A Major Activity Of The Sahitya Akademi Is The Preparation Of An Encyclopaedia Of Indian Literature. The Venture, Covering Twenty-Two Languages Of India, Is The First Of Its Kind. Written In English, The Encyclopaedia Gives A Comprehensive Idea Of The Growth And Development Of Indian Literature. The Entries On Authors, Books And General Topics Have Been Tabulated By The Concerned Advisory Boards And Finalised By A Steering Committee. Hundreds Of Writers All Over The Country Contributed Articles On Various Topics. The Encyclopaedia, Planned As A Six-Volume Project, Has Been Brought Out. The Sahitya Akademi Embarked Upon This Project In Right Earnest In 1984. The Efforts Of The Highly Skilled And Professional Editorial Staff Started Showing Results And The First Volume Was Brought Out In 1987. The Second Volume Was Brought Out In 1988, The Third In 1989, The Fourth In 1991, The Fifth In 1992, And The Sixth Volume In 1994. All The Six Volumes Together Include Approximately 7500 Entries On Various Topics, Literary Trends And Movements, Eminent Authors And Significant Works. The First Three Volume Were Edited By Prof. Amaresh Datta, Fourth And Fifth Volume By Mohan Lal And Sixth Volume By Shri K.C.Dutt.

This book retraces the socio-political background of 19th and 20th-century South Africa, highlighting the importance of Mohandas Gandhi’s actions in South Africa. On the longlist of the Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2010.

The one book you need on the New India. In 2004, after six years in New York, Siddhartha Deb returned to India to look for a job. He discovered that sweeping change had overtaken the country. With the globalization of its economy, the relaxation of trade rules, the growth in technology, and the shrinking down of the state, a new India was being born. Deb realised he had found his job: to explore this vast, complex and bewildering nation and try to make sense of what was underway. The Beautiful and the Damned is the triumphant outcome. It is a virtuosic work that combines personal narrative, travalogue, reportage, penetrating analysis, and the stories of many individuals across a vast range of geographical and social cicumstances. Deb talks to the great and good and those in charge, but listens as intently to the worker at the call centre remaking herself from her provincial upbringings and the migrant sweatshop worker trying to make his way in the city. By listening to the stories of the people he meets and works alongside (the author did his time on the phones at a call centre) Deb shows how people caught in the midstream of these changes actually experience them. Visiting the metropolises, small towns, and villages, as well as both gated suburban communities and camps for displaced peasants, Deb offers a panoramic view of the changes in landscape and urban geography, creating an epic narrative of the people who make up the world's second-most populous (and soon to be the most populous) nation. This is a work of social reportage that presents the reader with the fullest and most enlighteing picture of a diverse, emerging superpower.

Irom Sharmila has been on a fast unto death for eight years, demanding a repeal of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Manipur. Ten innocent people were mowed down by security forces in Malom, a village near Imphal, in November 2000. The perpetrators were not punished, protected under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which empowers military and para-military personnel to arrest, shoot, even kill, anyone on the grounds of mere suspicion. In response to this tragedy—one among many such atrocities—Irom Sharmila, a young Manipuri, began an indefinite hunger strike. The government arrested her and force-fed her through nasal tubes. She has been released and re-arrested innumerable times since then, but has stood by her demand, steadfastly refusing to eat until the Act is repealed. Burning Bright is a hard-hitting account of a people caught between the crossfire of militants and security forces; of a once- sovereign kingdom whose culture has been brutally violated; of the many voices of dissent— from underground groups to the Meira Paibis, a women’s movement opposed to all forms of violence whether by the state or insurgents and a moving portrait of ‘the Iron Lady of Manipur’.