Jesus in Asia
by R.S. Sugirtharajah
Famously tolerant and forgiving, Jesus always appealed to Hindus, Jains and Buddhists, in India and Asia. It is perhaps the fact that these faiths were absorptive, that Christianity never became a dominant religion in the continent.
Jesus, however, is revered in Asia, with followers and philosophers developing their own understanding of the man and his message over centuries. We are introduced to some of them in Jesus in Asia by R.S. Sugirtharajah, Emeritus Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics at Birmingham University.
Read Uday Balakrishnan’s review of the book here.
The Archaeoastronomy of a Few Megalithic Sites of Jharkhand
by Subhashis Das
What is Megalith Astronomy? Mainstream Indian archaeology does not associate megaliths with astronomy, because for them these stones were nothing but markings on burial grounds and memorials that the tribal people have left behind.
The author’s study of the positioning of the megaliths also revealed that apart from astronomy, directions of sunrise and sunset on equinoxes and solstices, the arrangements of stones within these astronomical temples also specially adhere to geometrical calculations. That these tribals were aware of such intricate sciences is evidence that mathematics, geometry and astronomy existed even prior to Vārāhamihira and Aryabhata.
The ancient megaliths stand as testimony to a lost sacred link speaking a language of a bygone era.
Click here to check out Murali Sivaramakrishnan’s review of the book.
Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
by Steve Coll
Coll, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who is currently the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, painstakingly reconstructs America’s longest war with all its strategic advances and blunders and disclosing how partnerships between a great power and its allies work at time of crises.
The 757-page book opens with the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary commander of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, two days prior to the 9/11 attacks, and then takes the reader into the complex world of war, intelligence battles, political infighting, insurgency and counter-insurgency operations.
Here is Stanly Johny’s review.
The Dramatic Decade: Landmark Cases of Modern India
by Indu Bhan
A thriller of a book, Indu Bhan’s The Dramatic Decade deals with some of the most important court cases of the past 10 years, but the 12 chapters are not dry narratives of courtroom proceedings. The cases featured in the book include the final moments of CRPF constable Kamlesh Kumari, who heroically tried to seal the entry of the Parliament attackers and took 11 bullets, to Guptaji, who continues to have nightmares after helplessly watching a couple throw their screaming child from the first floor of a burning Uphaar Theatre. Bhan’s work has adrenaline coursing through its veins.