Böcker utgivna av Bloomsbury India

Thirteenth century Hindustan: Sultans ruled Delhi. Seduced by gold, they eyed rich neighbouring kingdoms. They marched from one land to another, plundering and preying on the women of the vanquished. The sultan's court was a cauldron of intrigue, where brother killed brother for the throne. Amidst this orgy of violence, greed and lust, there emerged a Sufi dervish called Nizamuddin Auliya. He offered calm to a people ravaged by fear; he offered hope where there was none. The dervish spoke of tolerance and peace among religions. There are as many paths to The One as there are grains of sand. Nizamuddin realised his Maker by feeding the hungry. He knew what hunger was like. He had gone hungry too. The dervish, like all Chishti Sufis, would have nothing to do with sultans, who were wary of him. One wanted Nizamuddin's severed head brought to his court. Nizamuddin's closest disciple was Amir Khusro, the court poet of sultans, the dervish's soul. Music was prayer for Nizamuddin. Amir Khusro created qawwali, Sufi devotional music, for his master. Song of The Dervish tells the stories of people who feel Nizamuddin's presence today, 700 years later. He offers hope and heals. No one goes hungry, no soul leaves troubled from the dervish's doorstep.

Until December 15, 2007, Khundrakpam Pradipkumar Singh was nobody. The very next day he was known across his state as 'Mr Manipur'. Pradip's incredible story of how an HIV-positive person mended his failing health, overcame psychological trauma, fought stigma and discrimination to become an international bodybuilding champion is told in the pages of this book.Like legendary basketball player Magic Johnson, Pradip too disclosed his HIV status through the media, not giving a damn about society's shocked reaction. However, there is something unique in Pradip's story. While Johnson called it quits after being diagnosed with HIV, Pradip remained undaunted in the face of all odds. He was determined to excel in his chosen field despite warnings from doctors and adverse comments from society. And he went on to win several medals and titles, defeating the virus in his body.Pradip's extraordinary courage and sheer determination caught everyone by surprise. He became a role model for people living with HIV in India and other parts of the globe. He was made Brand Ambassador for HIV/AIDS by the Manipur State AIDS Control Society and was roped in by the India chapter of a global non-profit to lead a pan-India HIV awareness campaign from Delhi.Pradip also took up the cudgels to sensitise people to the ill-effects of drug abuse, to which Manipur is the biggest victim in Northeast India. Given the fact that he contracted the 'deadly virus' through sharing of needles, he sincerely appeals to youngsters to say no to drugs.Pradip has been living with HIV for more than 15 years and continues to beunbelievably strong in mind and body. A true iconoclast, Pradip never getstired of saying: 'HIV does not kill people, it's society that kills HIV positivepeople.

Beyond jugaad, that great Indian tradition of short-term fixes, what does innovation mean in Indian business? That is the question this book addresses through a collection of stand-alone stories that describe sustained innovation at a cross-section of companies that include conglomerates, MNCs, large and midsized companies, and start-ups. Based on extensive research and one-to-one conversations, what sets this book apart are first-person accounts by some of India's finest business leaders on the innovation journey in their companies. Filled with anecdotes and real-life examples, the book would be of interest to anyone interested in Indian business. It would also be an ideal gift to showcase India to customers, trade delegations, investors, and other stakeholders. The Organizations and Stalwarts Featured are Conglomerates: Ratan Tata, Adi Godrej, Suresh Krishna (TVS) MNCs: Munesh Makhija (GE India Technology Center), Suresh Narayanan (Nestle India), Dilip Khandelwal (SAP Labs India) Large companies: A M Naik (L&T), Aditya Puri (HDFC Bank), N R Narayanamurthy (Infosys), K B S Anand (Asian Paints), G V Prasad (Dr Reddy's Laboratories), Bhaskar Bhat (Titan) Midsized companies: Harsh Mariwala (Marico), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Biocon), P R S 'Biki' Oberoi (Oberoi Hotels), Meraj Manal (Himalaya), Dr Devi Shetty (Narayana Health), William Bissell (Fabindia), Kiran Khalap (chlorophyll) Startups: Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Paytm), Raghav Bahl (Quintillion Media), Team Indus

The characteristics and reasons for urban poverty are manifold and seem to repeat across class structures: migration, culture shock, real estate costs and unrealistic expectations of city life, a lack of financial education, corporate cultures that perpetuate stereotypical workforces, a glamourised entrepreneurial culture that focuses on icons of spending instead of struggle, and economically and politically, the rise of the cashless credit economy and the demise of the thrift economy and its conservative icons.The book will use the case studies of young Indians, typically in their first or second jobs, migrants to major Indian metros, living in these conditions. The reasons for the poverty they experience are varied, and influenced by the industries they work for, their family backgrounds, other financial obligations, social stratas, and peer groups. There are so far, no studies available for this in India, and is a rising phenomenon in the USwhere it has been called 'poverty with no name'. Gayatri's short piece on the Urban Poor crossed 1.1 million views on Buzzfeed - the highest number for any Indian feature article to date.

Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, walked the earth to restore love and humanity lurking in the doldrums. His early communion with the Ultimate drew him to far-fetched places to inculcate the scent of unity and equality among people. He sang the divine praises along the way and persuaded people towards the spiritual essence of the Lord. He made an intriguing manifestation that the Lord is One and there exists no other besides Him. Most of what Nanak professed was apparently derived from the Ultimate. As mentioned in the Janamsakhis, he often directed his companion Mardana to play on his rabab as he vividly sang the Bani or Divine Word descending upon him from the skies. With an unrelenting desire to spread enlightenment among the masses, he became an itinerant preacher to eradicate the upsurge of erroneous beliefs and the moss of differences propelled by caste and creed. This exquisitely illustrated book explores the life of Guru Nanak at length and offers an insight into his timeless teachings which are marvelously ingrained in his divine hymns - the Japji, Asa di Var and Barah-maha.

The book will be a landmark in itself because it will be the first to cover behind the scenes of every loved ad, right from the Doordarshan days to today's YouTube; right from 'Chal meri luna' to 'Airtel smartphone ads'. It will cover interviews of creative heads and directors of all generations, right from vintage to new age. Author has handpicked each ad based on their popularity among viewers and met its creators and talked to them about the entire process. He had left out the marketing jargons and advertising sham, and just weaved stories using wonderful stories. The book will feature legendary ad-creators like Alyque Padamsee, Piyush Pandey, Prahlad Kakkar, R Balki, Prasoon Joshi, Prasoon Pandey, Agnello Dias, KS Chakravarty, Prakash Varma, Nitesh Tiwari, Preeti Nair, Ram Madhvani, Kailash Surendranath, Amit Sharma, Ashish Khajanji, Parshuraman, AG Krishnamurthy, Shantanu Sheorey and many more. One unique aspect about this book is the coming together of virtually the entire ad industry.

India has a high maternal mortality rate, a staggering 174 per 100,000 live births (2015).'Women are not dying because of diseases we cannot treat. They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving.'-Mahmoud Fathalla, past president of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.Pregnancy is not only an altered physiology, but also has profound psychological and social implications. Sometimes, these changing body dynamics are far reaching. Chronicles of a Gynaecologist, written by a celebrated doctor and inspired by the stories of real women, explores issues ranging from the largely preventable complications experienced during pregnancies, the myths and superstitions surrounding them, to emotionally wrenching situations like postpartum depression. These compelling stories also touch upon topics that society tries to hide under the carpet, such as domestic violence, perversions, sexual orientation, rape and incest. The author tries to decipher the conundrum of women's lives at every step. Every story raises a curtain and promises to be a revelation.

The phoenix can only rise if there is a large and credible purpose.In this filigree of enchanting stories Priya Somaiya effortlessly crafts the lives and experiences of a few women, revealing the interwoven complexity of emotions and astounding actions that could shift many mental and emotional paradigms-Sahiba undergoes a massive identity transformation and confronts undefinable tragedy with quiet courage; the determined Shakun cannot be appreciated by people who perceive the world largely through class, caste and gender biases; how can women like Fatima and Ramoli challenge the entrenched norms governing women in feudal structures; Shailaja doesn't realise that the universe does partner in fulfilling strong aspirations in the most mysterious ways; when a girl child is thrown on a railway platform after she is born and grows up on the same platform, what does it mean to just breathe and survive; widowhood in India is still neither here nor there and if Pushpa could weather the worst storm of widowhood she can just sail through others; Asma changes her name to redefine her identity and feels empowered to alter her life.These are stories of faith and humanity. It takes brazen guts and conviction in the goodness of human nature to believe that attitudinal positivity can turn around one's life. Rare and life-changing, Unwilling to Bend posits that courage is the most beautiful colour of the mind.

Winning elections is not everything, what is crucial for the good health of a robust democracy is forming a government.From strategically devised pre-poll alliances to hastily stitched together post-poll associations, noted journalist Sunita Aron has travelled the length and breadth of the country, painstakingly documenting the drama and dharma of coalition politics in India. The result of her exhaustive research and insightful analysis, Ballots and Breakups is a cracker of a read. As Indian voters deliver fractured verdicts, political parties resort to constructing fragile coalitions by hook or by crook. The hapless casualties of this relentless quest for power are the Indian voters and this book is for them, as the writer eloquently exhorts for the need of common guidelines on the formation of a government in the case of a hung house. A gripping take on coalition politics in India, Aron charts a riveting tale of modern Indian politics that has all the masala of a Bollywood potboiler, but the ending, the writer asserts, has to be happy like that of any Hindi film, 'stable governments and a prosperous society even in a hung house!'

In this lucid and enlightening account, Nityananda Misra takes the reader on a whirlwind journey through the modern Kumbha Mela, the largest pilgrimage and the biggest festival in the world attended by crores of people. The book details the origin and symbolism of the Kumbha Mela, its dates and venues, and its awe-inspiring organization that has been called a wonder of modern-day management. It provides a personal close-up view of the visitors at the largest human gathering on earth-the sadhus, the kalpavasis, the tirthayatris, and members of new-age Hindu movements. The author sheds considerable light on the cultural aspects (literature, arts, and music) of the Kumbha and argues how the mela is perhaps the most diverse and inclusive human gathering and how the tradition is immortal, as if made so by the nectar of immortality which is believed to have spilled on the sites of the Kumbha Mela. Throughout the book, the author shows how diverse participants come and work together at the Kumbha Mela following the spirit of samgacchadhvam ("come together")-a spirit that permeates the mela in his view.The author captures his personal experience too in Prayaga, Nashik, and Ujjain, leaving an anecdotal touch to the narrative. The final chapter presents an overview of the upcoming Ardha Kumbha Mela in Prayaga in 2019.

'The Bitcoin Saga: A Mixed Montage' is an exciting story about the birth and growth of bitcoin and the blockchain technology underpinning it. The book takes the untutored reader on a thrilling rollercoaster ride through the complexities and myriad facets of cryptocurrencies. The sub-prime crisis of 2008 and the Cypherpunk movement sets the stage for the advent of the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto and the release of the first cache of bitcoins. The narrative takes on a Houdini like magical quality as it unravels the skeins of the Dark Web and the secret of the Silk Road. The story of the Mt Gox heist and Nostradamus like prophecies of bitcoin doom add a generous dollop of intrigue to the crypto story. The cryptocurrency regulatory-tax tales of countries like USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, China, India etc give the narrative an intellectual slant. The bitcoin saga ends on an introspective note. The blockchain technology has enormous power to change the world. Whether it will be a benevolent Titan or a Frankenstein monster, only time can tell.

The Indian Ocean interregional arena is a space of vital economic and strategic importance characterized by specialized flows of capital and labor, skills and services, and ideas and culture. Islam in particular and religiously informed universalism in general once signified cosmopolitanism across this wide realm. This historical reality is at variance with contemporary conceptions of Islam as an illiberal religion that breeds intolerance and terrorism. The future balance of global power will be determined in large measure by policies of key actors in the Indian Ocean and the lands that abut it rather than in the Atlantic or the Pacific. The interplay of multiple and competing universalisms in the Indian Ocean arena is in urgent need of better understanding. Oceanic Islam: Muslim Universalism and European Imperialism is a fresh contribution to Islamic and Indian Ocean studies alike, placing the history of modern South Asia in broader interregional and global contexts. It refines theories of universalism and cosmopolitanism while at the same time drawing on new empirical research. The essays in the volume bring the best academic scholarship on Islam in South Asia and across the Indian Ocean in the age of European empire to the readers.

Populism and Its Limits is a response to the evaluative and celebratory approaches to populism in social sciences andhumanities. It seeks to study the phenomenon of populism, thoroughly consider its limits and, if possible, proposes waysout to other kinds of commitment in life, living and politics. It aims to formulate responses that take on the spurious and non-dialectical dissociation between thought and action, intellect and emotion, the people and the elite.

Locating World Cinema argues for the importance of understanding the local context of a film's creation and the nuances that it conveys to the spectator. It examines the sociocultural contexts intrinsic to cinema from milieus like the USSR/Russia, China, Japan, France, the US, Iran and India. The book analyses the works of some of the more celebrated but, at times, less than fully understood auteurs, such as Kenji Mizoguchi from Japan; Robert Bresson, Jacques Rivette and Éric Rohmer from France; Abbas Kiarostami from Iran; Martin Scorsese from the US; Zhang Yimou from China and Aleksei German from Russia.Further, it examines how the conditions of exhibition for art house cinema has transformed into the 'global art film' that attempts to bypass the local by addressing international audiences.The book deals with complex ideas but is lucidly written, making it accessible to film students and lay persons alike.

Oriental Wells explores the manifold ways in which the East was a major source of inspiration for the British Romantic poets, who generously borrowed from the Eastern sources in their effort to reinvent the British poetic tradition. It examines the "orientalization" of Romantic poetry, using works of William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and Walter Savage Landor. Analyzing the Romantic poets' multifaceted engagement with the East, the book raises the questions:· What led Blake to formulate his thesis that "All Religions Are One"?· Why do Coleridge's poetry and the play Osorio echo some of the passages from Wilkins' translation of The Bhagvat-Geeta as well as other prominent Eastern religious texts?· What made Southey write his "Hindu epic" The Curse of Kehama and his "Islamic" tale Thalaba, the Destroyer?· What was the exact nature of the negotiations between William Jones' Orientalism and Wordsworth's poetics as formulated in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, The Prelude, and other poems? The book convincingly argues that the introduction of "cultural goods" from the East played a crucial role in shaping the form and substance of British Romanticism, while acknowledging that the Romantics' reception of the East was tempered by their ideological concerns and religious background.

The thinkers and philosophers of ancient India contemplated intensively and extensively about all aspects related to life, and art was one of the major domains they touched upon. A profound and intense analysis of the art experience in literature naturally led to the evolution of one of the most sophisticated and long-standing poetic systems in the world.An Introduction to Indian Aesthetics: History, Theory, and Theoreticians offers a comprehensive historical and conceptual overview of all the major schools in Sanskrit poetics-one of the most sophisticated and long-standing traditions of literary criticism in the ancient world. The book, despite its primary focus on the major exponents of each school, also aims to give the reader a good idea as to how these concepts were treated before and after their major practitioners. An important part of Sanskrit poetics that often intimidates a modern reader is its seemingly difficult terminology. This book particularly addresses this issue by using contemporary idioms for readers who have no background of Sanskrit. It also aims to draw points of comparison, wherever relevant, between certain concepts in Sanskrit poetics and their western counterparts.

This book considers teaching in modern institutional settings, among other things, as the ethical questioning and reversal of passively accepted prejudices, particularly in contexts of diversities and inequalities. Its thematic focus is the ethics of teacher-learner and learner-learner relationships within the democratic setup, and the possibilities of critique and transformation emerging out of such a relationship.The first theme of the book is diversity and pluralism, the second is the question of inequality in such contexts of radical diversity. With respect to this question, an unavoidable phenomenon of our times is the capitalisation of education and the reductionist view of learners as customers and consumers of knowledge. The approach to education that sees students merely as skilled human resources to be readied for the job market militates against critical thinking and do not respond appropriately to the questions of diversity and inequality. Thus, a significant focus of the book is the impact of inherited inequalities of caste and race on classroom ambience and teachers' interventions in the modern institutional context. The pertinent question is the increasing unwillingness of teachers to recognise and challenge discriminatory views and play their role in social transformation. In this regard, the teaching and learning of the humanities is also investigated. Teaching and the traditional classroom, it is often said, may not be required in the future as machines and remotely located teachers/explicators might claim their place. Hence, another question of focus is whether such a future would be hospitable to the critical task of education to cultivate young citizens of democracies.

The Sikhs have been a people in transition. Unwanted displacements, willing movements and a changing world have led them through demographic, occupational and experiential shifts. While this has led to the evolution of new facets within the community, it has also evoked mixed responses from outside.As new generations of Sikhs engage with the world through sensibilities defined by their contemporary contexts, they find themselves constructed in images dissonant with their lived realities. The Sikh Next Door: An Identity in Transition traces these changes while also making an incisive analysis of old stereotypes-some heroic, some menacing and some farcical.It simultaneously brings into focus the real people behind these images, their varying social stances and their collective commitment to a common religious identity.The work attempts to reframe the Sikhs, bending a few existing narratives and offering an impetus for a more nuanced understanding of the community.

Indian Travel Writing in the Age of Empire studies a variety of travel narratives by Indian kings, evangelists, statesmen, scholars, merchants, leisure travellers and reformers. It identifies the key modes through which the Indian traveller engaged with Europe and the world-from aesthetic evaluations to cosmopolitan nationalist perceptions, from exoticism to a keen sense of connected and global histories. These modes are constitutive of the identity of the traveller. The book demonstrates how the Indian traveller defied the prescriptive category of the 'imperial subject' and fashions himself through this multilayered engagement with England, Europe and the world in different identities.

This book argues that the changing character of Muslim community and their living space in Delhi is a product of historical processes. The discourse of homeland and the realities of Partition established the notion of 'Muslim-dominated areas' as 'exclusionary' and 'contested' zones. These localities turned out to be those pockets where the dominant ideas of nation had to be engineered, materialized and practiced. The book makes an attempt to revisit these complexities by investigating community-space relationship in colonial and postcolonial Delhi. It raises two fundamental questions: How did community and space relation come to be defined on religious lines? In what ways were 'Muslim-dominated' areas perceived as contested zones? Invoking the ideas of homeland as a useful vantage point to enter into the wider discourse around the conceptualization of space, the book suggests that the relation between Muslim communities and their living spaces has evolved out of a long process of politicization and communalization of space in Delhi.