A pioneering exploration of four cities where East meets West and past becomes future: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai.

26 exciting cities ... one for every letter of the alphabet! Get ready to go on a journey from Mumbai, Indore, Varanasi to Quilon, Xeldem, Zunheboto and several other cities through 26 beautifully illustrated pictorial maps. Discover local traditions and festivals, uncover myths and legends, spot iconic monuments and people, and get a taste of local crafts and cuisine. Hop on and enjoy the joyride that will take you to some explored and unexplored parts of India and give you a window-side view of India's incredible diversity, culture and heritage.

In a rapidly urbanizing India, what is the future of nature conservation? How does the march of development impact the conflict between nature and people in India’s cities? Exploring these questions, Nature in the City examines the past, present and future of nature in Bengaluru, one of India’s largest and fastest growing cities. Once known as the Garden City of India, Bengaluru’s tree-lined avenues, historic parks and expansive water bodies have witnessed immense degradation and destruction in recent years, but have also shown remarkable tenacity for survival. This book charts Bengaluru’s journey from the early settlements in the 6th century CE to the 21st century city and demonstrates how nature has looked and behaved and has been perceived in Bengaluru’s home gardens, slums, streets, parks, sacred spaces and lakes. A fascinating narrative of the changing role and state of nature in the midst of urban sprawl and integrating research with stories of people and places, this book presents an accessible and informative story of a city where nature thrives and strives.

The maritime profile of the indian subcontinent has emerged in recent years as an important area of historical investigation. From the towns of the Indus Valley to the Mughal ports, and the metropolitan cities of the British Raj, this study looks at Indian cities along the vertices of overseas trade.

Economic corridors—ambitious infrastructural development projects that newly liberalizing countries in Asia and Africa are undertaking—are dramatically redefining the shape of urbanization. Spanning multiple cities and croplands, these corridors connect metropolises via high-speed superhighways in an effort to make certain strategic regions attractive destinations for private investment. As policy makers search for decentralized and market-oriented means for the transfer of land from agrarian constituencies to infrastructural promoters and urban developers, the reallocation of property control is erupting into volatile land-based social conflicts. In Shareholder Cities, Sai Balakrishnan argues that some of India's most decisive conflicts over its urban future will unfold in the regions along the new economic corridors where electorally strong agrarian propertied classes directly encounter financially powerful incoming urban firms. Balakrishnan focuses on the first economic corridor, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, and the construction of three new cities along it. The book derives its title from a current mode of resolving agrarian-urban conflicts in which agrarian landowners are being transformed into shareholders in the corridor cities, and the distributional implications of these new land transformations. Shifting the focus of the study of India's contemporary urbanization away from megacities to these in-between corridor regions, Balakrishnan explores the production of uneven urban development that unsettles older histories of agrarian capitalism and the emergence of agrarian propertied classes as protagonists in the making of urban real estate markets. Shareholder Cities highlights the possibilities for a democratic politics of inclusion in which agrarian-urban encounters can create opportunities for previously excluded groups to stake new claims for themselves in the corridor regions.

About the Book: The collection of stories in this book presents to you a graphic retelling of the rise and fall of some ancient cities of India. Packed with mythological tales and historical anecdotes each story lets you re-discover ancient India in a new light. Written in light story-telling fashion, the book will make you time-travel to the past to many mythical and imperial cities in different historical eras. Scattered across ancient undivided India and the subcontinent, each story traces a city of the past and how its destiny had unfolded over time. The stories in this book also present battle-scars, deluges and changing political scenarios, as well as the peaceful co-habitation and wonderful spread of religions, learning and culture. Tales of legendary kings, fierce warfare, spiritual leaders, foreign chroniclers and world travellers make these ancient cities come alive in this collection.About the Author: A post-graduate in English Literature from Kolkata, Sayan is an occasional author and a FinTech corporate trainer by profession. An avid traveller and reader, Sayan's avocation is writing. Sayan has published two novels "Friendship Calling" in 2013 and "A Case of Connections" in 2016, both based on his true-life experiences. Sayan continues to write short stories on his blog and as guest writer on other blogs. Sayan has keen interest in Indian history and mythology and Ancient Cities of India is his first attempt at re-telling and writing based on history. Sayan can be reached on his email: [email protected] and Twitter @Sayan74.