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The Greatest Tamil Stories Ever Told showcases some of the best short fiction to emerge out of Tamil Nadu, dating from the last century to the present day. Two of the earliest stories included here are Subramania Bharati's 'The Story of a Crow Learning Prosody', a satirical tale about the exaltation of language, and 'Kalki' Krishnamurthy's 'The Governor's Visit', about how bigwigs in little places pandered to the British rulers during the time of the Raj. While some stories in this volume wrestle with the idea of public justice, as in Father Mark Stephen's 'Penance' and Sa. Kandasamy's 'The Slaying of Hiranya', others, such as Ambai's 'Journey 4', hide secrets that could destroy lives and relationships if they are ever revealed. Featuring memorable works by, among others, Bama, Perumal Murugan, and Poomani, the thirty stories in this collection, selected and edited by Sujatha Vijayaraghavan and Mini Krishnan, come together to paint a striking picture of the Tamil people.

In Picturing Time, Raghu Rai, India's greatest living photographer, puts together the finest pictures he has taken over the course of a career that spans fifty years. His photographs of war, faith, monuments like the Taj Mahal, ordinary Indians, our greatest leaders, saints and charlatans, deserts and much else besides in black and white, and in colour, are imprinted on our memory. However, they have never been collected before in a single book. To add to our appreciation of these extraordinary pictures, most of them are accompanied by the photographer's insights into how, when and why the photographs were taken.To mark this landmark in his legendary career, he has put together, for the first time, the definitive selection of his finest pictures, across a variety of themes, along with the stories behind the photographs. Timeless, often unsettling, and always unforgettable, these pictures will change the way we see our world.

You will not forget Raghu Rai's people. It does not matter if they are famous or unknown, the master photographer's images of them are so arresting that they stamp themselves immediately on the viewer's gaze. What he is able to do is catch the essential truth of his subjects in a way that renders them unforgettable. He says, 'When I take a person's portrait, I am trying to capture the aura of that person, the person's spirit in the picture. I am trying to get the truth of that person to emerge i

Carpets adorn living spaces across the length and breadth of the country and are appreciated for many qualities-their design, their colours, their 'feel'-but rarely their history. Yet, each carpet has a story hidden within its intricate details, and the value of a carpet is not only determined by what it costs, or by its technical and aesthetic qualities, but also by the story it carries. Of Indian Carpets and Carpetwallahs: An Appreciation tells the stories of Indian carpets by delving into the histories of an assortment of unique carpets-that of delicate Kashmiri carpets, a Herati-inspired carpet made in Amritsar, and even one made in Rampur jail-collected by Norwegian diplomat Jon Westborg over his lifetime. Of Indian Carpets and Carpetwallahs: An Appreciation melds history, memory, and aesthetics beautifully to create a complete and detailed picture of the Indian carpet-making tradition.

Empower Yourself Right Now curates timeless pearls of wisdom from the world's greatest supergurus whose words have motivated billions around the globe and shown them the path to success and fulfilment. Delving deep into the roots of the most commonly faced roadblocks to personal growth such as self-doubt, negative patterns of thinking, procrastination, wavering focus, and a fear of the unknown, each excerpt in the book offers a fresh and powerful perspective that will transform your life.

The Hitopadesha-whichliterally means good advice-was composed in Sanskrit sometime between the ninthand tenth centuries CE by Pandit Narayana. Arranged in four fascinatingsections-Winning Friends, Losing Friends, Waging War, and Making Peace-thevignettes that comprise the text include tales of anthropomorphized birds andanimals who are imbued with all too human qualities and frailties. Using humour, satire, and unconventionalmethods of narration, the stories in the collection prescribe canny andpragmatic responses to a range of very human situations, ambitions, problems,and dilemmas. Not only does the book have advice for the rulerwho is too timid or too haughty, but also for the minister who must serve him,as for the innocent husband with the conniving wife, the beautiful wife withthe undeserving husband, friends turned enemies, enemies reconciled, cleverpeople, foolish people, the greedy, the distraught, and so on. TheHitopadesha, like the Panchatantra, is among the most widelytranslated classical texts of India. This new version by historian andSanskritist Shonaleeka Kaul is an idiomatic translation in simple narrativeprose and free verse that retains the freshness and wit of the original.

If India and China were to fight a war in thenear future, India faces the prospect of losing the war within ten days. Chinacould take Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh with a minimum loss of life, and thereis very little that India could do about it. This is because the Indianmilitary is preparing for the wrong war. In this eye-opening and disquietingbook, military expert and bestselling author Pravin Sawhney explains in greatdetail how this alarming scenario could play out.China'swar with India will be reminiscent of the 1991 Gulf War. The US military'sbattle networks connecting sensors to shooters and guided munitions withsupport from space assets had induced shock and awe in militaries worldwide.Similarly, China's war with India will stun the world with the use ofartificial intelligence, emerging technologies, multi-domain operations,imaginative war concepts, and collaboration between humans and intelligentrobots. China has been preparing for this since the 2017 Doklam crisis afterwhich it permanently augmented its troops across the Line of Actual Control.Theauthor argues that China's superpower status will only grow and the'capabilities lag' between the two countries will expand. And if there isoutright war, the Indian military will be no match for China's AI-backed warmachines. In such a war, traditional conventional forces will be at a hugedisadvantage, nuclear weapons will have no role to play, and the valour ofindividual soldiers will be of no consequence. India is honing its strengths tofight a war in the three physical domains of land, air, and the sea, whereasthe PLA is working on becoming the overwhelmingly superior force in sevendomains-air, land, sea (including deep-sea warfare), outer space, cyber space,the electromagnetic spectrum, and near space (aka the hypersonic domain). ThePLA's disruption technologies will overwhelm India within the first seventy-twohours of hostilities commencing, and will lead to the quick end of India'sresistance. The primary battleground will not be on land but in cyberspace andthe electromagnetic spectrum. TheLast War explains why it's critical that India works to prevent such a warever taking place.It should avoid focusing onjoint combat with the US, whose power in the region is weakening. Instead,India should seek to make peace with China and Pakistan, its main adversariesat the moment, while simultaneously working to enhance its military andtechnological strengths in areas that it hasn't focused its resources on. Onlythen will the country's borders be firmly secure, and the region's future peaceand prosperity be assured.

CREATURE OF INDIAN MYTH.

The Greatest Telugu Stories Ever Told spans almost a century of work by some of the finest writers of short fiction in the language. The storytellers included in the anthology range from literary masters such as Chalam, Kanuparthi Varalakshmamma, and Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao to contemporary writers like Mohammed Khadeer Babu, Jajula Gowri, and Vempalle Shareef. The tales found in this collection weave a rich tapestry of Telugu experiences. Illindala Saraswati Devi's 'Bad Times' discusses the downturn in Muslim fortunes after the integration of the nizam's state with the Indian union. Boya Jangaiah's 'The Eclipse' chronicles the aching memories that besiege a Dalit poet when he makes a brief stop at his village. Bandi Narayanaswami's 'Water' dramatizes the acute shortage of water in the Rayalaseema region and its exacerbation by political rivalries. Kavana Sarma's 'House Number' gently mocks a self-proclaimed math genius and his attempts at memorizing a simple house number. A heartbreaking love story, Vempalli Gangadhar's 'Festival of Love' is a romance imbued with the fragrance of jasmine fields. Selected and deftly translated by Dasu Krishnamoorty and Tamraparni Dasu, these and the other stories in this collection offer a window into how the Telugu people see the world and their place in it.