The author, M K K Nayar's impressionable childhood, schooling and university years began in early 1920s - the most turbulent period of India's independence struggle. Aftergraduating in 1940 and spending two years in Travancore Civil Service, M K K Nayar joined the Ordnance Department of British India in Hyderabad. During this phase of his career, he risked his life more than once to bring nefarious going-ons in the princely state of Hyderabad to the attention of national leaders like Sardar Vallabhai Patel and defuse conspiracies that were jeopardizing India's national interests. In 1948, M K K Nayar joinedthe IAS and was involved prominently in India's national development - notably in building the Bhilai Steel Plant and fertilizer plants that also seeded several other industries in the Cochin Industrial Belt, and by propagating modern agriculture throughout South India. His friendship and intimacy with national leaders like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, illustrious civil servants like V P Menon, industrialists like J R D Tata and innumerable opinion-leaders all over India gave him a ringside view of and insider information on some the most important and interesting episodes of Indian history until mid 1970s. !Destiny took him to Kerala in 1959 to head India's pioneer fertilizer company, The Fertilisers And Chemicals Travancore Ltd (FACT) which he developed into a multifaceted organization that grew over twenty-fold during the decade of his tenure in it. This period that ended in 1971 also found him raising Kathakali, one of the most stylized forms of mime dance-drama from a destitute existence on the fringes of Kerala's social milieu to the forefront of international recognition. Success in everything he did even outside of his vocation, from resolving political imbroglios to promoting art and literature, took him to the forefront of life in Kerala and the national capital. Jealousies it aroused resulted in court cases being instituted against him on frivolous charges and they took 12 years for him to be fully exonerated. In that time, India lost the services of one of its ablest go-getters during what should have been his peak years. !Between June 1986 until his premature passing away in September 1987, he penned a series of articles about his life nd times. It was serialized under the title of Aarodum Paribhavamillathe, Oru Kalaghattathinte Katha in the popular Malayalam weekly, Kala Kaumudi. It was later published as a book which became a big hit with Malayali readers and is printed and published even now. !M K K Nayar emphasizes that this was not an autobiography but an attempt to share without bitterness or ill-will some of his experiences and the joy, pain and terrible sadness they brought him. The renowned historian, author and academician, M G S Narayan says that M K K Nayar's 'memoirs did not get the due recognition it deserved"e; and acknowledges it as a "e;historical chronicle of pre and post independent India"e;. !The book has been translated into English by Gopakumar M Nair, who was an executive of FACT during a part of M K K Nayar's tenure there. Though Gopakumar is a popular amateur writer from his college days in IIT Madras, this translation named The Story of an Era, Told Without Ill-will is his first book.

On 25 July 1947, India's last Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, stood before the Chamber of Princes in New Delhi and prepared to deliver the most important speech of his career. He had just three weeks to convince more than 550 sovereign princely states--some the size of Britain, some so small that cartographers had trouble locating them--to become part of a free India. Once Britain's most faithful allies, the princes could choose between joining India or Pakistan, or declaring their independence. This is a saga of promises and betrayals, of brinkmanship and intrigue. Mountbatten worked with two of independent India's founding fathers--the country's most senior civil servant, V.P. Menon, and Congress strongman Vallabhbhai Patel--to save the subcontinent from self-destruction. What India's architects described as a 'bloodless revolution' was anything but, as violence engulfed Kashmir and Indian troops put an end to Hyderabad's dreams of independence. Most states accepted the inevitable, giving up their kingdoms in exchange for guarantees that their privileges and titles would be preserved in perpetuity. Instead, they were led to their extinction--not by the sword, but by political expediency, leaving them with little more than fading memories of a glorified past.

L.K. Advani’s blogs cut across generations: for his contemporaries, they have a recall value. For the young Indian, restless to do his bit in shaping the future of his country, Advani’s blogs provide a rare insight into history. They take him through the turmoil and toil of leaders like Sardar Patel and their distinctive contribution in shaping today’s India. Advani’s blogs have a dual purpose: they mirror an era gone by and yet link its relevance to an India, raring to take on the world. The blogs, therefore, successfully merge two eras: one to which Advani himself belongs with another which sees him as a mentor. That Advani has been a consequential politician is a given. As a protagonist in the political playfield spanning decades, he along with Atal Behari Vajpayee, not only formed the Bharatiya Janata Party but transformed it dramatically. If the BJP is nationally in the reckoning today, it is because of the Atal-Advani vision of bringing it centre-stage from the margins. It is through this journey that he redefined secularism. During his historic yatras including the Ramjanambhoomi and Somnath to Ayodhya, the country was compelled to redefine secularism and distinguish it from the pseudo secularism being handed down by adversaries. But that is only one part. The other and more significant is Advani’s contribution in setting and elevating standards in public life and hammering that they be followed. That he has led from the front is well known. The strength of Advani’s blogs, like his persona, is that they are direct, candid and forthright. There is no soft-pedaling issues or minimizing the blow as it were. He has stated facts as they are and made no attempt to either underplay or exaggerate any sequence. His writings are as clear as his mind. The blogs offer a wide range: history, politics, books and all else. To those who have a stake in India’s political future, Advani’s blogs are an effective guide; for others an interesting read.

People living on the Indian subcontinent have been a sharply divided lot for a very long time in spite of belonging to the same established respected older civilization. Our divisiveness resulted in inviting repeated assaults by uncivilized Arabs and savages from other parts of Asia. This led to foreign subjugation for a millennium first by Islamic invaders and looters; then by Europeans who came as traders but became rulers. The entry of aliens led to unabashed proselytizing into their newer religions. It may not be wrong to say that 99 percent of Muslims and Christians living on the subcontinent are converts from Hinduism (that has been more a way of life rather than a watertight religion for two millennia or more). This means todays inhabitants are from the same civilization and culturally speaking Hindustanis. However, a proliferation of alien religions did aggravate and compound divisiveness. The British ruled the country for two centuries or so, and did the maximum damage to our character, morale and psyche. After the First War of Independence the British promulgated pretty stiff laws especially the Police Act of 1861 to keep their slaves under tight leash. Worse still they introduced Macaulay system of education in English to wean us away from our cultural moorings, heritage, literature, moral values and our own Sanskrit language. Indian social religious and educational reformers Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Sahjanand, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, Swami Vivekananda and Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh as well as the likes of them brought back the pride of our civilization and culture. Their influence was apparent from the beginning of 19th century in the fields of politics, public administration, and education, as well as strengthening Hinduism. This first awakening from slumber or hibernation ignited the minds of revolutionaries who selflessly and untiringly worked hard on the soils of the subcontinent and the foreign lands culminating in throwing out deeply entrenched British lock, stock and barrel. Not so nationalistic but opportunistic Congress party led by their self-serving trio of stalwarts Gandhi, his adopted son Nehru and lieutenant Patel got the subcontinent partitioned and formed government in divided India. Congress party ruled but NOT served Hindustan for 90 percent of the time since independence by strictly following British Divide and Rule policy to perfection without changing/improving archaic British laws. Being communal, Congress aggravated the divisiveness thus bringing untold misery to the masses in the form of communal strife and Hindu-Muslim riots repeatedly. The prolonged misrule by those corrupt inept rudderless politicians including the decade under its economist dummy PM heading the most corrupt and arrogant government ever in the history of independent country brought in lawlessness, fragile environment, grossly inadequate infrastructure, increasing terrorism and Maoism/Naxalism, ever mounting inflation, sky-rocketing corruption, gargantuan scams, bankrupt economy, policy paralysis, stalling of reforms, and what not. The absolute number of the poor today is far more than total population of newly born country in 1947. This grave crisis-like situation warranted a second awakening in 21st century. Expectedly Hindustanis rose to the occasion once again, decimated the corrupt Congress and voted for a change by electing a visionary, strong, and honest PM from BJP with a thumping majority. This gentleman is a dynamic, focused, highly optimistic, staunchly nationalistic real leader unlike the pygmies of Congress. The task ahead is dauntingly stupendous. Modi started showing promise during his first 60 days. The damage done in 60 years may take ten years, if not more, to repair and actual proper turnaround thus placing this once great country on track to reclaim its lost genuine glory. Although independence was ushered in 67 years ago yet freedom is still awaited. That will require imminent electoral, intellectual, judicial, police, political and social reforms together with building moral character and bringing meritocracy in every appointment by doing away with the Congress policy of favours, quotas and reservations for the undeserving. Very much like Narendra Modi, the first PM to be born after independence and heading the youngest India-educated ministry, all of us have to remain optimistic and vigilant. We must perform our duties diligently as law-abiding faithful but demanding citizens alive to the times!

With his initial plans for an independent India in tatters, the desperate viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, turned to his seniormost Indian civil servant, Vappala Pangunni Menon—or VP—giving him a single night to devise an alternative, coherent and workable plan for independence. Menon met his stringent deadline, presenting the Menon Plan, which would change the map of the world forever. Menon was unarguably the architect of the modern Indian state. Yet startlingly little is known about this bureaucrat, patriot and visionary. In this definitive biography, Menon’s great-granddaughter, Narayani Basu, rectifies this travesty. She takes us through the highs and lows of his career, from his determination to give women the right to vote; to his strategy, at once ruthless and subtle, to get the princely states to accede to India; to his decision to join forces with the Swatantra Party; to his final relegation to relative obscurity. Equally, the book candidly explores the man behind the public figure— his unconventional personal life and his private conflicts, which made him channel his energy into public service. Drawing from documents—scattered, unread and unresearched until now—and with unprecedented access to Menon’s papers and his taped off-the-record and explosively frank interviews—this remarkable biography of VP Menon not only covers the life and times of a man unjustly consigned to the footnotes of history but also changes our perception of how India, as we know it, came into being.

Already a leader of the Republican party when the Civil War began, Henry Wilson had distinguished himself as the most important Congressional figure on military and antislavery and pro-black legislation during the war. During the Era of Reconstruction, Wilson fought to protect the rights of the newly-freed slaves, but he was opposed to the severe punishment of Confederate leaders and initially tried to be conciliatory toward President Johnson's lenient policies. Soon Wilson joined others in promoting Congress's own Reconstruction program, including the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Military Reconstruction Acts, and the impeachment of the President. He became the Republican Party's most frequently-used campaign speaker. Long recognized as a spokesman for labor, he was also the foremost national politician promoting the cause of prohibition. He wrote the most authoritative three-volume work on the causes of the Civil War from the northern viewpoint. He was also a frequent contributor to the era's most influential religious periodical. In 1872, Wilson was rewarded for his political activities when he was nominated and elected as the country's vice-president.