How did a 'chai wallah' who sold tea on trains as a boy become Prime Minister of India?On May 16, 2014, Narendra Modi was declared the winner of the largest election ever conducted anywhere in the world, having fought a campaign unlike any before.Political parties in Britain, Australia and North America pride themselves on the sophistication of their election strategies, but Modi's campaign was a master-class in modern electioneering. His team created an election machine th...

As the world's largest democracy and a rising international economic power, India has long been heralded for its great strides in technology and trade. Yet it is also plagued by poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and a vast array of other social and economic issues. Here, noted journalist and former Financial Times South Asia bureau chief Edward Luce travels throughout India's many regions, cultures, and religious circles, investigating its fragile balance between tradition and mo...

Since the Indian economy was liberated from bureaucratic, socialist controls in 1991, it has developed rapidly. A country once renowned for the backwardness of its industries, its commerce and its financial market is now viewed as potentially one of the major world economies of the twenty-first century.But there are many questions which need to be asked about the sustainability of this rapid economic growth and its effect on the stability of the country. Have the changes had any im...

The thirty-year-long civil war in Sri Lanka which ended in 2009 shook the island-nation. Now there is peace, rapid development - and a new government. But questions remain. What do Tamils and Sinhalese feel about their new country? What are their dreams for the future?Sri Lanka: The New Country is insightful and unusual reportage from the dispassionate eye of a foreign correspondent who covered the bloody conflict for two decades. It is anecdotal narrative at its best: about ordinary Sri L...

A few weeks before his assassination, Editor of Sri Lankas The Sunday Leader newspaper Lasantha Wickrematunge penned a chillingly prophetic editorial predicting, When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me. Published three days after his assassination, the editorial titled And Then They Came For Me, said, I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help g...

Who can foretell India's future? Mr. Joshi is a fortune teller in a slum in south Delhi who uses a soothsaying green parrot to make predictions. When Adam Roberts visited him in 2012, Joshi's parrot declared that India was destined to become the most powerful nation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The parrot also foretold that India would win the soccer World Cup.Parrots may not be the preeminent political authority, but many Indians were just as confident. So Adam Roberts spen...

A monumental biography of the subcontinent from the award-winning author of The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul.Second only to China in the magnitude of its economic miracle and second to none in its potential to shape the new century, India is fast undergoing one of the most momentous transformations the world has ever seen. In this dazzlingly panoramic book, Patrick French chronicles that epic change, telling human stories ...

THE STORY OF 2014The political game in India has fundamentally changed - and in ways that are hard to pin down. The grand old party has collapsed, the crown prince has been vanquished. A right-wing government rode to power on the back of the unprecedented cult its leader has created around himself. The challenger, temporarily winded, has not lost hope. Senior journalist - and now political activist - Ashutosh has had a rare ringside view of modern Indian political history. When he s...

‘[Ajith’s book] is the first full account I have seen between hard covers which is exclusively about a journalist’s adventures and journeys in the field... An extraordinary first “rough draft of history”, a portraitof India from the 80s to the present time.’ – Vinod Mehta‘Ajith Pillai’s account of his journalistic odyssey covers the period of India’s Great Transformation from the 1980s to the present. He does so with incisive wit and insight into a br...

This book unfolds the gripping story at once fascinating and grim of perhaps the first case of assassination of a world-class leader by a human bomb.There was a general demand for explanation and action. The totally blind case with enormous ramifications needed skilled, dexterous and professional investigation. D. R. Kaarthikeyan was called upon by the Government of India to unravel the mystery.This assassination profoundly influenced political developments in India and altered the course o...

Sonia Gandhi's story represents the greatest transformational journey made by any world leader in the last four decades. Circumstance and tragedy, rather than ambition, paved her path to power. Born into a traditional, middle-class Italian family, Sonia met and fell in love with Rajiv Gandhi, son of future Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, while studying English in Cambridge. Cruelly tested by the assassinations of her mother-in-law and of her husband, S...

Dr. Manmohan Singh, the incumbent Prime Minister, and his government are the makers of modern India. Dr. Singh's achievements have been fogged by a politically motivated, negative propaganda barrage launched by his adversaries. Under his leadership, India has become a donor from a head-down recipient of foreign aid; India's diplomatic and commercial clout in the world has gone sky-high and 21st Century is about to become India's century. On the domestic scene, poverty has been reduced and ...