The Man Who Saved India

When P.V. Narasimha Rao became the unlikely prime minister of India in 1991, he inherited a nation adrift, violent insurgencies, and economic crisis. Despite being unloved by his people, mistrusted by his party, and ruling under the shadow of 10 Janpath, Rao transformed the economy and ushered India into the global arena. With exclusive access to Rao’s never-before-seen personal papers and diaries, this definitive biography provides new revelations on the Indian economy, nuclear program, and foreign policy and the Babri Masjid.

Drawing from a vast range of original archival documents across India and abroad, this biography in two parts - the first focusing on the years leading up to his incarceration and eventual release from the Kalapani - puts Savarkar, his life, and his philosophy in a new perspective and looks at the man with all his achievements and failings. 

Drawing from a vast range of original archival documents across India and abroad, this biography in two parts - the first focusing on the years leading up to his incarceration and eventual release from the Kalapani - puts Savarkar, his life and philosophy in a new perspective and looks at the man with all his achievements and failings.

The 19th century was an exciting time of initiative and enterprise around the world. If John D. Rockefeller was creating unimagined wealth in the United States that he would put to the service of the nation, a Parsi family with humble roots was doing the same in India. The Tatas is a tribute to a line of visionaries who have a special place in the hearts and minds of ordinary Indians. Written by seasoned journalist Girish Kuber, this is also the only book that tells the complete Tata story spanning almost 200 years.

From being one of the earliest members of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Vajpayee blossomed into a leading opposition MP by the late 1960s and went on to become External Affairs Minister in the short-lived Janata government and, finally in 1999, to head the first non-Congress government to complete a full term in office. That it was a coalition government made the feat all the more remarkable and testifies to the fact that though wedded to a right-wing political ideology, Vajpayee did not believe in the politics of exclusion.

Did ancient India witness the Great Flood? Why did the Buddha give his first sermon at Sarnath? How did the Europeans map India? Combining scholarship with sparkling wit, Sanjeev Sanyal sets out to explore how India's history was shaped by its geography - answering questions you may have never thought to ask. Moving from geological and genetic origins to present-day Gurgaon, Land of the Seven Rivers is riveting, wry, and full of surprises.

P. V. Narasimha Rao (or PV, as he was popularly known) has been widely praised for enabling the economic reforms that transformed the country in 1991. From the vantage point of his long personal and professional association with the former prime minister, best-selling author Sanjaya Baru shows how PV's impact on the nation's fortunes went way beyond the economy.

India's armed forces play a key role in protecting the country and occupy a special place in the Indian people's hearts, yet standard accounts of contemporary Indian history rarely have a military dimension. In India's Wars, serving Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam seeks to rectify that oversight by giving India's military exploits their rightful place in history.  

In February 1999, Pakistani Army personnel, disguised as jehadi militants, infiltrated mountainous Kargil and occupied key vantage points. Their intrusion triggered off a limited war between the world's newest nuclear states. It was a bitter battle, and one that throws up important lessons for India's defence preparedness, as also its responses to flare-ups such as this. This book is also a reminder of the unparalleled heroism that was on display during those grim weeks, heroism that has become a benchmark for bravery. 

Apart from revealing the state of affairs between the Indian native kingdoms and the East India Company, How India Lost Her Freedom provides a fine account of what India was prior to the advent of the British. The book focuses on the crucial facts and events that led to the establishment of British rule over India. 

This collection is an attempt to showcase the phenomenon of Hindu nationalism in terms of how it perceives itself. Many of the concerns that drive the Indian Right are located in the country's nationalist culture. In trying to locate some of the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that define the Indian Right, Awakening Bharat Mata also seeks to identify the nature of Indian conservatism and identify its similarities and differences with political thought in the West. 

The Army major who led the legendary September 2016 surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC; a soldier who killed 11 terrorists in 10 days; a Navy officer who sailed into a treacherous port to rescue hundreds from an exploding war; a bleeding Air Force pilot who found himself flying a jet that had become a screaming fireball...their own accounts or of those who were with them in their final moments. 

As the world once again confronts an eruption of authoritarianism, Gyan Prakash's Emergency Chronicles takes us back to the moment of India's independence to offer a comprehensive historical account of Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975-77. Stripping away the myth that this was a sudden event brought on solely by the prime minister's desire to cling to power, it argues that the Emergency was as much Indira's doing as it was the product of Indian democracy's troubled relationship with popular politics, and a turning point in its history.

On 20 October 1962, high in the Himalayas, on the banks of the fast-flowing Nam Ka Chu, over 400 Indian soldiers were massacred, and the valley was overrun by soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army. Over the course of the next month, nearly 4,000 soldiers were killed on both sides, and the Indian army experienced its worst defeat ever. The conflict (war was never formally declared) ended because China announced a unilateral ceasefire on 21 November and halted its hitherto unhindered advance across NEFA and Ladakh.

Written by Singh’s media adviser and trusted aide, the book describes Singh’s often troubled relations with his ministers, his cautious equation with Sonia Gandhi, and how he handled the big crises from managing the left to pushing through the nuclear deal. Insightful, acute, and packed with political anecdotes, The Accidental Prime Minister is one of the great insider accounts of Indian political life.