“Don’t you question his love for me. I know what it is.When he resides in me how can you say he left me? Nothing can break the bond between two souls who are connected to each other. No matter how long they are apart, no matter what happens, they are always connected.” Urmila Set against the backdrop of the Ramayana, Lakshmila narrates the story of the selfless love between Lakshman and Urmila without whom the Ramayana would have been incomplete. But Lakshmila – the united entities of Lakhsman and Urmila – does not tell the world about their sacrifices; instead they speak of their love that becomes the cornerstone of their powerful and supreme sacrifice. Urmila is as important as Lakshman in the story. It lingers on the significant pauses in their relationship, unknown to the world, and gently drives home the unsung truth that the love between Lakshman and Urmila was unusual, divine, subtle and yet potent, carrying across lifetimes. Their love was a silent and selfless commitment, more of a spiritual connection. Lakshmila provides a detailed insight into the ‘what, how, when and why’ of every incident that took place during the Treta Yug in the Suryavanshi family, based on detailed research from the Valmiki Ramayana, Kamban Ramayana, Puranas and the different versions of the Ramayana.The fictional narrative is set in the context of a retelling of the epic from Lakshman and Urmila’s perspective of the events that went on to build the timeless tale.

The poems in the book would take one to a journey where a lost soul finds a ray of hope. The progression from a dark night to a bright dawn is beautifully presented through the rhymes. The following book description would rightly provide a beautiful insight- " Each word on each page Expressing emotions a hundredthFrom feeling lost to feeling aliveAll in this one pretty lifeThis book takes you on a journeyWith pricky thorns and even honey"

Frazier's comparative study of popular protest in twentieth-century Shanghai and Mumbai highlights recurring debates over migration and citizenship.

Rural narratives after Premchand remained unnoticed because of not being written in English. Rural India and Peasantry: Ethnography in stories after Premchand is a study of literary representation of rural life in a vast expanse of land designated as the Hindi Heartland. What lends unique strength to this work is that after Premchand, fictional narrative has not really been dealt with such scholarly seriousness or contextualized in the socio-economic scenario of the rural world and peasantry. More than thirty stories discussed in ten chapters, inherit a strong tradition of peasant narratives since the times of Premchand, exposing the reader to an intricate array of messy complications and contingencies, the small peasantry and the rural world has experienced since the early decades of independent India through the period of liberalization till the recent decades. Exploring non- canonical rural stories in Hindi, unfolds a spectrum of ethnic-cultural and psychological biographies about the evolving rural scenario in the democratic India of our times. The substantial reference to concrete facts and data vindicate the realistic strain of the work. It would set a new example of interdisciplinary scholarship and open up new vistas of further scholarship, especially in the Cultural studies. The authentically translated excerpts, transcribe the spirit of rural India.

"For many years, China and India have been powerfully shaped by both transnational and subnational circulatory forces. This edited volume explores these local and global influences as they play out in the contemporary era. The analysis focuses on four intersecting topics: labor relations; legal reform and rights protest; public goods provision; and transnational migration and investment. The eight substantive chapters and introduction share a common perspective in arguing that distinctions in regime type (“democracy” versus “dictatorship”) alone offer little insight into critical differences and similarities between these Asian giants in terms of either policies or performance. A wide variety of subnational and transnational actors, from municipal governments to international organizations, and from local NGO activists to a far-flung diaspora, have been—and will continue to be—decisive.The authors approach China and India through a strategy of “convergent comparison,” in which they investigate temporal and spatial parallels at various critical junctures, at various levels of the political system, and both inside and outside the territorial confines of the nation-state. The intensified globalization of recent decades only heightens the need to view state initiatives against such a wider canvas."