51 Lesser Known Stories from the Mahabharata - Sharath Kommaraju (2015)

These stories are side stories of Mahabharata and may not have direct significance to the epic. The stories are told giving maximum importance to the story and not the context and morals. Hence, most of the time it'll be hard to guess in what context the story may have been told. There is a general assumption that you know the central theme of Mahabharata very well. Lack of understanding there will not be remediated by this book. The author seems to have the skills to present a story succinctly, since the stories lack the context one may feel a bit of a miss moving from story to story.

A very quick read that you can finish in couple of hours, hence can be advised. For someone who looks at Mahabharata in a distict spiritual light will not learn much from such a book.

The Dramatic Decade - Indu Bhan (2017)

The books describes 12 cases that can be the most impactful in the last decade. They may not be the best judgments from a legal standpoint, but definitely the ones that have affected the Indian population at large:

1. Parliament Attack
2. Nirbhaya
3. The 26/11 Mumbai Attacks
4. The Babri Masjid Demolition
5. None of the Above
6. The Upaahar Tragedy
7. Defending Freedom of Speech
8. Lily Thomas vs. Union of India
9. The 1993 Mumbai Blasts
10. The Transgender Agenda
11. The Bar Dancers Case
12. LGBT Rights

The judicial system didn't necessarily show the speed and agility to resolve all the issues. Some issues infact continued over 20 years, in some the accused got away with a mere fine as old age considerations. Some cases the accused found ways to run away and fugitives never could be brought under the justice and extradiction could not be carried out. There are cases where justice has been delayed, cases where the quantum of punishment didn't seem adequate to make a mark but overall the courts showed the fundamental rights of the citizens are upheld higher over any other consideration. In that sense, all these are important cases. Also, in some even foreign nationals have been given their due in defending themselves in the court of law acting as state enemies. And that definitely is a very significant character the Indian courts have shown unlike our neighbors who do not show such maturity in their delivery of justice.

An overall good book to read for non-legal professionals. Legal professionals will find the book limiting in terms of details.

India's Legal System - Can It be Saved - Fali Nariman (2016)

Fali Nariman has been a leading expert on legal matters and has been a celebrated senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India. He needs no introduction to any person remotely related to law. This book is a short description on the following aspects:

1. Judicial System Pre-Indepence
2. Adoption of Judicial System post indepence.
3. Civil Courts and the flaws in the Indian Legal System
4. Criminal Courts and the flaws in the adversial justice system in India

While the judiciary role is upheld in the whole book, there are definite lacuna that have been identified. The role of judiciary and its importance to be kept independent is discussed with certain firmness.

Short and concise but definite treatment of Indian Legal System. More from a commoner's view point than a legal expert. To a practicing lawyer the book will seem to lack details.

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice : Clayton Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David Duncan (2016)

Needed to gift a book to the library of my hostel in my alma mater IIT, Kharagpur. It was imperative to choose a book on innovation, undoubtedly Clayton Christensen comes as the most authoritative management guru in the field of innovation. Hence, this choice.

If you have read Innovator's Dillema, Innovator's Choice or any such book by Clayton Christensen the views are always from a producers angle. Technically, the producer comes up with a new product or solution that completely disrupts the market and then market starts adopting it. And the whole saga of the adoption process is described in details with very crisp and well defined examples. This book is actually unique as it describes the innovation from a consumers viewpoint. In some sense, there is nothing completely new that has not been talked about earlier, it tells you to listen to the customer pain points to identify the real need and then build a solution that addresses that need. A very standard product management process to develop a product.

I think other than a terminology variation, like customer hires xyz service or product to address his needs there is nothing quite unique in the book. I felt over the years of research, it's Christensen who has really identified that needs driven innovation actually sticks to produce results. The concepts are told in a very different language, with the hiring terminology but I did not quite find any significant new ideas in the book.

But, as with most Christensen books, you will still gain enough to finish reading it. Hence, recommended.

Unposted Letter - Matria Ra (2009)

An anthology of short articles published in the author's magazine Frozen Thoughts. The articles are thought provoking and unlike most self help and philosophical books devoid of much of spiritual concepts. Thoughts that one can utilize in a day to day context. Each article is about 2-3 pages and a breeze read for a book of about 200 pages. But the harder part is to assimilate and utilize in a daily life. So, it's desirable to read about 3-4 articles at a time and contemplate upon it than try reading the whole book at a stretch.

Definitely a good read and more importantly to apply in ones own life.

The Accidental Prime Minister - Sanjaya Baru (2014)

Very little is known of the soft spoken and introvert prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. Though, he has been in public image over three to four decades very little is truly known about him. Post reading the book the opinion does not change much either. I think the book exposes certain aspects of the Manmohan era in UPA-I. But there is a lot still not clear reading the book. There has been differences in Congress party president and PM, but nothing as explicit to be known to public. In some sense, the book only reaffirms a few of such thoughts that are generally known in the public arena. The author's intention on writing of the book is not clear. In many places it has appreciated the PMs achievements substantially while at places he has been quite critical. One cannot really form an opinion on a person merely from this book. The movie based on this book as claimed hasn't been very successful as well though there was a lot of hype around it. Rather conflicting interest of national administrative officers and their differences are far clearly outlined in the book. 

I will still suggest one reads this book to realize an author's viewpoint of the period. But as a person handling PMO media management, I am not sure how far the author was aware of all the nitty-gritty official details of the PMO. So, there will be some skepticism there. Moreover, Dr. Singh, never endorsed the book nor even acknowledged its existence, thus kind of left the reader hang in the middle with nothing ratified.  The coverage on the Nuclear deal is substantial and to some extent help one understand what was the scope of the deal. 

Still will consider a good read. 

An Introduction to Indian Philosophy - S. C. Chatterjee and D. Datta

This book is considered a seminal textbook on the subject. Almost everyone who has gone through a formal education in Indian Philosophy cannot ignore this book. Why is that I am reviewing such a standard book instead? The intent is to write a small note on Indian Philosophy. Indian Philosophy is conceptually vast and in some sense Hinduism is not a religion but a whole class of philosophies having common heritage. But, the concepts in Indian Philosophies are varied and sometimes even conflicting with one another. The book classifies 9 such concepts as overarching views on Indian Philosophy. They are:

1. Charvaka - Materialistic Atheist
2. Jaina - Spiritualistic Atheism
3. Bauddha - Spiritualistic, Mostly Theist
4. Nyaya - Perception, Arguments, somewhere a mix of theist and atheist
5. Vaisesika - Human and nature interactions, atheist
6. Sankhya - Causality, liberation, theist
7. Yoga - Paths to liberation, theist
8. Mimansa - Development of Knowledge, soul and energy, both theist as well as atheist
9. Vedanta - Monism, Dualist, Qualified Monism, theist

Indian Philosophy is equally influenced by logic, knowledge creation, and arguments as much as western philosophy. So it should not be considered any different there. However, there is a general belief that it's mostly a theist viewpoint and ritualistic techniques governed by religion. This book tends to clear those views and establishes that Indian Philosophy is as much theist as it's atheistic. So one should not qualify it in that respect. There is a gradual development of thoughts that slowly moved from completely materialistic views to a vedantic theist approach of monism also supported by dualism or even qualified monism at places. Indian Philosophy has also a notion of formal logic syllogism which is slightly different from the western counterpart but has a clear definition that may be utilized to prove validity of arguments. It's not that the logic principles are a system developed in the western world.

Overall if you want to understand the Indian Philosophy, this is a good starting point. However, there may not be as much relevance if you are thinking of applying any of the principles in life. Moreover, this is a serious book needing significant introspection and breaks to assimilate the concepts. Not entirely a breeze read.