Lesson of Arabian Nights: Your life hangs by a story

Storytelling stresses the commonality among epics the world over, of gods who intervene in human affairs and even take sides in a war.

18 Oct 2019 1:36 AM

Cervantes’ friends thought he was deranged, burned his plays

Puchner is professor of drama and English and comparative literature at Harvard. He visited the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2014.

04 Oct 2019 2:58 AM

Would you date Alexa if she had a mind of her own?

In the last two decades, both artificial intelligence and robotics have developed significantly and seem to permeate all aspects of our lives.

20 Sep 2019 2:19 AM

Leo Tolstoy, whose War and Peace sparked off a war of words in a courtroom.

Beware of that book on your shelf!

The book on one’s shelf at home, somewhat innocuous and a source of pride and joy, is no longer so.

06 Sep 2019 1:28 AM

Here lie Hindoo Stuart, Derozio & Kolkata’s Indiana Jones

A tramline defined its end and the street extension beyond was called New Park Street.

23 Aug 2019 1:27 AM

Blake’s character is modelled on Holmes (right)

Sherlock, Sexton — who is the greatest sleuth of all?

As with the fairy tale, it has been tempting for readers of detective fiction to rank a detective too as “numero uno”.

09 Aug 2019 1:15 AM

Of Centre-state dynamics and finding ex-governor a home

A number of these issues have been highlighted in Y.V. Reddy’s recent book, Indian Fiscal Federalism.

26 Jul 2019 1:11 AM

Gupta’s book, Mind Without Fear, has recently hit the stores.

Is Rajat Gupta indeed the ‘unluckiest man in the world’?

Rajaratnam had been under federal investigation for some time and his calls were being wire-tapped.

28 Jun 2019 1:52 AM

In Michael Ellis’ (Britain’s arts minister) words, ‘the trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover captured public attention in 1960.

Forbidden to love, forbidden to leave

The case was heard by a high court judge, Sir Lawrence Byrne, with his wife Lady Dorothy Byrne sitting beside him, permitted in those days.

14 Jun 2019 2:13 AM

Three-time F1 champ faced death and lived to tell the tale

Delhi had been a previous world book capital in 2003 and our meeting was held on the sidelines of the Bogota Book Fair.

31 May 2019 1:47 AM

The Mahabharata By Meera Uberoi, Primus Books pp 386, Rs 295

Plurality tradition flows from epics

A text like the Mahabharata will have to be understood in the specific cultural and historical context in which it was narrated and written.

17 May 2019 1:14 AM

At school, teachers have the advantage of dealing with young, formative minds full of inquiry and curiosity.

The quests that bind the teacher and the taught

The impact that great teachers have on their students in schools, colleges and even universities is remarkable.

03 May 2019 1:51 AM

There was a time when you didn’t have to step out of the train to get books, the books came to you! Almost all long-distance trains, journeys of two nights and more, on trunk routes, had a travelling library on the train.

A ticket to read: The joy of reading in one’s travels

As far as books are concerned, the e-book revolution has converted a section of readers who only read from a device and not from print.

19 Apr 2019 12:14 AM

Dhanesh Jain (1939-2019). (Photo: Dinesh Sinha)

Goodbye Dhanesh Jain, Ratna Sagar’s gentle giant

The received wisdom then and even now was that return on investment was better in textbook publishing and best in school textbooks.

05 Apr 2019 1:12 AM

Amartya Sen, who is the author of Reason before Identity.

How often do we place ‘reason’ before ‘identity’?

A lot of innovative ideas were thrown up but the allotted time was over before the mike could come to me.

29 Mar 2019 12:54 AM

Philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who helped publish Pasternak’s greatest work.

When Dr Zhivago was smuggled out of Russia

In reality, the book was Berlin’s critique of Tolstoy and his view of history.

08 Mar 2019 12:29 AM

Rightfully, English is not only an international language now but people of other countries in the Commonwealth and elsewhere have adopted it as their official language.

How the OED became ubiquitous in Indian homes

English dictionaries can broadly be divided into two broad categories — the vocabulary dictionaries and the dictionaries of English usage.

22 Feb 2019 1:54 AM

There’s a Perumal Murugan in all of us

The keynote address by the Assamese writer Dhruba Jyoti Borah underscored that literature must be free from any kind of control.

08 Feb 2019 1:18 AM

While the Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) by the NGO Pratham among rural children makes for depressing reading each year, the learning outcomes of the children enrolled in CBSE schools were none too good either.

Why we need a good alternative to the board exams

Over the years, there have been reams written on what ails our school educational system and what needs to be done by way of reform.

25 Jan 2019 1:36 AM

A library can be a boon for Afghanistan’s children

The history of imperial conquests shows that one of the first places of attack of the invading Army is the library.

11 Jan 2019 12:50 AM

Sridhar Balan