Ram Vilas Paswan was a steady presence in national politics for more than four decades. He has held Cabinet posts in several governments, including stints in key ministries such as Railways and Telecom. He is one of the faces associated with the historic implementation of the Mandal Commission report on OBC reservations. As someone adept at sensing shifts in political climate before others could, he was able to make the most of his political capital. But what is the nature of his legacy as a Dalit leader? A new biography, titled ‘Ram Vilas Paswan: The Weathervane of Indian Politics’ by Sobhan ..read more

Brinda Karat has been working with the CPI(M) for the last 53-years. And this memoir by her is primarily about the ten-years from imposition of emergency in 1975 till 1985 when she lived under the assumed name of Rita. It is also a story of a young upper middle class girl, who left her job with Air India in London to join the communist movement and struggles of working as a woman activist & politician. The book also chronicles stories of common workers, trade unionists and their struggles during the emergency years.   ..read more

Most of us would remember the sudden shortage of semiconductor chips during the pandemic – how it affected automobile manufacturing, delaying deliveries, and in many cases, even caused manufacturers to deliver cars without some features. But semiconductors form an integral component of not just cars but almost any high tech device we use today – from smartphones and laptops to televisions, satellites and, of course, all kinds of advanced military hardware. As nations jockey for geopolitical dominance, in addition to traditional factors such as military capabilities and economic power, technolo ..read more

What are black holes? Mainstream physics sees them as Universe’s ultimate agents of death; afterall, what crosses over beyond the rim of the black hole – or its event horizon as it is known – disappears forever. Even all pervasive light cannot escape it. Science also shows that the universe is littered with billions upon billions of enormous black holes, capable of swallowing entire galaxies. But are they really the Universe’s cosmic executioners? Not necessarily, suggests Carlo Rovelli, one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists and prolific author of extremely accessible and thoughtfu ..read more

Did you know that women were barred from public gallery of the British Parliament. Some 245 years back in 1778 women were thrown out of the public gallery of the House of Common. Fighting against their exclusion, the women began to listen in to the proceedings sitting close to the to the ventilator-shafts of the Parliament. And they continued to do this for 56-years, till the British Parliament was burnt down in accidental fire, a in the new Palace of Westminster, a ladies gallery was constructed. Women had to fight a long battle in Britian for voting rights. We in India take pride, that we ha ..read more

Kavitha Rao tells the stories of six women, who in the 19th and early 20th century challenged societal norms, fought gender and caste battles to tread an unconventional path and become doctors in her famous work "Lady Doctor: The Untold Stories of India's First Women in Medicine" The book helps us to see what it was like for these six women who defied every obstacle, balanced work and family lives, and left a lasting impression and impact on their peers and especially on women who joined the field in the years after them. Memories of them, says the author, have been erased as history has been ..read more

In this episode of The Hindu On Books Podcast we talk to Chinmay Tumbe, professor at The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and author of two critically acclaimed books, India Moving (2018) and more recently, The Age of Pandemics (1817-1920): How They Shaped India and the World. In his latest books, Tumbe 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 epicentre in all these episodes. When we talk of Covid-19 as an unprecedented event therefore, are we forgetting a key part of our ..read more

In this episode of The Hindu on Books, we are chatting with one the most acclaimed investigative journalist Josy Joseph where we talk about his new book "The Silent Coup". The book answers the question "Is our democracy slowly being degraded?" He also talk about how people simply bend the rules of suits the wims of the ones in the power seats. Josy Joseph makes the reader ask where the democracy in India on the decline as the deep state uses the security apparatus for political ends? In what can be described as an "angry book", Josy Joseph take the creative non-fiction form to tackle this ques ..read more

In their book, Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of The R.A.W and I.S.I, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark make several explosive revelations, including about the Pulwama attack and alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav. The two foreign journalists seem to have enjoyed an unprecedented level of access to the intelligence establishments on both sides, even working as back-channel diplomats after the Pulwama attack. In this book, the duo seeks to document the inner workings of the RAW and the ISI. They also trace the career of NSA Ajit Doval through the past few decades, especially from the 19 ..read more

Suchitra Vijayan undertook a 9000 mile journey over seven years to India's borderlands to write Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. India shares borders with a host of countries including Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Myanmar and so forth. From the densely populated border that India shares with Bangladesh to the highly disputed one with Pakistan, she meets men, women and children who tell her how they live, struggle, fight and survive. She also offers notes on how the lines came to be and why some of them are arbitrary and still being contested. The award winning photograph ..read more