Book review: Storming the World Stage

Part detective, part academic, part chronicler, Stephen Tankel provides what is arguably one of the finest and most detailed accounts of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the terrorist group that represents the greatest threat to India.

The hook for the book is the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks when 10 trained LeT fighters wreaked havoc in South Mumbai. That was the turning point for LeT when it announced to the world that it had 'arrived'. It was groomed by the Pakistani army and Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), since the 1990s to be the country’s most powerful weapon in its proxy war against India.

A peek into loss and darkness with Dan Chaon

Tokyo: In the world of Dan Chaon's stories, nothing is quite what it should be -- or perhaps it's the way it always was, and nobody saw it clearly before.

A widower finds cryptic messages on dollar bills blowing along the street. A man and his wife try to cope with having a baby that is born with two heads. Sleety nights invite images of skeletons flying through the air.

Lahore's Hira Mandi: a love affair

New Delhi: Hira Mandi, the traditional red light quarter of Lahore, lives in the popular mindscape through its stories of longing, loss and 'mujras' after the Pakistan government clamped down on prostitution in the 1970s, says noted French writer Claudine Le Tourneur d'lson.

Her fictional biography, 'Hira Mandi', based on the life story of Iqbal Husain, the son of a Hira Mandi courtesan, has connected to the English-speaking world with its first-ever translation by the capital-based Roli Books.

Kids will love Padamsee's work: 8-yr-old reviewer

Here are reviews of Shamim Padamsee's books 'Rebels in Rajasthan' and 'Poachers in Paradise' by an eight-year-old, Arunima Kaul, the books are published by Penguin India.

Book: Rebels in Rajasthan; Author: Shamim Padamsee

Book extract: Bali and the Ocean of Milk

'The story of 'Bali and the Ocean of Milk' written by Nilanjan P Choudhury, has been derived from an old myth of the now lost Hurrian civilization, which traces its origins to the banks of the Euphrates in northern Mesopotamia. The novel reimagines the eternal conflict between the Hurrian gods and their sworn enemies, the asuras, in a wacky thriller littered with bad jokes and corpses. Here's an extract from the book:

Chapter 1: An Evening in Amravati

India celebrates 200 years of Charles Dickens

New Delhi: He gave us Uriah Heep in "David Copperfield", the Artful Dodger in "Oliver Twist", Ebenezer Scrooge in "The Christmas Carol"... characters who live on not just in books but also in the English language itself. As the world celebrates 200 years of Charles Dickens, so does India despite the intense debate on the relevance of Dickensian pedagogy in the 21st century.

The pictures he painted of Victorian England were often bleak, his characters an unfashionable black or white in their evil or goodness and his books sometimes dismissed as too long. But Dickens, born Feb 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England, is the prolific author whose contribution has seeped into the contemporary -- Uriah Heep, for instance, is the byword for insincerity, Scrooge for miserliness and these are just a few.

Taslima row unfortunate, shameful: Mahasweta Devi

Kolkata: Magsaysay Award winning author Mahasweta Devi strongly criticised the cancellation of the release of controversial writer Taslima Nasreen's book following objections from fundamentalists.

"It is unfortunate and shameful. I have been seeing her writing books since long and every time she has to face such opposition. Just because she writes, should such a treatment be meted out to her? Such behaviour from the city is not at all acceptable, said the eminent writer.

Is mob violence fuelling intolerance?

Tasleema Nasreen's book launch in Kolkata was cancelled at a book fest after protests by Muslim groups.

BJP, Cong in war of words over Taslima's book

Kolkata: A war of words ensued between the BJP and the Congress today over the cancellation of the official release of controversial author Taslima Nasreen's book in Kolkata with the former accusing Congress of driving the country towards a dangerous mindset and the latter saying fanaticism was intrinsic to the Opposition party's DNA.

"We condemn it. Congress is driving the country towards a dangerous mindset," senior BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi said reacting to the cancellation of the release of the seventh part of Nasreen's 'Nirbasan' (Exile) at Kolkata Book Fair.

Leading without licence: Leadership the Anna way

In February 2011, Anna Hazare shot to the nation's attention when he conveyed to the prime minister his intention to fast on matters relating to corruption. Since then, he has galvanized a massive, national movement to combat corruption in the country. So, how did Mr Hazare, at the age of 74 and relatively unknown to the masses, manage to spearhead this movement against corruption? Simply put, how did he become a leader?

It is this question the book by authors Satheesh Namasivayam and Sivaram Bandhakavi illustrate how Anna Hazare is masterfully practising a set of principles, proven to be effective over the ages, in exercising leadership.