Abbakka, queen of Ullal, a small principality (in what is now South Karnataka), had made a pledge to her dying mother that she would avenge her defeat and humiliation at the hands of the Portuguese. Defying her over-cautious husband, the king of Bangadi and the under-confident nobles in her court, Rani Abbakka rallied her army to challenge the might of the Portuguese and wrest freedom for Ullal and later even for Mangalore.

Description The Chowtas ruled over Ullal and surrounding areas of coastal Karnataka. Many rulers in this dynasty were women, and at least two carried the name Rani Abbakka. They have gone down in history and folklore as fearsome warriors who fiercely defended their tiny kingdom, and repeatedly defeated the Portuguese. This is the story of Abbakka III. Abbakka grows up knowing she will rule over the kingdom one day-the one that was ruled by her grandmother Abbakka II and her mother Rani Tirumala Devi. Abbakka trains with all her heart in everything a queen needs to know, and never tires of hearing the tales of sea battles that her grandmother waged against the firangis. But Abbakka is also a young girl who loves adventure. She sets out on dangerous missions to track down spies on the seas. She accompanies her mother in a secret plan to outwit the Portuguese as they try to capture the kingdom's precious pepper crop. And then there is the handsome, mysterious boy from Mangalore, who she likes enormously... Steeped in the culture and history of the region, The Teenage Diary of Abbakka is the fictional diary of an unusual girl growing up during an exciting time-a girl who would eventually go to any lengths to protect and defend her kingdom.

A BRAVE QUEEN OF AVADH WHO LED HER KINGDOM DURING AN UPRISING. A 73-YEAR-OLD FREEDOM FIGHTER WHO STOOD HER GROUND AGAINST BRITISH SOLDIERS. A FEARLESS TEEN HERO FROM NAGALAND WHO DEFENDED THE RIGHTS OF HER COMMUNITY. These extraordinary Indian women, and others like them featured in this book, shared one common goal: to stand up against the British and fight for India's freedom from colonial rule. Fearless and feisty, these homemakers and princesses, politicians and poets, doctors and educators, and lawyers and activists marched in protest, endured hunger strikes, rallied supporters, went to jail and led from the front. From Sarojini Naidu to Matangini Hazra, from Aruna Asaf Ali to Rani Gaidinliu, from Muthulakshmi Reddi to Hansa Mehta, and from Annie Mascarene to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, they showed amazing courage in breaking their shackles and facing grave challenges to liberate the country. Bringing together the inspiring life stories of more than 35 remarkable women, Her Name Was Freedom is a tribute to these brave torchbearers of India's independence movement, who left a lasting legacy.

Perspectives in Indian History deals with the history of India from 10,000 BC until 1857 AD. It delves into the story of the Indus-Saraswati civilization and the development of the Vedas. Such a book has been written for the first time, wherein India’s history has been analyzed from the early Hindu period. Hitherto most history books have emphasized the Muslim period or the British period. These have been written by Muslim historians or European colonists, which was often skewed by their fundamental bias that no civilization could equal their own. During this retelling, the author covers the interesting aspects of each age starting with the Ramayana. He then examines hotly debated issues like whether Alexander the Great won or lost in India. The author carries out an analysis of the causes of the conquest of India by the Muslims. The author analyses detailed battleplans of major battles, which affected India’s history, like Panipat, Plassey, and many others, and discusses the weaponry and tactics used in these wars.

‘People say that I am a quarrelsome woman...’ TARABAI, MARATHA QUEEN (1675–1761) The history of India, more often than not, is a history of the men who were in charge. Largely forgotten are the women who, even centuries earlier, shaped the fates of entire kingdoms. In The Women Who Ruled India, writer and researcher Archana Garodia Gupta revives 20 such powerful figures from the archives, offering us a glimpse of their fascinating lives. Among them are Begum Samru, a courtesan who went on to become the head of a mercenary army and the ruler of Sardhana; Didda of Kashmir, known for her keen political instinct and a ruthlessness that spared no one; Rani Abbakka of Ullal, the fearless queen who took on Portuguese colonizers in their heyday; and Rani Mangammal of Madurai, the famed administrator who built alliances at a time when going to war was the order of the day. These women and others like them built roads, instituted laws and were generous patrons of the arts and sciences. Their stories of valour and diplomacy, leadership and wit continue to inspire today. Peppered with anecdotes that showcase little-known facets of their personalities, the accounts in this book celebrate heroic rulers who – ‘quarrelsome’ though they might have been – were iconoclasts: unafraid to forge new paths.

There are some wonderful monographs which deal with the issues of women at the national and global level, but no work of their equivalent has been produced so far with the exclusive purpose of analyzing and reviewing the position and predicaments of women limited to the district of Dakshina Kannada. In this book, Dr. Hegde and Dr. Gowda make attempts to describe the subject of women empowerment in the district, the hurdles in the way of materializing it, and to suggest the general lines on which the various problems that confront women should be tackled in order to get a fairly satisfactory solution. Based on the detailed analysis of the working of women organizations towards realizing the goal of empowerment, the book draws on the districts’ literary sources to explain it in a distinctive way. The work will enable the reader to understand the subject in true perspective, as it is based on impartial survey of all the available data. Carefully researched and analyzed, this book will form an essential reading for all those interested on the issues of women empowerment and the contributions of the women organisations towards it in general and the DK district of Karnataka in particular. Traditional approaches to the empowerment of women, particularly in developing countries, tend to stress the primacy of poverty alleviation; this book attempts to explain, along with poverty issue, how other factors such as illiteracy, poor health, lack of opportunity to participate politically etc. fail the goal of women empowerment set in various programmes of the governmental and non-governmental agencies.