Page 62 - Bs Reads

A soft tale of hardware

Ajai Chowdhry's autobiographical tale is a charmingly narrated account of his journey from Abbottabad in Pakistan to Jabalpur in India, and his rise to becoming a key figure in the Indian IT industry

FTAs beyond the zero-sum game

V S Seshadri's book makes a case for why India's collective thinking on FTAs needs to evolve in order to leverage their intrinsic value, both in economic and strategic dimensions

1848: Reaction and response

The sense of failure that hovers around 1848 cannot be dispelled by counting the rail lines laid down in its aftermath

Tomorrow's world: Comforting incrementalism

Journalist Hamish McRae's book predicting future events lacks novelty in the projections compared to some other publications

Finance ministers and their balancing acts

A K Bhattacharya's book delves into the challenges, decisions, and political dynamics of India's economic policies through the lens of its finance ministers

Omens from a Canadian wildfire

Journalist and author John Vaillant's book explores the devastating wildfire that engulfed Fort McMurray, revealing the ominous implications of climate change and the destructive power of fire

How traders win big when society collapses

Perhaps what comes through most strongly is just how many theories there are about how financial markets behave

History through climate change

Historian Peter Frankopan traces the story of human civilisation through its impact on the biosphere

Lost subtext of the planetary crisis

Siddarth Shrikanth's book explores the urgent need to prioritise nature and adopt a nature-positive approach in addressing the global environmental crisis

The roots of male dominance

Angela Saini's book is a thought-provoking exploration of patriarchy, its historical roots, and its impact on society, offering glimpses of resistance and the search for alternatives

Reinventing capitalism for the digital age

Ro Khanna's book reveals the dual nature of the Digital Revolution, urging policymakers to decentralise growth and ensure inclusivity in the face of its transformative impact

A tale of five hacks

"Fancy Bear" and "Cozy Bear" refer to cyberespionage units linked to Russian intelligence that gained access to Democratic National Committee's computer systems before 2016 presidential election

What to do when skill and energy wane

When professional and physical decline set in, what does one do?

Anglophile scientist, ardent nationalist

Bhabha was born into a wealthy Parsi family (he was related to the Tatas). He studied physics at Cambridge and wrote several well-regarded papers

The political anatomy of caste

Mr Mitta addresses complex question. If we are all avowed Hindus, why do we fight, rape and kill each other in the name of caste?

Puncturing the world map

This narrative, how­ever, overlooks the forces that were at play already when these nations emer­ged and that would 50 years later end up draw­ing hard limits on what states could do

Indo-Pak: The more things change…

With a foreword by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the book begins by stating the nuances in the evolution of Pakistan as a military state

9/11, crime & punishment

Caught napping on 9/11 - in part because of a turf war with the FBI - the CIA was eager to get ahead of the game and gather intelligence on a rumoured second wave of attacks

Maulana Azad: Proud Indian, proud Muslim

Azad, according to Dr Habib, was not comfortable in the presence of a crowd. He sought the solitude that is conducive to scholarship

Hong Kong beyond the divides

Fortune's Bazaar shows that cities are constructed not from zero-sum games and political theory, but from generations of human interactions that defy us-and-them formulas