My Columns: Without Fear and Favour

http://www.indiablooms.com/FeatureDetailsPage/2014/featureDetails150314a.php West Bengal : Changing Colours By Deepak Parvatiyar West Bengal : Changing Colours Changing Challenges By Sitaram Sharma. Publisher: Rupa Publications Price: Rs 295 Sitaram Sharma’s “West Bengal: Changing Colours Changing Challenges” offers a ringside view of the changing political scene in West Bengal – one of the last bastions of the Communists in the country – in the last half century. It reflects on the prevailing complexities of the socio-economic and political environment in the state and attempts to explore the factors that lay behind the success of the Left in 1977 and their return to power in election after election till 2011, and identifies the influx of refugees from East Pakistan as an important factor for Red ruling the state for so long. The book suggests that the government’s failure to rehabilitate the refugees, whose numbers kept increasing and by the 1960s cross...

http://www.newkerala.com/news/2014/fullnews-64887.html#.U5gLlvmSySo REVIEW: How Narendra Modi became a gamechanger By Deepak Parvatiyar, Narendra Modi: The GameChanger; Author: Sudesh Verma ; Publisher: Vitasta Publishing; Price: Rs.399/- soft bound; Published: Feb 2014 Suddenly the book market is flooded with books on Narendra Modi, who till the other day was media's whipping boy. The spectacular mandate has overnight transformed the new prime minister of India into media's poster boy. Unconfirmed figures suggest there were more than 105 books on Modi-- written by various authors in varying styles -- that hit the stalls recently. Yet, Narendra Modi - The GameChanger, is one of the more authentic books on the subject. While it cannot be termed as an authorised biography, the book is based on numerous interviews with Modi and his relatives, friends and his critics. "The 400 plus pages talk about the inspiring stories that made Modi what he is today- how he evolve...