Dr Manmohan Singh A Tempestuous Tenure

Since the past thirty years, Dr Manmohan Singh has occupied a pivotal position on the Indian economic and political scenario. While his appointment as the Union Finance Minister in the year 1991 was unexpected, his path-breaking economic reforms of introducing the policies of liberalisation and globalisation remain the plinth on which the Indian economy stands today.His selection as Prime Minister in 2004 was a surprise as Sonia Gandhi, as she declined the position, conferred the responsibility on him. The Indian economic ship sailed briskly under his leadership and braved the 2008 global recession and transformed the rural sector at the same time. However, at the end of his tenure, he became a target of an extensive defamation campaign from the Bhartiya Janata Party and its supporters. The agitation of Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal played a significant role in this campaign. The media also had its role to play. As a consequence, his tenure was stormy, and this book attempts to understand the sequence of events that finally created a fertile ground for Narendra Modi to be the Prime Minister of the country. The book tries to examine the role of the anti-corruption movement, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the media in ensuring the character assassination of Dr Singh, Sonia Gandhi and the Congress Party.However, the policies, decisions and flagship programs of his government were hard to ignore for the new government under Narendra Modi. Apart from Dr Singh

Smt. Pratibha Patil’s splendid legacy in Indian politics is not simply an accident in Indian history but an unrelenting determination at her personal front as well as India’s call of destiny for this diminutive but resolute woman. Her selfless service to the people of India in her more than fifty years in public life is an inspiration. And with an ideal blend of private and public sphere, she is a motivation for the women of India and beyond. Her initiatives, ideas and insights and policy briefings form the text of this book.

From putative 'success stories' such as Ghana and Rwanda to failed efforts in Zimbabwe and other countries, this volume brings together seven incisive case studies from diverse contexts including post-war Sierra Leone, Uganda, and the new nation of South Sudan to distil insights into the troubled progress of reform across the African continent.

This Is The Approved Biography Of Sam By His Military Assistant Is A With Special Emphasis On His Term As The Chief Of Army Staff. It Is A Charming Account Of The Clarity Of Thought, The Undaunting Ideology And Professionalism, Easy Demeanour And Fantastic Sense Of Humour Of A Man Dedicated To The Task Of Soldiering With Dignity.

This report makes an appraisal of the geopolitical, geostrategic and geoeconomic dimensions of the linkages between India’s east coast and the ‘extended Bay’—Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia—with respect to port logistics, trade interactions, disaster management and strategic convergences. The aim of this study is three-fold: a) to examine the existing nature of port and commercial linkages between India and the aforesaid littorals and explore how these linkages can be strengthened; b) to examine the vulnerabilities of the littorals in terms of natural calamities and to analyse how and to what extent humanitarian assistance and disaster management can be regionally governed; and c) to explore the Bay of Bengal as a maritime space to understand the geostrategic construct of Indo-Pacific.

The inside track to India's most powerful tycoons The eight business maharajas profiled here are among Asia's most powerful industrial tycoons, Their combined turnover runs into billions of rupees, and between them they employ some 650,000 people, while indirectly affecting the lives of millions more. Sip a cup of tea, drive to work, listen to music, build a house and the chances are that in these and a myriad other ways you are using products that they manufacture or market. By any yardstick, the achievements of these men would rank among the great business stories of our time. How did these men build their enormous empires? What are their management secrets? How did they thrive and prosper even as others failed? What is their vision for the future? Top business writer and industry insider Gita Piramal draws on exhaustive interviews and in-depth research to discover the answers to these and related questions in her profiles of the men who will lead the country's push to become an industrial superpower in the 21st century.

Jews who have made India their home have flourished without adverse discrimination. Of this, the Baghdadi Sephardic community is very small in number but has produced one of India's greatest contemporary soldiers, Lt Gen. Jack Jacob. This is his fascinating story. As a small boy, Jacob, who was from a business family, was sent to a residential public school in Darjeeling along with his two brothers. When the Second World War broke out, Jacob without informing his family joined the army in 1941 to fight against the Nazis! After Independence, Gen. Jacob became a gunnery instructor for some time and subsequently was trained in an advanced Artillery and Missile course at Fort Sill in the US. A quick learner, he commanded infantry and artillery brigades, headed the artillery school, and finally the Eastern Army. Rubbing shoulders with some of the stalwarts who strode the Indian political and military arena in those times, Gen. Jacob sometimes fell foul of his bosses and twice came close to resigning. But he stuck on and the pinnacle of his career came in 1971, when he planned and oversaw operations leading to the fall of Dacca and obtained an unconditional public surrender, the only one in history, of Gen. Niazi and his army of 93,000. Written lucidly, this autobiography comes to life as a historical document recapitulating some of the most important events of the 1960s to the 90s - from the defeat of the Naxalites in West Bengal, to the problems of Nagaland and Sikkim and the politics of Goa and Punjab. This is not only the story of the life of one great soldier, but provides glimpses of some of the most influential and colourful personalities who wrote the history of those tumultuous times.

Nehru s influence stretched beyond the Freedom Movement and the political and bureaucratic boundaries of prime ministerhood. A man of letters, it was Nehru who initiated the setting up of the Sahitya Akademi devoted to literature, the National School of Drama and the National Institute of Design; just as, in the field of technology and business management, he established the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Management across the country. He was equally the force behind the setting up of dams and factories, which he regarded as the temples of modern India. Today, the four key dimensions of Indian nationhood, as conceived and implemented by Nehru democracy, secularism, socialism and non-alignment have altered to a point where they have changed almost beyond recognition or even abandoned altogether. As the debate continues between Nehru s supporters who believe in his enduring contribution, and his detractors who attempt to deny it, the definitive word, perhaps, comes from Nayantara Sahgal, who says in her Introduction, No Nehru, no modern India. The ground we stand on was laid in Nehru s time. This volume brings together an examination of the different aspects of Nehru s personality and his legacy by some of our foremost thinkers, writers and activists: Mani Shankar Aiyar, Kumar Ketkar, Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee, Shiv Visvanathan, Rakesh Batabyal, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Hartosh Bal, Aakar Patel, Kiran Nagarkar, Purushottam Agrawal, Syeda Hameed, Ramachandra Guha, Neera Chandhoke and Shabnam Hashmi