Prime minister of India Manmohan Singh has been accused of changing ministerial portfolios at the behest of the Reliance group. There have been claims that the group deliberately ‘squatted’ on reserves of natural gas and curtailed production in anticipation of higher prices that are administered by the government, to the detriment of the interests of the country’s people. Spokespersons of the group deny these alligations and contend that gas output from the Krishna-Godavari basin came down on account of unforeseen adverse geological surprises. Sections within the Indian government do not buy these arguments. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has alleged, among other things, that the contract between the government and Reliance Industries Limited is deeply flawed, thereby encouraging excessive capital expenditure and lowering potential benefits to the exchequer. With painstaking research, a meticulous perusal of press reports, as well as a few surprising exclusives, Gas Wars highlights cases of crony capitalism that allowed the Reliance group to blatantly exploit loopholes which were consciously retained in the system to benefit it. The book points out how, even when laws and policies appeared fair, rational, and reasonable, the way in which these rules and procedures were framed and implemented by bureaucrats acting at the behest of their political masters exposed the deep nexus between business and politics in India. Even as Gas Wars tells the story of how a corporate conglomerate, in this case the country’s largest, has benefited from the way government policies are structured, it lays bare the alarming facts of a natural disaster waiting to happen due to the ruthless exploitation of the country’s natural resources in order to swell the fortunes of a few. The book also highlights the examples of those within the government establishment who have refused to be intimidated by the rich and the powerful, and who have against all odds valiantly attempted to uphold the interests of the people of India.

The two brothers had fought over many issues, but what sometimes got lost in the din of the battle cries was a simple fact: much of the tussle was over India's natural resources, about how the resources were intended to be mined, marketed and monetised.' Paranjoy Guha Thakurta shows how the simmering controversy over the rich natural gas reserves in the Krishna-Godavari Basin boiled over into a primetime storm on gas pricing involving the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas as well as the Prime Minister's Office, even as he introduces new dimensions to it. While many reasons have been attributed to the split in the powerful Indian business family, the Ambanis, this book argues that the battle between the Ambani brothers was largely about wresting control over reserves of natural gas that are below the ocean bed along the basin of the two greatest rivers of southern India. With painstaking research, a meticulous perusal of press reports, as well as a few surprising exclusives, Gas Wars highlights cases of crony capitalism that allowed the Reliance group to blatantly exploit loopholes which were consciously retained in the system to benefit it. Even as the book tells the story of how the country's largest corporate conglomerate has benefited from the way government policies are structured, it lays bare the alarming facts of a natural disaster waiting to happen due to the ruthless exploitation of the country's natural resources in order to swell the fortunes of a few.

Books come with certain advantages for the journalist/researcher wanting to get the big story out to readers. First, there is a propensity among people to take a book more seriously than a news item or a series of reports in dailies, websites or periodicals. Besides, books by their very nature have a shelf life. Moreover, a book on a contentious subject can be far more damaging for its subjects than news reports, which are ephemeral by nature. Public memory is short too. In other words, when a journalist brings out a publication that is critical in nature of a corporate, the book is taken more seriously, and perceived to be a far bigger threat. A damning report in a newspaper or a magazine too would meet with the same kind of threat perception. Overlay this with the socio-political climate that has been prevailing in India since the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government was re-elected in 2009. Plagued by a number of scams and hamstrung by unbridled inflation, the UPA’s last days were marked by political turbulence. The anti-graft agitation of the India Against Corruption movement led to the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party, but the political capital of the public discontent against corruption was reaped by the Bharatiya Janata Party which, with its partners, went on to form the government in New Delhi in May 2014. The crackdown on dissent that was practised by the UPA in fits and starts, was institutionalised by the NDA. Sue the Messenger is a collection of stories about stories—stories that run foul of corporate entities and conglomerates, which result in SLAPPs (strategic litigation against public participation). By their very nature, SLAPPs are meant to undermine democracy. This is the concern that journalists Subir Ghosh and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta through 'Sue the Messenger' wish to address.

Hamish McDonald is Asia-Pacific Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. He has been a foreign correspondent in Jakarta, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing and New Delhi, where he was bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review. He has twice won Walkley awards, and has had a report on Burma read into the record of the US Congress. He is the author of books on Indonesia and India, and was made an inaugural Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2008.

Crony Capitalism in India provides a comprehensive and scholarly examination of the important topic of crony capitalism, filling an important gap in the market. Bringing together experts from various backgrounds, it addresses the key underpinnings of this complex and multifarious issue. Given the emergent nature of the Indian economy, this book provides important information for decision makers in both government and business to help establish a robust institutional framework that is so desperately needed both in India and globally.

The Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) has been a leading economic light of the Gujarat Model. It was the flagship project of an “economic resurgence” that the Narendra Modi government unleashed after his re-election as state chief minister in December 2002. Unbridled industrialisation cloaked the stains of the 2002 communal riots, and for this, a home-grown company became its new face. But the GSPC was not Modi’s baby, for it had existed over 20 years before being selected to be the face of the Gujarat Model. A decade and a half later, it is symbolic of that model, and everything that is wrong with the hype—as also the myth—surrounding it. The GSPC has been a misadventure, and serves as a classic case of how political grandstanding can lead to financial disaster. Time and again, the corporation was hauled up by the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) of India over its cavalier attitude towards ventures that never paid off and for living beyond its means. Yet, the state ignored all criticism. The truth is that the GSPC not only never made money, it instead bled the exchequer. As losses spiralled out of control, Modi’s relocation to New Delhi as prime minister came handy: the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) bailed out the GSPC by buying out the latter’s stake in the Krishna-Godavari Basin project. Grand Illusion charts out the GSPC’s growth since 2002, and summarises it thus: Modi’s pride, Gujarat’s embarrassment.

Conventional wisdom says that integration into the global marketplace tends to weaken the power of traditional faith in developing countries. But, as Meera Nanda argues in this path-breaking book, this is hardly the case in today’s India. Against expectations of growing secularism, India has instead seen a remarkable intertwining of Hinduism and neoliberal ideology, spurred on by a growing capitalist class. It is this “State-Temple-Corporate Complex,” she claims, that now wields decisive political and economic power, and provides ideological cover for the dismantling of the Nehru-era state-dominated economy. According to this new logic, India’s rapid economic growth is attributable to a special “Hindu mind,” and it is what separates the nation’s Hindu population from Muslims and others deemed to be “anti-modern.” As a result, Hindu institutions are replacing public ones, and the Hindu “revival” itself has become big business, a major source of capital accumulation. Nanda explores the roots of this development and its possible future, as well as the struggle for secularism and socialism in the world’s second-most populous country.

Large numbers of Indians - over an estimated 300 million citizens with internet-enabled mobile phones at present - have been receiving unprecedented amounts of fake, false, half-true, hateful, inflammatory (or incendiary) information in the recent past and are going to receive more such information during the general elections, the results of which will be known on 23 May 2019. The so-called WhatsApp army of the right-wing ruling regime has been 'weaponised' to influence political outcomes. Facebook and its sister social media platform, WhatsApp, are not really neutral and agnostic as they claim they are. They have been complicit in promoting the interests of Narendra Modi and his supporters in the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for some time now, well before Modi became Prime Minister of India in May 2014. Even as the world's largest social media organisation of its kind is increasingly being questioned in different countries, this book takes a critical look at the working of Facebook and WhatsApp in India.

The propaganda of misinformation and hoaxes disseminated through print, graphics, and social media has altered the social landscape of this nation. It has led to multiple cases of lynching, mob violence, defamation and riots, and continues to pose a serious threat to Indian democracy. India Misinformed: The True Story, written by the team of Alt News, a fact-checking website that debunks fake information - and edited by Pratik Sinha, Dr Sumaiya Shaikh and Arjun Sidharth - identifies the purveyors of fabricated news, exposes the propaganda machinery and familiarizes readers with techniques to detect these menacing stories.Was Jawaharlal Nehru anti-Hindu? Was Narendra Modi declared one of the most corrupt prime ministers in the world? Is Sonia Gandhi the fourth richest woman in the world? Did Rahul Gandhi register as a non-Hindu at the Somnath Temple? With photographs to establish its claims, India Misinformed: The True Story presents the real picture.