Showing titles in South Asia

The name Gandhi towers above every other in the political landscape of India for very good reasons. The “Soul” of modern India—Mahatma Gandhi— bore that last name; India’s first and only female prime minister or head of state—Indira Gandhi—married into the name; and Rajiv Gandhi reluctantly made it into politics and became the Prime Minister of India as a Gandhi. They left positive legacies, yet they were assassinated by extremists with exclusive and twisted agendas. And as it turned out, their deaths contributed to the advancement of humanity. What was it about these three ...

When Bhagat Singh was executed by the British after a sham trial for his involvement in the Lahore Conspiracy Case at the age of 23, he was glorified by the Indians as a martyr for his youth, his defiance and his reckless bravery. It was only many years later, after Independence in 1947, that his writings came to light. Today, it is these that set Bhagat Singh apart and reveal him as not just a hot-headed revolutionary who believed in the cult of the bomb but a widely-read intellectual inspired by the writings of Marx and Lenin.

There are not many Indian heroes whose lives have been as dramatic and adventurous as that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. That, however, is an assessment of his life based on what is widely known about him. These often revolve around his resignation from the Indian Civil Service, joining the freedom movement, to be exiled twice for over seven years, throwing a challenge to the Gandhian leadership in the Congress, taking up an extremist position against the British Raj, evading the famed intelligence network to travel to Europe and then to Southeast Asia.

India has been the location of many different empires throughout its long history. The Indus Valley Civilization was home to one of the world’s first civilizations more than 5,000 years ago, which was followed by the Aryan-Vedic culture and then a host of other kingdoms that flourished across the subcontinent. India has also been the birthplace of many religions. The Vedic religion of the Aryans evolved into the Hindu religion, and Buddhism and Jainism were also born in India. By the Middle Ages, India was home to many different religions and ethnic groups.

"I thought the nation was coming to an end", wrote Khushwant Singh, looking back on the violence of Partition that he was witness to over half a century ago. He believed then that he had seen the worst that India could do to herself. But after the violence in Gujarat in 2002, he felt that the worst, perhaps, is still to come. Analysing the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the burning of Graham Staines and his children, the targeted killings by terrorists in Punjab and Kashmir, Singh confronts the absolute corruption of religion that has made us among the most brutal people on earth.

Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times's most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals.

The Indian Farmers Protest: The Resistance Collection (The Largest Protest in Human History 2020 - 2021). Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to The Indian Farmers Protest and learn about history.

Twenty-one riveting stories from the battlefield about how India's highest military honor was won. The Brave takes you to the hearts and minds of India's bravest soldiers, all of whom won the Param Vir Chakra, India's greatest military honor. With access to the Army, families, and comrades-in-arms of the soldiers, Rachna Bisht Rawat paints the most vivid portrait of these men and their extraordinary deeds.

November 26, 2008. Ten terrorists, armed with guns, grenades, and improvised explosive devices, slip past coastal security cordons on India's western seacoast in a fishing trawler. Over the next three agonizing days, India's "Maximum City" is brought to its knees as the fidayeen wreak unprecedented havoc at pre-selected landmarks. The response to this attack was the first instance of all three wings of the Indian armed forces coming together to fight terror. Black Tornado, as the operation was called by the NSG, is the story of these men called into action.

In this book, we explore British Colonialism in India, a history of oppression and exploitation, whilst celebrating the contributions that the diaspora and its descendants have made to British society. We explore the origins of the British East India Company, navigating through the dark history of a struggle for independence. On the way we meet Mahatma Gandhi, and recognize his significance in the fight for independence, before we discuss the partition of India and creation of Pakistan. We conclude with Indian emigration to the UK, and the history of the modern-day British Indian.

Ashok Kumar Pandey is a well-known Hindi poet and writer. His recent book Kashmirnama has been praised by reputed historians as well as general audiences. Kashmirnama is a book that talks about the political history of Kashmir in Hindi. The book is divided into three parts. The first part talks about the history, mythology and myths of Kashmir. The second part talks about the British rule, in which Nehru, Hari Singh and Sheikh Abdullah Kashmir are mentioned. In the third and final part the author talks about Kashmiri Pandits and terrorism.

When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as James I’s first ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the subcontinent. Their understanding of South Asian trade and India was sketchy at best, and, to the Mughals, they were minor players on a very large stage. Roe was representing a kingdom that was beset by financial woes and deeply conflicted about its identity as a unified ‘Great Britain’ under the Stuart monarchy.

Set in Calcutta, London, the glacier-locked wilds of the Karakoram, and on Everest itself, The Last Englishmen is also the story of a generation. The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and Communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers. Key among them is a highborn Bengali poet named Sudhin Datta, a melancholy soul torn, like many of his generation, between hatred of the British Empire and a deep love of European literature, whose life would be upended by the arrival of war on his Calcutta doorstep.

The British presence in India lasted for nearly 350 years, but only the last 90 were under the direct rule of the British government. To some, 90 years might seem a short period to write a history book about. However, the time of the British Raj was very influential. It brought change to Indian politics, education, society, infrastructure, industry, and other aspects of Indian life. But while the British Empire brought modernization to its colonies, that modernization came with a price.

The Indian subcontinent was the scene of dramatic upheavals a few thousand years ago. The Northwest region entered an arid phase, and erosion coupled with tectonic events played havoc with river courses. One of them disappeared. Celebrated as Sarasvati in the Rig Veda and the Mahabharata, this river was rediscovered in the early 19th century through topographic explorations by British officials. Recently, geological and climatological studies have probed its evolution and disappearance, while satellite imagery has traced the river's buried courses....

The definitive biography of Ravi Shankar, one of the most influential musicians and composers of the 20th century, told with the cooperation of his estate, family, and friends.

Operation Searchlight was the code name for a planned military operation carried out by the Pakistan Army in an effort to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in former East Pakistan....

India es un país repleto de misterio, riqueza y profundo descubrimiento espiritual. Cada faceta de esta antigua tierra parece perfumada con las famosas especias que atrajeron a los comerciantes europeos a sus costas hace más de cinco siglos. Aquí, musulmanes, hindúes, cristianos, sikhs y budistas viven hombro con hombro en un mundo repleto de múltiples dioses y rutas de peregrinación yuxtapuestas, cada una perfectamente pacífica en sus propias creencias y tradiciones.

From lockdowns to lockups, viruses to vaccination, the movement of people to the movement of bowels, from rats to cats, and more, The Age of Pandemics chronicles the many facets of the cholera, plague and influenza pandemics, which claimed over 70 million lives between 1817 and 1920, with India being the epicenter in all these episodes. It also provides the first comprehensive coverage of the world's greatest demographic disaster ever to descend upon a country in a short period of time —the influenza pandemic in India in 1918.

India’s Five-Year Plans were one of the developing world’s most ambitious experiments. After nearly two centuries of colonial rule, planning the economy was meant to be independent India’s route from poverty to prosperity. Planning Democracy explores how India married liberal democracy to a socialist economy. Planning not only built India’s data systems, it even shaped the nature of its democracy. The Five-Year Plans loomed so large that they linked surprisingly far-flung contexts—from computers to Bollywood to Hindutva.