Book Excerpt: The Dollar Trap

The American Dollar is the international currency of reserve. It is the most accepted global currency and the most sought after investment, especially in times of global economic downturn. 

How did the American Dollar come to occupy such an exalted position? 

The Dollar Trap, written by Eswar S. Prasad, seeks to answer this important question. It is a fascinating account of the the pivotal role played by the American Dollar in the global economy and how it has tightened its grip on global finance.

Title: The Dollar Trap

Author: Eswar S. Prasad
Publisher: Portfolio Penguin
Pages featured here: 16-21

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

 Happy Reading!

Book Excerpt: The Discovery of India

Jawaharlal Nehru wore many hats: freedom fighter, Fabian socialist, politician, chronicler of India's past and present, and prime minister.

Of his many works, two stand out: The Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History. 

The Discovery of India detailed a sweeping look at India's hoary past and an uncertain future under the British. While chronicling the story of India, Nehru dwells on an assortment of subjects - religion and its evolution over the centuries, culture and sub-cultures, development of science over the centuries, political philosophies, especially under British rule.

Glimpses of World History is actually built through letters that Nehru wrote to his daughter, Indira Priyadarshini (later Gandhi). The work lends a panoramic view of major global events—from Greek and other ancient civilisations to the turn of the 20th century—that have shaped the story of mankind. 

While Nehru was not a professional historian, his vast knowledge and mastery of the English language makes reading these two works a great joy.

The Discovery of India was also made into a popular television series, Bharat Ek Khoj.

Kindly ignore the pen markings (like underlines); these scans are taken from my personal copy, which I bought and read in 1990.

Title: The Discovery of India

Author: Jawaharlal Nehru
Publisher: OUP
Pages featured here: 74-76

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

Book Excerpt: Crusader or Conspirator?

The Coal Block Allocation Scam, or the CoalGate as it has come to be nicknamed, relates to the allocation of coal blocks to certain favored parties without following the bidding system. 

The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG) reported that this process of allocation of coal blocks without inviting open bidding led to a massive loss of Rs1,86,000 crore (Rupees One Lakh Eighty Six Thousand Crore) to the central and state governments. 

The UPA Government dismissed the huge loss figure as a figment of imagination.

Later,the Supreme Court struck down the allocation of 204 coal blocks.

The new central government, i.e., NDA under Narendra Modi, went in for e-bidding to bring in transparency in the allocation system. Till yesterday, the allocation of just 33 (out of 204) coal blocks has brought in nearly Rs2 lakh crore!! 

Tomorrow I shall share more on this scam; right now, let me share three pages from the work of P. C. Parakh, former secretary in the Ministry of Coal, Government of India. While a court had earlier absolved Mr Parakh of any wrong doing, a special CBI court has just issued summons to him.  Government of India. 

Title: Crusader or Conspirator?

Author: P. C. Parakh
Publisher: Manas
Pages featured here: 115-117

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

Book Excerpt: Have Pen, Will Travel

A travelogue is personal in nature as it reflects the writer-traveler's perspective—a kind of personal take—on the world around her/him. I like travelogues as they lend us a peep into the mind of the writer.

M. J. Akbar's Have Pen, Will Travel is a brilliant, humorous collection of his observations as a globetrotter. This book was a gift from my dear friend, Sudharsan Ramalingam, a civil servant with the Government of India. 

M. J. Akbar is one of India's finest journalists; he worked as the Editor-in-Chief of Deccan Chronicle and Asian Age. He is also the author of some serious works, like The Shade of Swords and India: The Siege Within. A former Congress MP, currently he is a spokesperson of the BJP.

I am sure you will greatly enjoy this travelogue diary, which is in fact a series of short pieces written over several years. Go ahead, immerse yourself in this brilliant work. 

Title: Have Pen, Will Travel

Author: M. J. Akbar
Publisher: Lotus Roli
Pages featured here: 160-165

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

Book Excerpt: Stoner, by John Williams

For the last few years, I have been reading less of fiction and more of non-fiction, especially stuff related to international politics and economics.

I cannot think of any specific reason for this; but I think I have found the right novel to take me back into the magic world of fiction, which often is truer than the 'reality'.

That novel is Stoner, written by John Williams. This is an old novel, first published in 1965. I am still reading the novel, savoring every word of the poignant tale.

(Read: The Best Way to Crack the GWPI at India's Top B-Schools)

I strongly urge you to read this tale of 'the human story'. Truthful. Sad. Moving. Soul-stirring.

Title: Stoner

Author: John Williams
Publisher: Vintage
Pages featured here: 

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

Book Excerpt: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

For several years now, relations between between the West and Islamic World have been marked by deep antipathy
This deep mistrust is a legacy of growing radicalism in the Muslim World and is characterised by a marked hatred of the West. It does not help that the foreign policies of the Western nations are guided by their narrow economic and strategic interests, often in the Middle East.

Samuel Huntington, former editor of Foreign Affairs, is the author of the ground-breaking work, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. In his magnum opus, Huntington argues that the 21st century will be marked by clashes between civilisations - Islam versus the West, Islam versus Sinic (China), Islam versus Hindu, Russia versus Sinic, Russia versus Islam, among others.

Title: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order

Author: Samuel Huntington
Publisher: Penguin
Pages featured here: 23-25

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

Book Excerpt: Globalization and Its Discontents

Globalization has come to define our world. Today, goods, ideas, technology, and capital seamlessly move between nations. In his seminal work, Globalization and Its Discontents, Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist at the World Bank and winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics 2001, explores the anger behind the rising tide against globalization.

Title: Globalization and Its Discontents

Author: Joseph Stiglitz
Publisher: Penguin
Pages featured here: 23-25

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

Book Excerpt: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness is a deeply philosophical novel about the complexities that layer human nature. Joseph Conrad explores the prejudices, especially of the racial kind, of the Whites/Europeans that 'coloured' their attitude and behaviour toward the Blacks/Africans throughout the age of colonization of the Dark Continent.

Though a short novel (109 pages in this edition), Heart of Darkness raises profound and disturbing questions about colonialism, imperialism and a false sense of racial superiority.

Title: Heart of Darkness 

Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: UBSPD
Pages featured here: 18-20

First read: 1997
Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

Book Excerpt: A Secular Agenda by Arun Shourie

There are a few provisions in the Constitution of India which are controversial and topical. Article 370, which accords special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and Article 44, a directive to the state to implement the Uniform Civil Code, are just two such provisions. 

A Secular Agenda by Arun Shourie, published 21 years ago, presents a cogent argument on the lamentable state of affairs that characterises the political landscape in India. The book is an exploration of the negative politics and policies pursued by vested interests much to the detriment of the nation. Most of the author's arguments are relevant and topical even today. 

I first came to know Arun Shourie through his columns in the Indian Express, then an anti-establishment newspaper. A firebrand journalist and a brilliant writer, he also worked as a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government (1998-2004).

Almost all of Mr Shourie's works are hard-hitting and hence, controversial. 

Title: A Secular Agenda by Arun Shourie

Author: Arun Shourie
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages featured here: 130-133

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.

Book Excerpt: The Blood Telegram - India's Secret War in East Pakistan

The birth of Bangladesh is one of the most defining moments in modern South Asian history. Pakistan, at the time of its creation in 1947, comprised two wings - West Pakistan and East Pakistan; it was East Pakistan that broke away to form a separate country in 1971.

The Blood Telegram - India's Secret War in East Pakistan brilliantly captures the chaos, despondence and violence that permeated the air in the run-up to the formation of Bangladesh. This is easily the best work on the 1971 India-Pakistan war and the creation of Bangladesh.

The book dwells on the finer nuances of international diplomacy, especially the anti-India Nixon administration in the U.S., the Chinese machinations against India, and the seminal role played by Indira Gandhi in the birth of the new country of Bangladesh.

Title: The Blood Telegram - India's Secret War in East Pakistan

Author: Gary J. Bass
Publisher: Random House
Pages featured here: 21-27

Note: All copyrights/trademarks belong to the owners of the publication/author(s). It is not my intention to profit from their work. In fact, I just wish that the readers of this blog are encouraged to buy/read the works represented here.