Book Review: Chanakya's New Manifesto

Book:  CHANAKYA’S  NEW MANIFESTO 
 

Author:  Pavan K. Varma 
 

ISBN:  978-93-82277-09-5 
 

Genre:  Non Fiction

Price:  295 ( I got it from Blogadda in a book review program) 
 

Pages:  248 
 

Publisher:  ALEPH BOOK COMPANY 

 Introduction:

Whatever state we are in at present has a direct incentive of our past performance, our present actions based on the correlative implication of our past and present and our future implementation and execution of goals considering all the three timelines taken into prospective.  This isn’t a book to read in a single sitting and grasp everything out of it. It’s meted out of sincere efforts put up to bring out the real scenario of the country with summoned realistic counsels to overcome from rather deplorable condition the country is facing today. This book is laid on connoting the thoughts and preachings of one of the greatest scholar world has ever known Chanakya along with the beliefs and teachings of our father of the nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, encompassing the present scenario.  Author's vitalizing feat can also be sensed from the 65 references which he made to make a stronghold case of his treatise.

         An eye opener for all the Indians who aren’t awake yet

Cover Page:

Black hole is of prime importance as it devours everything else. How would you represent a black hole in terms of color? Black isn’t it? Yes this color has significance in the cover page of this book as it encompasses everything India needs to do to envision itself as “Sarvagun Sampoorna” (To bring out the best in terms of completeness).  If an adequate action isn’t taken now we would drown our self to a pitiful grave which is looking more promising similar to engulfing in a black hole.

About the Author:

Pavan K. Varma,studied history at St. Stephen College, New delhi and took a degree in law from Delhi  University.He has been press secretary to the president of India, official spokesman of the Foreign Office, director general of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and India's ambassador to Bhutan. Having taken premature retirement from the Indian Foreign Service, he now seeks to be actively involved in public life.

Pavan K. Varma has authored several acclaimed and bestselling books, among them, Ghalib: The Man, The Times; Krishna: The Playful Divine; The Great Indian Middle Class; Being Indian: The truth about why the 21st century will be India's; Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity and When Loss is Gain. He has also translated into English the poetry of Gulzar, Kaifi Azmi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Compostional Report:

Prologue of this book covers the bases or the roots from which a theme is derived and later matured into a fully fledged blueprint for a change.  Starting with Chanakya's preachings from Arthashastra , an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy  written by the great scholar dating back 2300 years BC Era, captivating  to our present day scenario which needs an immediate alteration.

Author of this book Pavan K. Varma has succinctly exploited the prowess of demarcation to mark 5 significant areas which requires a prominent stance in terms of actual implementations. This book covers an equitably devised areas of concern viz. Governance, Democracy, Corruption, Security and the creation of an Inclusive society with a prior liaison with our immediate Past, since our Independence in 1947 highlighting all the pros and the cons linked with each and every decision taken by our fore founders of the country.

This book covers all the 5 eminent lurking dangers with detailed analysis of each with the basic knowledge of what is the current situation, why are we in such a state and what is the probable outcome if we continue to progress or rather regress with such a rate and the most importantly what needs to be done to overcome our stricken state and be amongst the fortified nations. This book has sought 354 lines of immediate action points covering all the cornerstones along with the detailed reasoning of each and every point stated (57-Democracy, 87-governance, 111-corruption, 58-security and 41-creation of inclusive society)

The best part according to me was the presentation of the real India to its mass and detailed action plan mention to root out the all the evils from our country. This is not a novel for a literate person but a bible to an educated citizen, perhaps this is the best and the worst thing which it contains.

Worst- let us take an example mentioned in this book
“5 years ago shortage of coal was 43 million tones and now it is 140 million tones. India being a 4^th largest in cola reserve this is something unbelievable.”
 What will a common person understand with 43 million tones and 140 million tones except that it has further decreased?

Best- As I said this has nothing to do with a literate mind but means a lot to an educated citizen. The reason being the exponential decrease of coal reserves in spite of all the planned (unplanned) strategies that let to shrinkage of reserves, policies of the government (governance), Use of resources ( democracy),Coalgate scam(corruption), Proper utilization and growth of available resources along with its security (Security) and harnessing resources for a sustainable progress(creating an inclusive society). This book covers everything and that’s why I recommend it to all educated minds, a must read as I always believe a knowledgeable citizen is much better than an ignorant one when it comes to tackling a situation at hand.

I agree with the author “it’s time to change and if we fail, India may never succeed. Our future is at stake.” I would rate this book 4.5 out of 5.

Life Adjudication ofthe book:

This is a book to awake our sleeping brains and start acting towards our cumulative goal to progress



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Book Review: RIP

Book:- RIP

Author:- Mukul Deva

ISBN:- 978-93-82618-19-5

Genre:- Fiction/Thriller

Price:- 200 (I got this book from Blogadda in a  book review program)

Pages:- 286

Publisher:- Westland ltd

Introduction:-

Have you ever given a thought on this statement-“Whoever we are at present be it our mentality, our thinking or what we do has a reflection of our past and a slimmer of ray what we ought to be in the future.” Thou art of fiction this book endeavors the present state of our country and an individual if glanced at large and would easily be conceived as one of those resurgent response of a group of suffering Indians in a hope of a better tomorrow. Had it not been the disclaimer it would have been difficult to trace the fictional part; as the plot, the storyline even the characters resemble with the natives of real India. That’s the charisma of the writer, fiction looks real. I bet you can’t get off with this thriller until you have gone through to the final climax of the story. 

Cover Page:

 Those who have read novels of Mukul Deva, can actually make a smart guess of the backdrop by looking at the Cover page itself. A commando standing facing the bright sunlight as if rearing to face each and everything, an Injection injecting the venom into the Author (Author’s name), the title RIP with a bullet symbol and the image of 10 Janpath with Indian national Flag at the rear tells a lot for the story itself.

About the Author:

An alumnus of La Martiniere College, Lucknow, the National Defence Academy, Pune and the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Mukul Deva was commissioned in December 1981 into the Sikh Light Infantry of the Indian Army. He took early retirement from the army after fifteen years of service, including a decade of combat operations in India and overseas. Now settled in Singapore, he is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and an executive, business and creativity coach. He is also a Mentor on the United Nations Institute of Training and Research Afghanistan Fellowship. He is known as one of the finest fiction writer for military thriller, with “Lashkar” one of the bestsellers following the suite.

Compositional Report:

This Story revolves around a Para Military Retired Colonel. Krishna Athawale and his group of 5 other apt members (Karan Singh, Kevin David, Kashif Nadeem, Kamlesh Saikia & Kulwant Singh) forming a K-Team. In a view to upsurge the shape of Indian Political system at large and a hope of envisioning corruption free India, K-Team followed the route of bloodshed assassinating the culprits revealing their fortifying agony against the corrupt Politicians and Bureaucrats. 

A score mystifying story with a blend of professional and personal life of Col.K Athawale which is pertinent to the reason why he quit Para Commando in spite of being a super hero, risking his life every moment after his brother in law’s demise in an Air-plane crash, a result of spurious parts supplied to the Air force by arms dealer (Afzal Hasan) in collusion with a politician (Anduvetti Rajappan) who walked away scot-free. The rage was piling upon as numerous others perpetrators of scams and scandals such as Bofors, 2G, Commonwealth games were set free. 

Another Important Chunk of this intimidating story lies in its inclination towards the private life of Col.K Athawale which deals with his son (Sachin), Sister (Payal) and Payal’s Co-worker at NDTV news channel (Reena Bhagat) . Though being a sub plot within the main theme, it’s the outcome of the Love triangle between Col.K Athawale, Reena and Reena’s Separated Husband cashiered Captain Raghav Bhagat which ended the story on Col.K Athawale’s favour. More so because of Raghav’s wrong doings against her wife, the society and the country each taken into its rightful prospective.

The role of  Raghav Bhagat in conjuncture to the story’s end was more prominent as he was hired by Home minister (DM Karunakaran) to destabilize the K-Team from its roots and finish them unofficially before Karunakaran’s appointed member headed by director Vinod bedi of CBI could lay their hands on K-Team catching them alive. Since the K-Team was targeting the corrupt, Karunakaran tried to double cross them by hiring Raghav as K-Team’s arrest would throw tantrums on his own wrong doings. Home Minister’s throw of two dice backfired on his own back at the end.

 

Featured details would be encompassing blackwash of those high class criminals one after the other, after intimidating it to the public much before and aftereffects that lay ahead. The penchant use of technology both in writing and description, the detailing of the incidences one after the other with special reference of an Aura of Army backdrop and a crackerjack end gave the story a thrilling finish. Only thing which kept me bugging was its semblance with coincidences like how come Reena, Raghav, Col.K Athawale and Vinod travel at the same time in the same plane without knowing the other’s routine furthermore none from K-Team or Raghav’s or Vinod’s squad were present? How come Both Raghav and Vinod forgot to inform even a soul while tempting to cover up the monumental assassin attempt alone in addition to Kulwant not informing Col.K Athawale that he was struck at the basement? Over looking these Coincidences this is a phenomenal story almost a glitch free. A must read for all those people who love to read thrillers and a thriller relating to Military and resemblance to one’s own country’s problem and supplementary Romance is indeed rare. The entire story will make you feel like that of the movie ‘Rang de Basanti’ with an exception an exemplary happy ending.

Over all it’s a master piece of a military thriller. I would give it a score of 4.5 out of 5

Life Adjudication of the story:

An Eye opener best read at this very time when our country is falling to cope up with similar termites who are eating our country from within. It’s a story for the national upbringing.

 

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