Showing all 12 books
Written by one of India’s leading journalist, B. G. Verghese, the work takes a kaleidoscopic look at the rich socio-cultural heritage of India and its history. It throws light on the diverse faiths here, the wandering minstrels and travellers and philosophers, the epics and legends that chronicle love tales and heroic deeds. The focus is on the features of 'incredible India': the little known people, events and places that are interesting and informative. ...
Writing contemporary history can be an adventure, especially in a country as diverse as India, where much happens but little is documented due to the lack of a culture of documentation. This anthology is an attempt at looking at Indias history through the eyes of an Indian through the writings of eminent scholars and budding talent and offering a perspective and viewpoint that is unbiased, analytical and introspective but basically Indian as opposed to a western ...
Journalism constitutes the first draft of history, recording snapshots of events as they flit past the stage. B.G. Verghese has been a mainline journalist for over 60 years and was privileged to watch the creation of modern India from a ringside seat as a political and development correspondent, editor and columnist in the country’s leading newspapers and journals. In between he had two stints in Government and was a member of committees and commissions ...
As a watchdog of public interest and the voice of the small man, it is the duty of the media to uphold democracy by exposing what those in authority may prefer to gloss over or hide. But in this age of instant communication and twenty-four-hour television, the focus is on breaking the story as it happens, with little attempt to interpret and analyse. In this context, when everything appears ‘big’ and yet superficial, has the ...
Ramnath Goenka was a man of many parts' freedom fighter, Gandhian worker, politician, merchant, industrialist and newspaper magnate. But more than anything else he was an indomitable warrior for the freedom of the Press, whose frontiers he fearlessly defended and pushed, often at enormous cost to himself. His mission as a newspaper publisher was to empower the citizen, uphold his right to know, and to make all those in power and authority accountable to the ...
The end of the cold war and roll back of international communism together with the interrupted, but by no means aborted, Asian miracle and other modernising growth impulses have seen the emergence of a new geo-political and geo-economic architecture in Asia that is shaping what could become an Asian century. The Asian heartland and the Indian Ocean rimlands, that oscillated over history as the prime focus of political and economic power, are now reconnecting to ...
The present volume of essays surveys the scene past-forward and paints a picture of what has been accomplished and what remains to be done. There is pride and satisfaction in particular over India's vibrant democracy and progress in many directions. This is nonetheless tinged with concern, for there are nagging problems of governance and shortfalls in human and infrastructure development, as well as social deficits in the matter of rights, corruption and sectoral ...
Sixty years after independence, the idea of India has become part of the very fabric of our democracy and nation-state. Yet much remains to be done to manage the upsurge of diversities that this democracy has nourished, and to confront the challenges and opportunities this presents. In this book, B.G. Verghese takes a broad-brush view of some of the country's pressing concerns today: insurgency and Naxalism in Bihar, Middle India and Andhra; issues of language ...