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There are few subjects in American life that prompt more discussion and controversy than immigration. But do we really understand it? In This Land Is Our Land, the renowned author Suketu Mehta attacks the issue head-on.

Read an excerpt from the book below:

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One day in the 1980s, my maternal grandfather was sitting in a park in suburban London. An elderly British man came up to him and wagged a finger in his face. ‘Why are you here?’ the man demanded. ‘Why are you in my country?’

‘Because we are the creditors,’ responded my grandfather, who was born in India, worked all his life in colonial Kenya, and was now retired in London. ‘You took all our wealth, our diamonds. Now we have come to collect.’ We are here, my grandfather was saying, because you were there.

These days, a great many people in the rich countries complain loudly about migration from the poor ones. But as the migrants see it, the game was rigged: First, the rich countries colonized us and stole our treasure and prevented us from building our industries. After plundering us for centuries, they left, having drawn up maps in ways that ensured permanent strife between our communities. Then they brought us to their countries as ‘guest workers’ – as if they knew what the word ‘guest’ meant in our cultures – but discouraged us from bringing our families.

Having built up their economies with our raw materials and our labour, they asked us to go back and were surprised when we did not. They stole our minerals and corrupted our governments so that their corporations could continue stealing our resources; they fouled the air above us and the waters around us, making our farms barren, our oceans lifeless; and they were aghast when the poorest among us arrived at their borders, not to steal but to work, to clean their shit, and to fuck their men.

Still, they needed us. They needed us to fix their computers and heal their sick and teach their kids, so they took our best and brightest, those who had been educated at the greatest expense of the struggling states they came from, and seduced us again to work for them. Now, again they ask us not to come, desperate and starving though they have rendered us, because the richest among them need a scapegoat. This is how the game is rigged today.

My family has moved all over the earth, from India to Kenya to England to the United States and back again – and is still moving. One of my grandfathers left rural Gujarat for Calcutta in the salad days of the twentieth century; my other grandfather, living half a day’s bullock-cart ride away, left soon after for Nairobi. In Calcutta, my paternal grandfather joined his older brother in the jewellery business; in Nairobi, my maternal grandfather began his career, at sixteen, sweeping the floors of his uncle’s accounting office. Thus began my family’s journey from the village to the city. It was, I now realize, less than a hundred years ago.

I am now among the quarter of a billion people living in a country other than the one they were born in. I’m one of the lucky ones; in surveys, nearly three-quarters of a billion people want to live in a country other than the one they were born in, and will do so as soon as they see a chance. Why do we move? Why do we keep moving?

Impassioned, rigorous, and richly stocked with memorable stories and characters, This Land Is Our Land is a timely and necessary intervention, and a literary polemic of the highest order.

‘I need a window to look at the world without; for only then can I look at the world within.’ writes Ruskin Bond in Words From My Window.

Delving into the past, this journal of his life experiences transforms into a stage on which events and people are brought together to comprehend the process of becoming.

Here are 5 Journals that can take you back in time:

 A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf

A fascinating insight into the art and mind of Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary was collected by her husband from the personal record she kept from 1918 till weeks before her death in 1941. Between these points of time unfolds the private world- the anguish, the triumph, the creative vision- of one of the great writers of our century.

 The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath

First published in 1982 in a heavily abridged version, this later uncensored edition offers a complete record of the diaries Plath kept during the last twelve years of her life. Roughly two-thirds of this material had never been released before and revealed the intensity of the poet’s personal and literary struggles. It provided fresh insight into both her frequent desperation and the bravery with which she battled her demons.

 Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag

Reborn (1947-1963) traces the journey of an extraordinary fourteen- year- old Sontag to her adulthood when she takes her place in the fast-paced world of New York as a published writer. This journal records the act of self-invention of one of the most noteworthy thinker and writer of the twentieth century. Sontag writes, “In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.”

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

A significant work in world literature, Anne Frank’s diary is a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.

In an attempt to survive the Nazi occupation of Holland in 1942, Anne Frank and her family went into hiding and lived cloistered in the “Secret Annex” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. The diary, discovered in an attic in which the thirteen-year-old Jewish girl spent her last two years before her tragic death, is a record of her experiences during this period and offers a peek into the fragile world that the effervescent Anne inhabited.

Captain Scott’s Last Expedition by Robert Falcon Scott 

Scott’s letters and diary entries, written in his last days, give a heart-rending account of the bravery and perseverance of men who attempted his perilous mission. Captain Scott’s Last Expedition brings alive the dangers and beauties of the long, dark winter, and the brutal hardships of the trek to the South Pole. Hopelessly trapped in a tiny tent by a raging blizzard on the Great Ice Barrier, Scott wrote, ‘Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.’

So what are you waiting for? Start writing a journal today with  Words From My Window!

Lakhs of Indians will no longer be Indian citizens after 31st August 2019 and The Assam Accord will decide their fate.

What is the Assam Accord? Why is Assam the only Indian state to have an exclusive citizenship cut-off date? What steered the Rajiv Gandhi government to sign the Accord with All Assam Students Union and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad on the midnight of August 14, 1985?

Assam– The Accord, The Discord by Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty brings to light the moments that led to the MoU, giving a blow-by-blow account of what happened before and after the signing of the Accord.

The Assam Accord, signed in the early hours of August 15, 1985 at Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s residence marked the end of a bloody era in Assam, albeit temporarily, which had seen the fall of four state governments, three spells of President’s Rule—all in a span of six years due to the massive support that the signatories of the Accord received in the state.

Here are some facts from the book:

• • The Accord led to the birth of two political parties in Assam. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and its bête noire, the United Minority Front, Assam (UMFA). The Centre kept the details of the negotiations secret. Everyone heard about the Accord only at the Independence Day speech of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi from the ramparts of the Red Fort.
    

• • The National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam is being updated as per the Assam Accord, signed by the Centre in 1985 with All Assam Students Union(AASU) and All Assam Gana,Sangram Parishad to end an ‘anti-foreigner’ agitation. Unlike other parts of India, Assam has an exclusive citizenship cut-off date – March 24, 1971.

• • Many are not aware that the All Assam Students Union(AASU) flag was inspired by the flag of the Mukti Bahini that fought for creation of Bangladesh. Later, AASU’s flag became a symbol of resentment against the huge influx of refugees from East Pakistan due to Mukti Bahini’s face off with Pakistani army.

• • AASU demanded 1951 as the cut-off date for citizenship in Assam. All Assam Minority Students Union(AAMSU) and Citizens Rights Protection Committee(CRPC) wanted March 24, 1971, based on the Indira Gandhi-Mujibur Rahman treaty of 1972, as per which anyone who entered Assam (India) from East Pakistan till that date would be considered an Indian citizen. Several Assamese intellectuals joined hands with AAMSU, CRPC to root for the 1971 cut-off.

After the NRC update process is complete this August 31, what will be the fate of those left out of it? Is deportation of undocumented immigrants a practical solution? Is the government considering issuing work permits to them? Is granting constitutional protection based on a citizenship cut-off year a way out?

As the deadline for the final NRC list nears, Pisharoty hopes that Assam is still the home of Sankardev and Azan Fakir, of linguistic diversity and cultural assimilation — not a communal, divided land where politics is the only winner.

Assam – The Accord, the Discord delves into possible solutions that are on the table to sort out the festering problem. The book is available now.

By the founders of the revolutionary O&O Academy The Four Sacred Secrets combines proven scientific approaches with ancient spiritual practices to take you on a journey that will open your mind to an extraordinary destiny.

Here are 7 reasons you should read The Four Sacred Secrets:

1. The Four Sacred Secrets will attune you to the great power of consciousness.
2. We must first understand that suffering states are often unconscious and deeply ingrained. They take root in us either epigenetically, prenatally, in our early childhoods, or even in our later years.
3. If we don’t free ourselves from suffering states, they’ll come back time and time again until our baseline mood is sadness, irritation, or anger.
4. Once you begin to hold these sacred secrets close to your heart, the universe becomes a loving friend, supporting you with magical synchronicities that power you along the way.
5. Each secret is followed by a life journey designed to set you free of all that is preventing you from realizing your dreams, from accessing expansive states of consciousness, and truly connecting with your loved ones.
6. The Four Sacred Secrets is a book that you will want to return to again and again. It will speak to your soul.
7. You may want to carry the book around with you to help you find clarity during life’s many daily challenges.

The Four Sacred Secrets  will cast its spell on you from the first page and guide you to life in a beautiful state.

In today’s challenging and busy world, don’t you wish you knew how to quieten your mind and focus on yourself?

In On Meditation, renowned spiritual leader, Sri M, answers all your questions on the practice and benefits of meditation. With his knowledge of all the various schools of practice and the ancient texts, he breaks down the complicated practice into a simple and easy method that any working man or woman, young or old, can practice in their everyday lives.

Sri M is a spiritual guide, social reformer and educationist . Read on to learn more about this extraordinary personality and his awe-inspiring journey and mission.

Sri M or Mumtaz Ali Khan was born on 6 November 1948 into an affluent and liberal Muslim family in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Sri M’s maternal grandmother had Sufi connections and told him many Sufi stories in his childhood.

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At the age of nine, his spiritual transformation was initiated by his future Master, (Maheshwarnath Babaji), who miraculously appeared under a jackfruit tree in the compound of his house in Thiruvananthapuram.

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At 19, he traveled to Badrinath – a 220 km soul-seeking passage on foot– arriving famished in the town of his destiny. Despairing that his search was futile, he was about to jump into the Alaknanda River when his fortitude was rewarded by the luminous appearance of his Guru, Maheshwarnath Babaji, who initiated him into the Nath tradition.

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For the next three years, he traveled extensively through the Himalayas, where Maheshwarnath Babaji guided him right through his Kundalini awakening and an eventual meeting with the Grand Master, Sri Guru Babaji also known as Sri Mahavatar Babaji

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After returning from the Himalayas, he traveled all over India, meeting many spiritual gurus such as Neem Karoli Baba, Lakshman Joo and  Krishnamurti. He also spent time at Ramakrishna Mission and the Krishnamurti Foundation.

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While working at the Krishnamurti Foundation, he met his future wife Sunanda Sanadi, with whom he now has two grown-up children—Roshan and Aisha.

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In 2011, he wrote his memoir—Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master – A Yogi’s Autobiography, which became an instant bestseller.

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In April 2017, Sri M published the second part of his autobiography. The Journey Continues, where he speculates that his readers might believe he “had finally gone bonkers”; here Sri M recounts in detail many of his previous lives over 2000 years.

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In 2015, Sri M undertook a 7500 km journey on foot (padayatra) called “Walk of Hope” from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. With a group of dedicated fellow travellers, Sri M walked through 11 Indian states in an exercise to restore the innate spirituality of the nation.

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 His social initiatives include The Satsang Vidyalaya – which provides free, high-quality education to children from the tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh, The Peepal Grove School, the Satsang Swasthya Kendra to provide affordable and qualitative health care, and the Manav Ekta Mission for promoting inter-faith harmony.

In On Meditation, renowned spiritual leader, Sri M, answers all your questions on the practice and benefits of meditation. The book is available now!

Plastic Emotions is a novel inspired by the life of Minnette de Silva-a forgotten feminist icon and one of the most important figures of twentieth-century architecture. In a gripping and lyrical story, Shiromi Pinto paints a complex picture of de Silva, charting her affair with the infamous Swiss modernist Le Corbusier and her efforts to build an independent Sri Lanka that slowly heads towards political and social turmoil.

Moving between London, Chandigarh, Colombo, Paris and Kandy, Plastic Emotions explores the life of a young, trailblazing South Asian woman at a time of great turbulence across the globe.

Read on to learn some facts about this pioneering icon whose fascinating trajectory is dramatized in Plastic Emotions through lyrical, fictional letters to Le Corbusier and through glimpses of  her extraordinary career.

1. De Silva was the first Sri Lankan woman to be trained as an architect and the first Asian woman to be elected an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1948.

“Yes, Corbu, I’ve done it. I, Minnette de Silva, have been elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects. I— who had been giddy with London when I first arrived, spending too much time in the pub, and not enough of it on my portfolio. I stand before you now—before everyone—as the first Oriental woman to be made ARIBA. Doesn’t the fact of this distinction mean anything to dear old pater?”

2. She was born into a prominent family—her father was George E. de Silva, a prominent Kandyan politician who was President of the Ceylon National Congress, and also served as a Minister of Health. Her mother Agnes Nell, was a Burgher Christian who actively campaigned for universal suffrage in Sri Lanka.

” ‘Can you believe it was your father who helped us get the women’s vote?’ says Amma, gesturing toward the empty chair where her father had just been stationed. ‘Papa? Really?’ says Minnette recalling his initial refusal to support her architectural studies. Amma nods. ‘When the Donoughmore people came to talk about constitutional reform, your father was one of only two men who supported our demand for women’s franchise’ “

3. After enrolling at the Sir JJ School of Art in Bombay, Minnette was part of the cultural and political circles which included Mulk Raj Anand and Ravi Shankar and became the architectural editor for Marg, the new publication on modern art and culture. She then started working for the emigre architect and planner Otto Koenigsberger.

 “Minnette remembers Bombay. That rush of being away from the demands of Ceylon society. Setting up with Otto Koenigsberger her architectural mentor at the time. Engaging in extended disputations with Homi Bhabha, the nuclear physicist. The shambolic beginnings when they all fanned out into the streets to collect those precious few subscriptions that would allow them to produce Marg.”

4. She pioneered the Tropical Modernist style incorporating traditional architecture from the Kandyan, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa periods, as well as the work of local craftsmen and artists, with Western Modernist elements.

“Instead of the cosmetic application of modernism, she writes, that shallow copycatting that is ubiquitous in Ceylon, we must look at and understand our own traditions. It is only in understanding them that we can determine which concepts are still valid for contemporary living. It is these that we must integrate with Modern techniques, not forgetting the vast skill of our traditional craftspeople and artists. Indeed, a building should be a combination of all these disciplines: the architect’s, the craftsperson’s and the artist’s.”

5. Her chief interest was in public housing and state buildings, along the lines of Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh.

“She has not been asked to contribute anything to the exhibition apart from the lodge. When Minnette first heard about it she had thought this would finally be the opportunity to share her ideas about public housing which she assumed would be the priority for a nation building itself anew. But no one approached her. She’d had individual expressions of interest private clients wanting a block of flats built or a new house done. But nothing to allow her the inroad she craves—the chance to play a role in shaping Ceylon’s future architecture, to work on structures designed for common use.”

6. As a woman in a male-dominated profession she struggled constantly for projects, and after 1962 much of her clientele was taken over by Geoffrey Bawa, even though Bawa was inspired by much of her pioneering style.

“Had I been a man, Corbu, the doors would have opened with a clap of my hands. Just look at how they all run to that man in Colombo? Even my old clients. Where once they would have come to me, now they go to him. I suppose he is more fashionable. I must skulk around, prising contracts from friends of the family or friends of friends. I still have not been formally recognised for my contribution to modern architecture in this country. I still have to contend with clients, especially male clients, referring to me not even as a woman, but a girl.”

Plastic Emotions explores the life of a young, trailblazing South Asian woman at a time of great turbulence across the globe. The book is available now.

Globalization, connectivity and competitiveness have changed the way we work, conduct business and lead our lives. While there are several positives to this new way, there are, of course, negatives too. One of them happens to be the rising rates of burnout.

People from all walks of life feel they are overworked, chronically stressed, sleep-deprived and anxious, and sense they don’t have balance in their lives. These signs left unaddressed, only lead to regrets. The regret of broken relationships. The regret of neglected health. The regret of not being the person one always wanted to be. The cost is not only to the individual—in the long run, society pays the price.

Listed below are 5 signs of Burnout:

People with burnout exhibit what is called presentism: being physically present but not ‘fully’ there to engage in creative, forward-thinking reflection or good work.

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Psychologically detached from work, people are less willing to help others and also less likely to receive help in return.

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One has to be ‘on fire’ to burn out; people who are not on fire—who are not highly motivated—do not burn out. This makes people with high ambitions and over-commitment streaks more susceptible.

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Those who exhibit negative emotions, who are overresponsive, highly reactive and have low thresholds for emotional reactions, even when faced with minor stressors, are more prone to burnout than others who showed fewer of these characteristics.

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When you don’t feel safe, you are constantly on the edge. You are worried, anxious and fearful. These, coupled with bureaucracy, excessive control and lack of support lead to poor morale and burnout.

Burnout offers a framework and principles to ensure that you continue to have a hard-working and productive life without getting burned out.

Every reporter knows the first rule of journalism: never betray your source. But what if your source turns out to be unworthy of your silence? What if it’s your source who betrays you?

The Messenger by Shiv Malik tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two men looking to change the world: a repentant jihadist and an idealistic journalist. This troubling real-life thriller takes us from their first meeting in a spartan flat in the rough suburbs of Manchester, to a bombing in Pakistan, a dramatic arrest and Malik’s reporting career on the brink of ruin.

Here’s an excerpt from the prologue!

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I put it to you that it has always been like this. A sudden, horrific event occurs – a volcano erupts, a plague breaks out, an economy collapses – and we become overwhelmed by fear. But the event is not what we are afraid of. As soon as it occurs, it becomes the past. It is over. What we fear most is the future; the idea that out of nowhere disaster might befall us again. In these moments we force ourselves to hunt for an explanation, a pattern, lines of cause and effect. We must know why these events have happened to us because we must reclaim a sense
that tomorrow can again be made predictable. Our psychological survival depends on it.

Just imagine even the simplest human interaction being undertaken in a world where we were completely unable to foretell whether the sun will rise in the morning or the air will remain breathable hour by hour. Our minds would not endure more than one day.

The explanations we find for these horrific events do not necessarily have to be correct or true. They just have to serve their purpose – the story must make us feel the world is certain again.

And as history shows us, if the facts do not comfort, a fiction will work just as well.

Our readiness in these instances to accept the reassuring fiction over the uncomforting fact has been the source of some of mankind’s most inhumane deeds. The volcano erupts because the gods are unhappy with us and so we make a human sacrifice.

Disease abounds because the devil has made mischief through his servants and so we hunt for witches. The German economy collapses because traitors are at work and so Jews are rounded up in their millions.

And yet, however inhumane the results, we are quietly grateful for these stories because they allow us to cope. They let us believe that the solution to averting future disaster is within our control. And those who tell us the stories – the shaman, the church, the dictator – are granted impressive powers over us.

This is also how terrorism works.

First the tactician, the military trainers, the explosive experts, the cell leaders, and the suicide bomber band together to induce fear by creating apparently random destruction involving as many people as possible. The more arbitrary the target – the train, the bar, the sporting event, the office block – the more we fear because the harder it becomes for us to predict what tomorrow will hold for us.

The person who follows this is the messenger. He has two further roles which are just as essential to the overall process. His first task is to threaten more of the same. He makes it clear that the future – both immediate and distant – will continue to be ambushed by bloody violence. This is the easy part – these words can be spoken by any thug. It’s the second task that requires the oratorical skill.

Competing against other narratives, the messenger must somehow persuade us to do what he wants – leave his lands, hand over political power, give him money, convert to his religion. He does this by convincing us that we are the ones to blame for the destruction which has just been wreaked; that it is our actions that have brought about these consequences.

At first this may seem an unpromising strategy, but the messenger tells us this because he knows that his narrative holds a particular charm to our ears; if we are the cause of such events, then we must also hold the key to our own security. Who better to bring normality back to our lives than ourselves?

Like this, the messenger’s speech suddenly becomes a comfort.

His words become a siren’s song. We want to do as he asks because he promises that life will go back to normal. But unless we resist the temptation, we will find ourselves ruined and sold out by the lowest of our mind’s conceits: fear.

However, like volcanoes, plagues and war, the mechanics of terrorism have proven far more complex than our frightened minds have permitted us to believe. I should know. For the messenger is never all he seems..

Get your copy of The Messenger today!

Rajnath Singh rose from a swayamsevak in the RSS to the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and also served as a cabinet minister in the Vajpayee government. Jailed during the Emergency, Singh was the president of the BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. A two-term president of the BJP, Singh ensured the elevation of Narendra Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate and delivered BJP’s biggest-ever electoral victory in 2014. Since then, as India’s home minister, he has ushered in a new phase in the country’s security, where both internal and external threats have been minimized. Under Singh, the red menace from Naxalites and Maoists has been nearly wiped out, and the state of Jammu and Kashmir had its first local-body elections in over a decade. His impeccable record in managing the country’s internal security has led Prime Minister Modi to give him the responsibility of handling India’s external security, as seen in his appointment as the country’s defence minister in the newly elected
BJP government.

Here’s an excerpt from the book that talks about how Rajnath Singh brought upon the Anti-Copying Act when became the education minister of UP!

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Kalyan Singh established himself as a tough and able administrator with a no-nonsense approach in hardly any time and this became his signature. There were instances when he jailed criminals, including MLAs, and also fired a minister from his own cabinet for violating his orders.4 He went on to be known for not only the hard stance he personally took, but also of some of the members in his ministry, and the one who stood out was Rajnath Singh.

Singh was given charge of education of a state, which according to experts, had been deeply affected by political considerations and where the education system had become too politicized. Uttar Pradesh was one of the few states in India that still had a Legislative Council—the upper chamber of the state legislature, a body in which teachers had guaranteed representation. Teachers had traditionally been held in great regard in Indian society and, perhaps, that could be the reason why they were also given a special legal status by the Constitution of India which provided for representation to teachers and members who are elected by teachers in the Upper House of the state legislature. UP’s council of ministers since 1952 had always had a representation of teachers, barring once when, in 1967, Chandra Bhanu Gupta as chief minister formed his thirteen-member cabinet that lasted for fifteen days.

The significance of education in the politics of Uttar Pradesh can be gauged from the fact that many chief ministers have been former teachers, beginning with Sampurnanand, Sucheta Kripalani, Tribhuvan Narayan Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kalyan Singh. Rajnath Singh too had joined a long list of education ministers in the state who had been teachers in the past, for instance, Acharya Jugul Kishore, Kalicharan and Swaroop Kumari Bakshi. During Rajnath Singh’s stint as education minister, teachers wielded considerable influence both within and outside the state legislature. There were other problems plaguing the education system that needed immediate attention.

Even after four decades of freedom from the British and despite an increase in the number of institutions, the education system in India had little to show in terms of achievements as well as what was being taught in schools. The Kalyan Singh government gave more powers to management committees of private-aided schools, initiated self-financing courses and allowed self-financing schools besides transferring the power of pay disbursement to private management.

In addition to wide-ranging alterations in lessons taught at the secondary-school level, including the introduction of Vedic mathematics and the addition of a chapter detailing the contributions of Keshavrao Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS, the teaching community took exception to many of Rajnath Singh’s reforms.8 The introduction of Vedic maths raised many an eyebrow despite the fact that the world over, mathematicians found it helpful for children at pre-primary and primary levels to calculate complex numbers in a shorter time frame and sculpt young minds.9 Questions were also raised about teaching children about the RSS even though historically the RSS had not only been a part of mainstream nation-building activities but had also been invited to participate in the Republic Day parade in 1963 by the then prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

At the same time, the teachers under the Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh (MSS), the strongest teachers union in Uttar Pradesh, were up in arms too. The education minister’s ‘antiteacher’ measures did not go down well and they announced a call for a boycott of examinations. Things came under control only after assurances from the state government that there was no move to change legislation regarding the transfer of secondary teachers from one district to another or empowering the authorities to prolong indefinitely the suspension of any teacher.

If the field of education had become a springboard for successful politicians and a fecund garden for political activism, it had also spawned an industry with cheating in examinations as its mainstay. In 1992, Rajnath Singh presented the historic anti-cheating law that declared cheating in examinations a cognizable offence. The Anti-Copying Act, 1992, promised changes aimed at clearing the system like never before, whereby students caught cheating could be jailed. This was accompanied by the simultaneous deployment of police in all examination centres across the state and its effect was more than palpable. The percentage of students clearing the UP board high school exam came down from 57 in 1991 to under 15 in 1992.

Singh was told in no uncertain terms that his action would have far-reaching implications, or, in other words, his political future was at stake. Even at the time of framing and, later, tabling the Act, there were well-wishers who sprung to advise the first-time minister. Some of them went to the extent of hinting that the CM could probably try to fire from his shoulder and the credit, if it worked, would be Kalyan Singh’s while all the brickbats, the more likely outcome, would come his way. But Rajnath Singh had no doubt about the measure. As a teacher, he had often found students not being inspired enough to do the right thing and the only way to bring about a change in the manner the young approached not just studies, but life, in general, would only be possible if they assumed greater responsibility, and what better place to start but one’s own self.

To find out what happens next, get your copy of Gautam Chintamani’s Rajneeti today!

A series of murders have taken place in Parsupur, the capital city of Parsuvarta. Kasyapa and Agastya, two students training to become priests, are asked by their guru to investigate the deaths.

It is an age when Vedic gods are worshiped, religious sacrifices are performed regularly, commerce flourishes and kings are guided by their loyal head priests. But beneath this façade of order lie prejudices and political rivalries, jealousy and power games. This is why the murders, which at first seem to be unconnected, soon lead in the same direction. It is now up to Kasyapa and Agastya to find out the common thread and identify the killer.

Read an excerpt from The First Aryan below:

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Kaśyapa’s involvement in the intrigues of the royal family and the priestly circles started that morning. Though he had not wanted it, he was dragged into the middle of a series of extraordinary events that were about to unravel in the kingdom of Parśuvarta.

It all started in the capital city, Parśupur, which was located on the gentle inward curve of the Sarasvatī. There were walls, one hasta thick, on the other three sides of the city. Its area was approximately one eighty-first of a square yojana. The city had three gates—one in the south, about one-third the wall’s distance from the river; another in the north wall, halfway into the west–south-west angled section; and the third in the west wall, halfway into the south–southeast section of the wall.

Eleven of Vasiṣṭha’s twelve students were there, in the study hall outside his house. The younger ones were poring over the alphabet and mathematical tables. Kaśyapa and three of his fellow students were working on astronomical and logic treatises. They would first recite the appropriate verses, as they had been taught by their guru, discuss the meaning and implications among themselves and ask their guru or a senior student questions in case they had doubts. Two older students were working on the theory of sacrifices and the esoteric sciences. It was early morning and Kaśyapa was feeling sleepy. However, he toiled on.

Suddenly, he heard somebody mention a senior student, Atharvan’s, name and looked around to notice that he was missing. He asked aloud, to no one in particular, ‘Where is Atharvan? He should have been here by now.’

‘Maybe the guru sent him somewhere on an errand? Maybe he is back at his house? Was he unwell?’

The study hall was in a thatched shed next to their guru’s house. This was no ordinary shed. It was from here that their guru, Vasiṣṭha, had given the kingdom some of its most accomplished priests and scholars. He trained them rigorously—they had to undergo twelve years of basic education, and then a few more of specialized education if they displayed special talent for any of the subjects.

Kaśyapa shivered slightly. It was winter and the woollen shawl he had around him was not warm enough. A feeble sun was just starting to peep through the trees around Vasiṣṭha’s house. There was a cold breeze that entered the shed through the gaps in the wooden planks that made up its walls.

The smell of burning ghee and soma wafted in from the sacrificial field nearby. It was a smell they had grown up with and had got used to. There were other smells in the air too—the smell of the guru’s wife’s cooking and the distant, though distinct, smell of the river in the air. Kaśyapa listened to the cacophony with a smile, as the sound of several students memorizing their lessons seemed to have grown louder. It reminded him of frogs croaking during the rains.

Just then, Bhārgava got into an argument with one of his peers. ‘Well, the gods either respond to our sacrifices or they don’t. We have to decide which.’ The other student was persistent in his scepticism, ‘They certainly do. I have no argument with that. But . . .’

Kaśyapa interjected, ‘Why can’t it be in between? They respond to some sacrifices and don’t respond to others. Logically, there needn’t even be a disjunction between these two propositions. It is not always an either/or situation.
There can be any number of options in between. Let’s not fall into the trap of a false dilemma. We don’t need more reasons for conflict.’

One of the senior students said, ‘Keep quiet. You don’t understand these things. Are you saying that it is always something in between?’

‘No, I am not suggesting a false compromise either. But whatever be the situation, logically, the gods have no choice.They have to give us what we ask for in our sacrifices. Our guru has told us this many times.’

‘Yes. That is what our guru told us. You, on the other hand, are far too young to argue on the matter.’

‘Well, think about it. If you are fed enough, even if you are a god, you will be happy, won’t you?’

Bhārgava was not happy. ‘You are irreverent. I have half a mind to report you to our guru. Now, shut up and do your astronomy.’

Kaśyapa turned to his fellow pupil, Agastya, and said, ‘It is known that the planets go around the earth. It can be proved by the fact that . . .’

They were interrupted by their guru’s wife, Arundhatī, bringing in their morning snacks.

The First Aryan is a one-of-its-kind murder mystery set in the Vedic times.