Month: December 2018

Five books to look forward to in December

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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It’s the last month of 2018, a year that saw the release of several impressive novels and nonfiction works on subjects of contemporary interest. December will ring the final bell before the arrival of literary festivals, and these new offerings across various subjects and tastes will keep you company.

If political books are making much noise lately, brace for some more as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is on a spree of releasing books critical of the ruling dispensation, will be publishing “Changing India”, a unique series chronicling the country’s changing economy and polity over seven decades. This set of five volumes offers a selection of his writings, speeches, interviews and press conferences from his days in academia during the 1950s, through his career in the civil service during the 1970s and 1980s, as India’s Finance Minister in the early 1990s and as Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014.

Published by Oxford University Press (OUP), the upcoming series is said to reveal the evolution of Manmohan Singh’s thought, leading to the radical reforms of the early 1990s that transformed the Indian economy and placed it on a trajectory of high growth. The publisher informed IANS that Singh has provided insights into crucial social, economic and political issues of national and international importance, and has articulated his vision for India and the world.

Readers of mythology will not be disappointed as Devdutt Pattanaik, who has authored over 30 books on subjects related to ancient Indian scriptures and mythology, is returning with a new book. It is a popular belief that the Ramayana is idealistic while the Mahabharata is realistic.

“Yet these two epics have identical building blocks, identical themes, and identical history,” believes Pattanaik, who in “Ramayana vs Mahabharata”, explores the similarities and dissimilarities between the two epics in a “playful analysis” accompanied by his signature illustrations.

Whether it is the family structure, forest exile, or war, the comparison between the two epics, its publisher Rupa said, proves a startling point — that the Mahabharata is in fact a reaction to the events in the Ramayana.

“Why I Am a Liberal: A Manifesto for Indians Who Believe in Individual Freedom”, by Sagarika Ghose, will ask its readers whether they are liberal, or dislike liberals. It argues that whatever the case may be, the liberal is at the centre of public debate today.

“From discussions on nationalism to religion, freedom of speech, freedom to dissent and women’s rights, the liberal is regarded as a crucial voice. However, once influential, the Indian liberal is under attack from many who feel liberals have got it all wrong. Liberals stand for individual freedoms and argue against Big Governments. Yet, today, are individual freedoms such as the right to eat, worship, dress, love, marry, set up businesses, free speech, have opinions, read and write what you want in serious danger? Is the dominance of a Big Government or Big State stamping out individual freedom in an unprecedented manner?” asks Ghose.

The author shows how deep liberal traditions in India are and how the founding vision of India was a thoroughly liberal one. This is a compelling and thought-provoking book, a book one might want to read to know about individual freedoms.

And then there is “A Rural Manifesto: Realising India’s Future through Her Villages”, by Varun Gandhi. The book, published by Rupa amidst a national conversation on rural distress, highlights the potential solutions to putting the village economy on an even keel, while exploring how the vast majority of India ekes out a living.

“In this heartfelt and timely book, covering facets of the Indian rural economy, Feroze Varun Gandhi shines a bright light on the travails of the marginal farmer and asks searching questions on why the rural economy remains in doldrums, six decades after Independence,” the publisher said.

The book is said to explore rural India’s innate perseverance and highlight potential solutions in development policy with a focus on making the rural economy resilient.

“Where Some Things Are Remembered: Profiles And Conversations – Dom Moraes”, edited by Sarayu Srivatsava, will emphasise that Dom Moraes was not only one of India’s greatest poets, but also an extraordinary journalist and essayist. He could capture effortlessly the essence of the people he met, and in every single profile in this sparkling collection he shows how it is done.

“The Dalai Lama laughs with him and Mother Teresa teaches him a lesson in empathy. Moraes could make himself at home with Lalu Prasad Yadav, the man who invented the self-fulfilling controversy, and exchange writerly notes with Sunil Gangopadhyaya. He was Indira Gandhi’s biographer — painting her in defeat, post-Emergency, and in triumph, when she returned to power. He tried to fathom the mind of a mysterious ‘super cop’ — K.P.S. Gill — and also of Naxalites, dacoits and ganglords,” publisher Speaking Tiger said, giving a backround of the book.

It said that the collection is literary journalism at its finest and comes from an observer who saw people and places with the eye of a poet and wrote about them with the precision of a surgeon.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Former US President George HW Bush dead

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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George HW Bush, the 41st President of the US and father of the 43rd, who steered the nation through a tumultuous period in world affairs, has died at the age of 94 in Houston, his spokesperson Jim McGrath announced.

His death on Friday night came less than eight months after that of his wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush, reports The New York Times.

The cause of his death was not immediately known.

However, the former leader suffered from a form of Parkinson’s disease that forced him to use a wheelchair or motorised scooter in recent years, and he had been in and out of hospitals during that time as his health declined.

In April, a day after attending his wife’s funeral, he was treated for an infection that had spread to his blood.

Bush, a Republican, was a transitional figure in the White House, where he served from 1989 to 1993, capping a career of more than 40 years in public service.

A decorated Navy pilot who was shot down in the Pacific in 1944, he was the last of the Second World War generation to occupy the Oval Office.

Bush was a skilled bureaucratic and diplomatic player who, as President, helped end four decades of Cold War and the threat of nuclear engagement with a nuanced handling of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe.

Born into privilege and a tradition of service, Bush was a son of a senator, student athlete, Texas oilman, Republican congressman, national party chairman, pioneering diplomat and spy chief, reports CNN.

After his own 1980 presidential campaign came up short, he served two terms as Ronald Reagan’s Vice President before reaching the pinnacle of political power by winning the 1988 presidential election, soundly defeating Democrat Michael Dukakis.

After losing the White House in 1992, Bush became a widely admired political elder who leapt out of airplanes to mark birthday milestones.

Emphasizing the generosity of his soul, he forged a close and unlikely friendship with Democrat Bill Clinton, the man who ended his presidency.

When Parkinson’s disease mostly silenced him in public, Bush flashed his sense of humour by sporting colourful striped socks.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

US proposes changes to H1B visa application process in favour of skilled and highly paid foreign workers

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Trump administration on Friday proposed major changes to the H-1B application process with the aim of awarding the visa to the most skilled and highest paid foreign workers.

Under a new proposed merit-based rule, a notice for which was issued on Friday, companies employing foreign workers on the H-1B visa under the Congressional mandated annual caps — would have to electronically register with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during a designated registration period.

The H1-B visa has an annual numerical limit cap of 65,000 visas each fiscal year as mandated by the Congress. The first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a US master’s degree or higher are exempt from the cap.

The USCIS would also reverse the order allowing it to select H-1B petitions under the H-1B cap and the advanced degree exemption.

This is likely to increase the number of foreign workers with a master’s or higher degree from a US institution of higher education to be selected for an H-1B cap number. As such the proposed rule will introducing a more meritorious selection of beneficiaries, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement.

The DHS said public comments on the proposed rule can be submitted from December 3 to January 2.

“Currently, in years when the H-1B cap and the advanced degree exemption are both reached within the first five days that H-1B cap petitions may be filed, the advanced degree exemption is selected prior to the H-1B cap.

“The proposed rule would reverse the selection order and count all registrations or petitions towards the number projected as needed to reach the H-1B cap first,” the DHS said.

Once a sufficient number of registrations or petitions have been selected for the H-1B cap, the USCIS would then select registrations or petitions towards the advanced degree exemption.

?This proposed change would increase the chances that beneficiaries with a master’s or higher degree from a US institution of higher education would be selected under the H-1B cap and that H-1B visas would be awarded to the most-skilled and highest-paid beneficiaries,? it said.

The proposed process would result in an estimated increase of up to 16 per cent (or 5,340 workers) in the number of selected H-1B beneficiaries with a master’s degree or higher from a US institution of higher education, the DHS said.

The USCIS said it expects that shifting to electronic registration would reduce overall costs for petitioners and create a more efficient and cost-effective H-1B cap petition process for the agency.

The proposed rule would help alleviate massive administrative burdens on USCIS since the agency would no longer need to physically receive and handle hundreds of thousands of H-1B petitions and supporting documentation before conducting the cap selection process, it said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow