Articles on various subjects.

Ramachandra Guha’s India after Gandhi is a magisterial account of the pains, struggles, humiliations and glories of the world’s largest and least likely democracy. A riveting chronicle of the often brutal conflicts that have rocked a giant nation, and of the extraordinary individuals and institutions who held it together, it established itself as a classic when it was first published in 2007. In the last decade, India has witnessed, among other things, two general elections; the fall of the Congress and the rise of Narendra Modi; a major anti-corruption movement; more violence against women, Dalits, and religious minorities; a wave of prosperity for some but the persistence of poverty for others; comparative peace in Nagaland but greater discontent in Kashmir than ever before. This tenth anniversary edition, updated and expanded, brings the narrative up to the present. Published to coincide with seventy years of the country’s independence, this definitive history of modern India is the work of one of the world’s finest scholars at the height of his powers.

A stereotype image of Nara Chandrababu Naidu has been formed in the last 40 years. His story is remarkable at every level. But often questions, which is the important story? The one where he evolves into one of the extraordinary leaders in Indian politics over four decades? Or that of an ordinary man from a farming family who worked his way to the top by keeping his family and political party together? That which reflects his political acumen, intellect, and hardwork? Or the one that unveils the person who introduced Andhra Pradesh to India? This book attempts to show how Naidu has been a quintessential survivor in Indian politics. This book analyses how Naidu's ability to combine politics and governance has touched every aspect of Indian domestic and foreign policy, from the struggle for social, technological, economic and administrative reforms to creating world-class institutions. It establishes the fact that Naidu, today, is a symbol and an embodiment of many Indias - modern, progressive, rural and cultural.

The Chandra Shekhar Government Had Fallen. Fresh Elections Had Been Called. Yashwant Sinha, Finance Minister In The Caretaker Government, Was In Patna, Contesting For The Lok Sabha Against Tough Opposition, When A Senior Officer From The Finance Ministry Brought An Urgent File For His Signature: India Needed To Mortgage Gold To Obtain A Loan From The Bank Of England To Tide Over A Payments Crisis There Were Just Enough Foreign Exchange Reserves To Pay For Two Weeks Imports. The Crisis Was Not Of Their Government S Making, But It Devolved On Sinha To Take This Drastic Step. If He Ever Got The Opportunity, He Promised Himself, He Would Make Sure That The Country Never Had To Face Such A Crisis Again. The Opportunity Came In 1998, When Sinha Was Appointed Finance Minister In The Nda Government Led By Vajpayee And Was Faced With Yet Another Crisis: The Nuclear Tests In May That Year Resulted In Sanctions And A Possible Flashpoint. The Finance Minister S Decision To Issue The Resurgent India Bonds Helped Tide Over It, Raising 4.25 Billion In Two Weeks From Nris, And The Country Hasn T Looked Back Since. Yashwant Sinha Was Finance Minister For Four Years, Until 2002, And Presented Five Budgets. In Confessions Of A Swadeshi Reformer He Gives Us The Inside Story Of How The Framework For The Growth That Has Taken Place Subsequently Was Laid In That Time. From The Reforms That Were Initiated To The Politics That Threatened All Initiative, The Opposition From Within The Party As Also Outside It, Which Tried To Derail The Process, Sinha Pulls No Punches In This Candid Memoir. Nor Does He Shy Away From Discussing The Attempts To Cut Him Down To Size, Including The Proposal To Split Up The Ministry Of Finance, And The Various Controversies Of The Time From The Two Uti Scams To The Flex Industries Case And The Mauritius Tax Treaty Case (In Which He Was Alleged To Have Favoured His Daughter-In-Law), All Of Which He Faced With Equanimity And Strength Of Character. There Are, Besides, Piquant Observations On The Jostling For Position And Prime Postings That Any Minister Has To Face. In The Popular Eye, The Finance Minister Is Often Seen As A Taxing Machine, A Man Entrusted, As One British Chancellor Of The Exchequer Put It, With A Certain Amount Of Misery Which Is His Duty To Distribute As Fairly As He Can. This May Perhaps Be True, But, As This Memoir Shows, The Finance Minister Can Also Bestow A Few Pleasant Surprises.

Political biography of P.V. Narasimha Rao, 1921-2004, former prime minister of India.

When India was invented as a "modern" country in the years after Independence in 1947 it styled itself as a secular, federal, democratic Republic committed to an ideology of development. Nehru's India never quite fulfilled this promise, but more recently his vision of India has been challenged by two "revolts of the elites": those of economic liberalization and Hindu nationalism. These revolts have been challenged, in turn, by various movements, including those of India's "Backward Classes". These movements have exploited the democratic spaces of India both to challenge for power and to contest prevailing accounts of politics, the state and modernity. Reinventing India offers an analytical account of the history of modern India and of its contemporary reinvention. Part One traces India's transformation under colonial rule, and the ideas and social forces which underlay the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly in 1946 to consider the shaping of the post-colonial state. Part Two then narrates the story of the making and unmaking of this modern India in the period from 1950 to the present day. It pays attention to both economic and political developments, and engages with the interpretations of India's recent history through key writers such as Francine Frankel, Sudipta Kaviraj and Partha Chatterjee. Part Three consists of chapters on the dialectics of economic reform, religion, the politics of Hindu nationalism, and on popular democracy. These chapters articulate a distinct position on the state and society in India at the end of the century, and they allow the authors to engage with the key debates which concern public intellectuals in contemporary India. Reinventing India is a lucid and eminently readable account of the transformations which are shaking India more than fifty years after Independence. It will be welcomed by all students of South Asia, and will be of interest to students of comparative politics and development studies.