the judiciary.

Unclaimed deposits worth Rs 67,000 crore lying in banks, 87% in public sector banks alone, Parliament told

SBI holds Rs 19,239 crore in unclaimed deposits, or 26% of the abandoned money in public banking system. PNB, Canara Bank follow.

India wanted a stable, prosperous Pakistan but our peace efforts were mistaken for weakness: Rajnath

Modi government had also made numerous efforts to establish peace with Pakistan but has now adopted a different path, militarily, to establish peace, adds defence minister.

Modi’s Bharat vs Indira’s India: 11-yr report card of politics, diplomacy, economy, nationalism

As Narendra Modi becomes India’s second-longest consecutively serving Prime Minister, we look at how he compares with Indira Gandhi across four key dimensions.