The press occupies a pivotal place in the modern society. It has become not only a powerful medium of mass communication but also an influential political and social institution. It has been recognised by to all the civilised countries that the press plays a vital role in moulding the public opinion and also in expressing it. The press in India playeda crucial role in rousing the spirit of nationalism among the people of India and also in fulfilling the nationalist aspiration of liberating India from the foreign rule. R.C.Majumdar in his Struggle for Freedom in the Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan series, remarks that "the press imbued the people with patriotic fervover, indomitable courage and heroic self-sacrifice to an extraordinary degree". A number of works have been published in India and abroad describing the freedom movement in India at the national, regional and district levels.

Geographically located on the south western part of South India, Karnataka has abundant natural resources. Its western ghats with rich forest resources, and plain valleys, is crowned with more prosperous narrow coast line. Its Mangalore Newport has enhanced its value in terms of international trade with rich foreign exchange. Above all, it has rich cultural tradition and puranic legends of historical importance.

This book tells of the events which led, in September 1949, to the integration of the Princely State of Hyderabad the largest and the richest of the Princely States into the Indian Union. The author questions the nature and popularity of the annexation of Hyderabad and attempts to answer sensitive questions through a detailed study of the crucial decade of 1938 48.

The book deals with the social, political, cultural and economic conditions of India in the eighteenth century against the backdrop of the historical processes that had in earlier times shaped the life and history of Indian people.