Sixty glorious years of independence of India mark several milestones and immense contributions from great men and women who have become part of its history. For the first time ever, this book showcases post-Independent India's twenty greatest living personalities who have and continue to set extraordinary examples for the nation. Brilliantly orchestrated and edited by renowned author Anil Dharker, the book singularly establishes the unparalleled greatness and iconic status of these men and women, including A P J Abdul Kalam, Amartya Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, M F Husain, Charles Correa and Sonia Gandhi, by some of India's best known writers - Srinivas Laxman, Prem Shankar Jha, Maithili Rao, Dom Moraes, Ranjit Hoskote, and Kumar Ketkar, among others. A fascinating saga spanning several decades, this book unfolds the charisma, exceptional destinies, talents and achievements of twenty men and women who continue to shape today's India. 'The previous evening while he (K C Pant, former defence minister) and Dr Kalam were going for a walk, the minister asked him: "What would you like me to do to celebrate the success of Agni tomorrow?" Replied Kalam, "We need 100,000 saplings at the missile research centre." Srinivas Laxman on A P J Abdul Kalam'

The father of fibre optics, Narinder Singh Kapany was far more than your typical multi-hyphenate. Inventor, art collector, sculptor, farmer, entrepreneur, teacher, and a successful businessman, Dr Kapany was what Fortune magazine in its 1999 issue called, ‘one of the seven unsung heroes of the 20th century’. An insightful and inspirational life story, this memoir chronicles his ninety remarkable years. Charming, idiosyncratic, and highly engaging, The Man Who Bent Light serves up enough variety and verve to celebrate the lives of a half dozen individuals. But there is only one Narinder Singh Kapany, and his life, illuminated in his singular memoir, is a life like no other.

At a mere four hours’ notice, at 8.00 p.m., on March 24th 2020, the Indian Prime Minister Modi announced a lockdown to contain the spread of virus in order to jumpstart an already-crumbling healthcare system for one of the most devastating pandemics soon to envelop India. People stormed out to panic-buy ration stocks; India’s migrant working classes started walking back to the villages, left hungry and desolate without homes, work and wages - a scene not very short of an apocalypse. Over two summers, India woke up to similar headlines: a shortage of hospital beds, oxygen, medicines; a languishing economy; cases rising and falling; governments greenlighting Hindu religious, superspreader that compounded the second wave; misled unlocking schools, business and the social sphere, and reversed lockdowns when cases went up; underreporting of cases and deaths; lakhs dead to the virus and crores of people infected, and still counting. While the pandemic continues to rage on, notwithstanding its ebbs and flows, its real impact on society may start to be visible only much later. Over a year of tracking how the pandemic ravaged India’s society, economy, politics and culture, nine of finest India’s writers try and make sense of this difficult reality. The Dark Hour is a publisher’s anthology of specially commissioned long-form essays that unpack two dreadful summers of the pandemic that wreaked havoc on the many Indias within India.

Peter Church OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of New South Wales, a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Sydney and a Master’s of Law degree from the University of London. He has spent almost all his career working and living in the Asian region as an international lawyer and corporate adviser. He is the founder and chairman of AFG Venture Group (www.afgventuregroup.com), a corporate advisory firm with operations in Australia, South-East Asia and India and is Special Counsel to Blake Dawson (www. blakedawson. com), a leading Australian law firm with activities in a number of Asian jurisdictions. He was awarded the OAM in 1994 for his services towards the promotion of Australian business in South-East Asia.

Here is the first ever and only detailed account of Gandhi and music in India. How politics and music interspersed with each other has been paid scanty, if not any, attention, let alone Gandhi’s role in it. Looking at prayer as politics, singing Gandhi’s India traces Gandhi’s relationship with music and nationalism. Uncovering his writings on music, ashram Bhajan practice, the Vande Mataram debate, Subramanian makes a case for a closer scrutiny of Gandhian oeuvre to map sonic politics in twentieth century India.

Dinesh C. Sharma is a New Delhi-based award-winning journalist and author with over thirty-five years’ of professional experience. He has written extensively on science and technology, climate change, health, environment and innovation for national and international media, including The Lancet and Wired. He has been Science Editor at Mail Today, and Managing Editor at India Science Wire and is currently the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow (2020-2021). His book The Outsourcer: The Story of India’s IT Revolution was awarded the Computer History Museum Book Prize in 2016. He has also been a visiting faculty at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Ateneo de Manila University, Manila. Dinesh Sharma tweets at @dineshcsharma

VENKAT SUNDARAM was a key member of the Indian cricket team between 1970–80. During his illustrious career, he has worn numerous hats – he has been its manager for the 1998 tour to Sri Lanka; Chairman for BCCI’s Ground and Wickets Committee for two terms; Chairman Ranji Trophy and U-22 selection committee for UPCA. He has also been a selector, coach, umpire, cricket commentator, sports anchor, author, and director/ producer. He is the force behind this special edition celebrating Bishan Singh Bedi’s life and times. SACHIN BAJAJ is a sports administrator and business professional. He has over two decades of experience with sports bodies like Kings XI Punjab, Cricket Club of India, England & Wales Cricket Board. He is also the proprietor of Global Cricket School and Co-founder of Niche Sports. Sachin has published eleven books and co-authored another three.

RASHEED KIDWAI is a journalist, author, columnist and political analyst. He is Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi. Formerly Associate Editor at The Telegraph, Kidwai is a keen observer of government, politics, community affairs and Hindi cinema.

What is life like inside Asia’s largest prison? What happens when a man is hanged, but his pulse refuses to give up even after two hours? Did Nirbhaya’s rapist, Ram Singh, commit suicide or was he murdered? For the first time we have a riveting account from an insider who has spent close to four decades as an officer at Tihar Jail during some of the most turbulent times in Indian political history. For the first time he breaks his silence about all he’s seen – from the first man he met in Tihar, Charles Sobhraj, to the controversies surrounding former CBI head, Alok Verma. Responsible for carrying out ‘Black Warrants’, Gupta witnessed 14 hangings, the most recent and his last, being that of Afzal Guru. Joining him is award-winning journalist Sunetra Choudhury whose recent book Behind Bars is a bestseller and took her deep inside the maze of prisons. Read this book for the most intimate and raw account of India’s judicial and criminal justice system.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been known to be critical about India's policies in Kashmir. But when on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday in 2020, Merkel sent him a note wishing him with the words Liebe Narendra (Dear Narendra), written in hand, one knew that Modi had arrived on the world stage. Modi 2.0: Beyond the Ordinary is an objective analysis of the prime minister, his struggles and achievements, his spiritual journey, the men and the women in his life, and his friends and enemies. It also doesn't shy away from discussing the difficult questions surrounding Modi-Godhra and his relations with India's Muslims. Self-confessedly, author Sunil Sharan was once critical of Narendra Modi but after carefully observing him for years, he realised that Modi is indeed a transformational man. Today, India stands rejuvenated, its prestige around the world high, the spirit of its people uplifted. Once the question used to be: Who after Nehru? Now the question is: Who after Modi? Modi 2.0 debates the possibilities.