Bom in 1965 in village Saidalipur in Mahendragarh district of Haryana to Ramniwas Yadav and Gulabo Devi, the child Ramkishan was born and brought up just like any other ordinary village child with childlike pranks in the rural environment. He became a Sanyasi on 9 April 1995, and he calls this date his date of birth. In modern times, Swami Ramdev has taken upon himself the responsibility to bring back our ancient glory as well as link us to healthy ways of living. He seems to have descended on this material world to eradicate ignorance, problems, corruption and ill health. In addition to his work in the field of yoga, Swami Ramdev has also been involved in social and political causes. He has been a vocal advocate for Ayurveda and traditional Indian medicine and has campaigned against the use of chemical-based products in personal care and household products. He is the founder of Patanjali Ayurved Limited, one of India’s fastest-growing FMCG companies. In this book, we will explore different shades of his personality to trace the facts that have contributed to his making the national and international brand he is today.

Patanjali Ayurved has turned out to be the most disruptive force in the Indian FMCG market...it witnessed a whopping annual growth of 146% in fiscal year 2016, grossing a turnover of $769 million.'-Assocham-TechSci research report When in 1965, at Saidalipur, a nondescript village in Haryana, a baby boy was born to a marginal farmer, there was hardly any celebration. They were happy to receive what they believed was 'the most precious gift from God' but there was no time to pause, reflect or celebrate. People needed to get on with their lives. Little did they realize that the newborn would take this philosophy of detachment to a different level altogether. And if this detachment was induced in their life by poverty and hardship, three decades later their child was to show the world how to practise the same philosophy and even, while doing so, gather unimaginable wealth-an approximate net sum of `10,000 crore. He was to become Baba Ramdev, the celebrated yoga guru, and one of the founders of Patanjali Ayurved Limited and Patanjali Yogpeeth. The Baba Ramdev Phenomenon offers a detailed account of Ramdev's journey from attaining moksha in the Himalayas to ruling the market, especially the FMCG sector, with his Patanjali products. It captures the rise and rise of Patanjali and the various factors that worked for it, most importantly, the vision of Ramdev and the able assistance of his associate Acharya Balkrishna.

Gurus of Modern Yoga explores the contributions that individual gurus have made to the formation of the practices and discourses of yoga in today's world.

'Can anyone imagine that a man with such a strong, continuous and unbroken will has been reaching out to the masses with the goal 'one life-one mission'. He has been travelling the country round the clock and has been meeting lakhs of people every-day and motivating them through yoga. If Baba Ramdev would have been in any other country then there would have been so many Universities that would have done PhD on his life history.' I had once asked Baba Ramdev that yoga gives energy, good-health and zeal but how does it help when you are surrounded with so many problems? 'Baba Ramdev had started his journey for the well being of this country's citizens through yoga, especially for the poor who were not able to afford medicines. After travelling for ten years across the country he noticed that it's not only the health of the citizens that needed attention but also the 'health of the country' so from then onwards he began to voice his concerns related to the dysfunctions of the nation. Baba Ramdev is such a personality who doesn't rest till he achieves his goals.'

Neo-Hindutva explores the recent proliferation and evolution of Hindu nationalism – the assertive majoritarian, right-wing ideology that is transforming contemporary India. This volume develops and expands on the idea of ‘neo-Hindutva’ –– Hindu nationalist ideology which is evolving and shifting in new, surprising, and significant ways, requiring a reassessment and reframing of prevailing understandings. The contributors identify and explain the ways in which Hindu nationalism increasingly permeates into new spaces: organisational, territorial, conceptual, rhetorical. The scope of the chapters reflect the diversity of contemporary Hindutva – both in India and beyond – which appears simultaneously brazen but concealed, nebulous and mainstreamed, militant yet normalised. They cover a wide range of topics and places in which one can locate new forms of Hindu nationalism: courts of law, the Northeast, the diaspora, Adivasi (tribal) communities, a powerful yoga guru, and the Internet. The volume also includes an in-depth interview with Christophe Jaffrelot and a postscript by Deepa Reddy. Helping readers to make sense of contemporary Hindutva, Neo-Hindutva is ideal for scholars of India, Hinduism, Nationalism, and Asian Studies more generally. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary South Asia.

The autobiography of Paramahansa Yogananda (1893 - 1952) details his search for a guru, during which he encountered many spiritual leaders and world-renowned scientists. When it was published in 1946 it was the first introduction of many westerners to yoga and meditation. The famous opera singer Amelita Galli-Curci said about the book: "Amazing, true stories of saints and masters of India, blended with priceless superphysical information-much needed to balance the Western material efficiency with Eastern spiritual efficiency-come from the vigorous pen of Paramhansa Yogananda, whose teachings my husband and myself have had the pleasure of studying for twenty years."