Ended 2021 with three books – but decided to talk about only two. The third, which I could finish in just a week’s time, was undoubtedly a gripping and interesting read since it was about espionage. Spy stories, like Bond movies, are thrillers. They are full of heroism, adventurism, and suspense. Obviously, they will be […]
In the year 1990, Deng Xiaoping, the supreme leader of the Communist Party of China, had issued a 24-character dictum in Chinese. Translated into English, it meant: “Observe calmly; secure our position; Cope with affairs calmly; hide our capabilities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership”. After […]
Timothy Snyder, Housum Professor of History at Yale University in the USA, is a recognized authority on authoritarian ideologies and their ability to undermine and nibble away at democracies. He has authored several books, the recent being a short educative essay titled “On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century”. In his book “The […]
Most of the important leaders have exhorted that the measure of a society’s progress can be gauged from the way it treats its women. Swami Vivekananda was pained looking at the discrimination women faced in India when “the Vedanta declares that one and the same conscious self is present in all beings”. Gandhi took serious […]
The story of Communist China is the story of three leaders – Mao Tse Tung, Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping. Mao was the supreme leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 1935 until his death in 1976. Deng worked in important positions under him, during the liberation struggle until 1949 and subsequently during […]
Democracies are cherished political systems only when they uphold liberal credentials. Freedom of person and speech are an essential acid test for any democracy. That includes free speech, free media and political freedom. Only in such societies where liberty and freedom are respected will the human creativity blooms and blushes. Such societies become home to artists, writers, thinkers and craftsmen, […]
Indo-Pacific is fast emerging as the battleground of the 21st century. At the dawn of this century, the global power axis has shifted away from the Pacific–Atlantic to the Indo–Pacific. Rise of the Asian Tigers – Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea – towards the end of the last century and the unprecedented economic […]
When K M Munshi authored the 7-part Krishnaavataara series on the life of Bhagwan Krishna, traditionalists found it demeaning to bring down the divine to a mundane level. But through that path-breaking work, Munshi helped take Hindu classical religion into the drawing rooms and boardrooms of India’s new rich and modern, to the elites and […]
Southeast Asia was never a homogeneous region. It is vast, diverse and widespread. The Indian and Chinese voyagers were the first to reach these distant territories – Indians went with their culture while the Chinese with their people. Arabs came later to do business and also transmitted their religion Islam in some parts. Then came […]
When Jonathan Sacks wrote that ‘We are all in Kenan Malik’s debt’ or when Tom Holland called the book a ‘tour de force’ and imagined replacing Bertrand Russel’s History of Western Philosophy on his bookshelf with it, they were not exaggerating about Kenan Malik’s book The Quest for a Moral Compass. It is a groundbreaking work from an […]
