Manohar Parrikar: Brilliant Mind, Simple Life by Nitin A Gokhale. Bloomsbury. Pages 186. Rs 599
Book Title: Manohar Parrikar: Brilliant Mind, Simple Life
Author: Nitin A Gokhale
A frail looking Manohar Parrikar, with a tube in his nose... Of the last few images of the Goa Chief Minister, this one truly explained the man — a devoted and honest politician. The author, Parrikar’s friend and a strategic analyst, says these qualities led him to head the Ministry of Defence earlier. India’s first IIT-qualified CM, he was a committed grassroots volunteer. This book is as much a personal tribute by the author to his friend as an honest attempt to capture the persona of Parrikar, the man, the politician and patriot. The book dwells into his early influences, his journey from a small village in Goa to one of the highest posts in the country.
This year being the birth centenary of Sahir Ludhianvi, his fans and poetry lovers are in for a treat. While old books are going into reprints, many new ones have also come out. His long-time friend and publisher Amarnath Verma, publishing Sahir’s works since 1958, has come out with a set of two books on the poet. ‘Poems of Sahir Ludhianvi’, a revised edition, contains English translation of over 60 poems by Khwaja Tariq Mahmood, with Urdu, Roman and Hindi transliterations. ‘Main Sahir Hoon’ by Chander Verma and Dr Salman Abid is the poet’s biography in collaboration with Sahir Ludhianvi Genius Global Research Council. Written in first-person, it’s a well-researched book in Hindi and Urdu.
What is value? How do valuations of the market affect the values of our society? It is questions like these that banker and thinker Mark Carney seeks to explore in this book. He says Covid-19 has wrought twin crises of health and economics. Its severity has been magnified by our failure to prepare adequately despite ample warning. Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, examines how economic value and social values became blurred, how we went from living in a market economy to a market society, and how to rethink and rebuild a more resilient and sustainable world for our children, grandchildren and generations to come before it’s too late.
