Literature

By M.R. Narayan Swamy, Title: The Night it Rained Guns: Unravelling the Purulia Arms Drop Conspiracy; Author: Chandan Nandy; Publisher: Rupa; Pages: 272; Price: Rs.295 On December 17, 1995, an ageing Russian AN 26 transport plane took off from Karachi ostensibly for Dhaka. After refuelling at Varanasi, it made a course diversion over Gaya, Bihar. When it was over Purulia in West Bengal, the plane flew dangerously low and dropped, amid darkness, four tonnes of deadly arms and ammunition, for the Ananda Marg, a semi-secret cult. It was, as author Chandan Nandy rightly points out, "one of the most bizarre and, admittedly, a spectacular operation to breach India's security".

By Prabhpreet Singh Sood & Prince Singhal States with higher literacy levels report more protests, and nearly half of these protests were led...

By TCN News, Hyderabad: International Human Rights Day was observed throughout the world on December 10th. Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee observed the day in Hyderabad...

By IANS, New Delhi : The book shelf this weekend is mostly meditative and spiritual. 1. "Rumi: A New Translation"; Written by Farrukh Dhondy; Published by Harper Perennial; Priced at Rs.299

By IANS, New Delhi : Nobel laureate Amartya Sen Saturday praised the government's draft for a Right to Food (Guarantee of Safety and Security) Act saying it was a "step in the right direction".

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS, New Delhi : The time has come for Indians to introspect whether they are in tune with their culture or not, \"to pause and put a mirror before society to see why dilution, mutilation and modification of culture have taken place against the backdrop of such a distinguished civilisation heritage\", says diplomat-writer Pavan Varma.

By Subhash K. Jha, IANS, Mumbai : After "A Wednesday", actor Anupam Kher's career is going great guns. He has just given the nod to British Indian filmmaker Gurinder Chadha's new movie and has also decided to write a book about his experiences as an actor, husband, father and a socially responsible citizen. The decision to pen his thoughts was prompted after he won the lifetime Teachers' Achievement Award Nov 8.

By Sahana Ghosh , IANS,

By IANS, New Delhi : Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh's controversial book "Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence" continued to retain the No.1 position in the non-fiction section of the bestseller list this week while "The Wish Maker: A Novel" by Ali Sethi topped the fiction category for the fourth week in a row. The top 10 in each section are: Non-fiction 1. "Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence" Author: Jaswant Singh Publisher: Rupa Price: Rs.695.00 2. "The Idea of Justice" Author: Amartya Sen Publisher: Penguin Allen Lane

By Shweta Srinivasan, IANS, New Delhi : Works on Islam and Buddhism are a big hit at stalls put up by publishers from South Asian countries at the World Book Fair here. Many avid book readers and scholars are happy to have spotted rare books that are not easily available in India.

Breaking some myths about former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, how a laid-back girl became the czar of India television and a journalist shares some interesting newsroom stories. IANS Books This Weekend has interesting mix. Take your pick. 1. Book: Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi: An Inside Job?; Author: Faraz Ahmad; Publisher: Vitasta; Pages: 312; Price: Rs. 495

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS, Book: "You're Hired: How you get that job and keep it too"; Author: Nasha Fitter; Publisher: Penguin India-Books; Price: Rs.199 Applying for jobs, but don't seem to hear back from prospective employers? Maybe you're making a mistake somewhere in your application. Does your application read anything like this?

By IANS,

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS, New Delhi : Grandfather is a man of many gifts. Granny makes gooseberry jam and looks after everyone, Uncle Ken gets into strange situations and Aunt Ruby is afraid of flowers. Mr Oliver, the scoutmaster, eagerly looks forward to his retirement. Meet the cast of "The Parrot Who Wouldn't Talk and Other sides", the new volume from Ruskin Bond, one of India's best known authors. This slim anthology of memories from the author's school days is to be released in the capital later Friday.

By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS, Kathmandu : As UN chief Ban Ki-Moon arrives in Kathmandu on a whirlwind two-day visit Friday, Nepal's first Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal "Prachanda" has lined up an unusual gift besides hosting a sumptuous banquet in his honour. The UN secretary general and his entourage will be gifted copies of "Prachanda: the unknown revolutionary", the first biography in English offering intimate glimpses into the virtually unknown personal life of the formerly underground guerrilla, penned by Indian journalist Anirban Roy.

By IANS, Bangalore : Chandamama India, the publishing house of the popular Chandamama range of children's magazines, Thursday offered its young readers epic Ramayana richly laden with colourful illustrations. According to the publishers, 'Ramayana - An Epic Journey' is the first of its kind attempt when the great Indian mythological saga has been published as a single book with illustrations. The book was released by management and spiritual guru Swami Sukhbodhananda. "The book has a touch of contemporary world," he said. It is a 430-page book with hand drawn illustrations.

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS, New Delhi : Epic tales of jungle safaris and human rights repression in Africa are making way for a new kind of contemporary literature in a changing continent where women are becoming an increasingly vocal force in influencing literary trends. Literary pundits are describing the current phase in contemporary African fiction as the "time of boom".

By TCN News,