The Iranian frigate IS Sahand after being hit by 20 US air launched missiles and bombs, April 1988

The war that began all wars in West Asia

A detailed study of the Iran-Iraq war provides a timely reminder of the eight-year conflict that shaped the current conflagration in the region

Business Standard

The bustling metropolis, which allegedly served as the launch pad for jihadis who attacked Mumbai in 2008, is the primary setting of Shandana Minhas' second novel

Violence, guilt and shame in Pakistan

[BOOK DETAILS] Making It BigBinod ChaudharyPenguin, Rs 399, 411 pages[COPY BEGINS] Binod Chaudhary's story is fairly well known: he is the first person from Nepal on Forbes's list of billionaires, his main business is instant noodles (Wai Wai), he owns Nabil Bank, and he is a business partner of Tata. He runs factories, hotels, power plants and has interests in real estate. The sturdily built businessman is of Marwari stock but let me tell you he is as Nepali as the south face of Mount Everest: in the presence of outsiders, I have often heard him converse with his sons in chaste Nepali; needle him about Nepal and he will come at you with all his might; and his name is Binod, as a true highlander would say it, not Vinod.Mr Chaudhary's grandfather had a clothes shop in Kathmandu and was one of the few traders who had access to the royal palace. His father grew the business, started a string of factories, and in 1968 set up Arun Emporium, Kathmandu's largest departmental store. Under Mr C

Business & palace intrigues in Nepal

Gangster Warlords is Mr Grillo's second book, coming five years after El Narco, in which he analysed Mexican drug cartels

South America's drug-fuelled holocaust

Galbraith and Mr Basu have left me wondering if academics can write good novels and if their approach is not altogether either too severe or too complex because they are worried about what their university peers might think

T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan: Of economists and novelists

Frank Dikotter's The Cultural Revolution, the third volume of his work on the Mao years, challenges the Chinese people to address those missing years

A people's history of the Cultural Revolution

The opener for the section titled 'Songs of the World

Shyam making a selfie with Rembrandt. Rembrandt is rendered in Gond style and Shyam renders himself in Rembrandt's style

Shyam pays tributes to all his gurus and the gurus of his gurus

A beautifully illustrated autobiography of Venkat Raman Singh Shyam captures the joys and heartbreaks of being a folk artist in an unequal world

An Adivasi's ways of seeing

Yann Martel's The High Mountains of Portugal forces you to think deeply about love, loss, faith, suffering and pain

Yann Martel in Pi's shadow

Sushil Kumar Sayal's account of the rampant corruption and irregularities in real estate extends to discussing the hush-hush nexus between some builders and bureaucrats

The realities of realty

The book Masala Bumbu, ably edited by ambassador Gurjit Singh was published in 2015, coinciding with the "Sahabat India Festival of India in Indonesia" held that year

Lost opportunities in Indonesian ties

In Alter Egos, Mark Landler, who is a White House correspondent for The New York Times, comes down emphatically on the side of an interventionist Ms Clinton

Frenemies of the state

Sonia Gandhi

Tavleen's trysts

Narendra Modi

Her book is less of a Hindutva-loving diatribe against the Dynasty than its detractors suggest, but it is still hard to agree with much of what she writes

Subsequent essays map the history of Indian writing in English and raise critical questions on the identity of the Indian writer

A reader's Happy Place

Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya in his book Government as Practice seeks to provide a novel analytical tool to assess the experience

The crisis of the Left

Duncan Clark has drawn on his long experience of China, his stint as advisor to the company in its early years and his access to top mgmt to produce this authoritative account

Jack Ma: from 'shrimp' to whale

Memoirs of retired civil servants are usually an interesting read simply because they offer an insight into functional style of the govts with which they have been associated during their careers

Up close & pedestrian

Some would concur instead with an opinion published by a Somali blogger in The Guardian in 2013 and quoted by the sociologist Judith Lasker in Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering

Questioning the value of volunteers

Indian army

An accomplished history juxtaposes the far-flung campaigns India fought against the independence struggle

India's World War II

When Charles J Shields's biography of Harper Lee came out in 2006, it was hailed as the definitive study of the famously private author and her singular 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee in a new light

Authors Kenneth Scheve & David Stasavage find that there is little evidence to suggest that increasing inequality leads countries to adopt higher taxes on the rich

Why governments evade the 'rich tax'

Ben Goldacre specifically targets pseudoscience, fallacies and woo and he does so with a trademark blend of logic, wit, snark and sarcasm that mocks bad science

Debunking bad science

Book News: Check out for latest book news, reviews, book launches and more on Business Standard. Explore now for new books reviews along with books writers and novel reviews and more.

Books News: Latest Book, Book Reviews, Book Features, Book Launches | Business Standard

Check out for latest book reviews, book launches and more on Business Standard. Explore now for new books reviews along with books writers and novel reviews and more.

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