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There is a sombre tenor to her insightful musings, viz., "Throw into me, remnants of vanity/shards of lost hope, indifference..." (Lady of the Deep). However, sometimes, in order to sound profound, she confuses us by using expressions with conflicting meanings as in these lines from Submerged Horizons, "Your breathing still provokes me,/ yet all I need is your happiness./They say love is a specter/ a selfless, parasitic ghost." Prerna has got the talent; time and experience can hone it. Sellotape Legacy
The authors go deep into the scenario that existed in the run-up to the CWG. Most of their findings/conclusions have proved prophetic. Typology of
Counter-Terrorism Strategies
This book, however, studies the methods adopted by governments to counter terrorism, with special reference to Israel and India. It is quite obvious that there is no cut and dried formula nor has any particular mode of counter-terrorism provided a lasting solution to the problem. Even tackling the root causes like social, ethnic and economic inequities has proved problematic. Obviously, a comprehensive approach comprising incentives and punishments holds out some hope – but the right mix has yet to be concocted. A very thought provoking and enlightening book.
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T
The
Delhi Commonwealth Games have come and gone, leaving several posers
and scandals in their wake. What was the purpose of the Games? To
raise the standard of sports in India? To project India’s economic
might? Or, perhaps, to register a riposte to the Beijing Olympics?
There is a nagging feeling that all those medals won by us do not
reflect the actual situation on the ground. At the grassroots level,
sports infrastructure is almost nil. There is no institutional support
and no viable process in place to spot and nurture talent in the
country. The structural approach has been replaced with ad-hocism,
whether it is governance in general or sports-administration in
particular. Our rulers do not believe in allowing institutions to grow
and function in a systematic manner. Procedures and processes are
routinely short-circuited in order to sub-serve the vested interests.
Add to this corruption, lethargy at the helm, tepid public opinion and
lack of self-esteem and you get the gist of this book’s theme.
Terrorism
is as old as history or, at least, first century CE, as Priyedarshi
avers. However, terrorism in its modern form received great impetus in
the late 18th and 19th centuries, with the propagation of secular
ideologies and nationalism. It has been resorted to by private groups
to trigger off revolutions against extant rulers; in turn state
terrorism, too, has not been unknown – various communist and fascist
regimes have done it. In the southern United States, the Ku Klux Klan
was set up after the defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil
War (1861-1865), to terrorise former slaves and representatives of
reconstruction administrations. The Russian revolutionary movement
before World War I had a strong terrorist element.