The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits

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1984 Anti-Sikh Riots, Farooq Abdullah, Jammu & Kashmir, jihad, Kashmiri Pandits, minorities in India, Rahul Pandita

What a difference internet and the electronic media have made to India! We saw in 2002 how terrible incidents like the riots in Gujarat were literally brought into our living rooms. One shuddered to think of the people who suffered because of the riots. The riots by themselves were not a new phenomenon. Gujarat has had its share of riots, like many other States in India, for many decades. In fact for all the criticism against Narendra Modi’s Government, Gujarat has had no riot since that one in 2002. That’s not the topic of my post, however. I ask today why a section of the media and some NGOs  go on relentlessly about the Gujarat riots of 2002, but don’t speak of (with even a fraction of the intensity and passions they show for Gujarat) on the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from their homeland in 1990?

Have you tried Wattpad?

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books and reading, ebooks, Wattpad

If you haven’t yet heard of Wattpad, you might find these figures quite startling. There are 40 million stories to read and 25 million Wattpadders and growing. It describes itself as “the world’s largest community of readers and writers.” Wattpad says it ” is a place to discover and share stories: a social platform that connects people through words. It is a community that spans borders, interests, languages. With Wattpad, anyone can read or write on any device: phone, tablet, or computer.”

“Khush Raho, Khushwantji” : Khushwant Singh, RIP

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Khushwant Singh, Operation Blue Star, The Emergency in India, The Illustrated Weekly of India

Last week, I was saddened to hear about the demise of one of India’s most prolific writers and editors, Mr Khushwant Singh. For many like me who grew up in India, he remained a larger than life figure who was known to be outspoken, firm on what he stood for (though not everyone may subscribe to his views) and often controversial. These perhaps hid another part of his life which was that he was a prolific writer who covered a variety of subjects over the decades by way of his published work. Some knew of him as a historian, with his History of the Sikhs being a top-notch contribution to the story of that illustrious race to which he himself belonged to. Others remember him for his novels, including that moving story, “The Last Train To Pakistan.” I read this decades ago but I still remember the story quite vividly. Yet others may remember him for his fund of jokes bordering on the risqué which he published in book form.

Exciting New Test For Writers & Readers

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Arnon Grunberg, effective writing

The best part of writing is that you try to express your thoughts and feelings through the medium of words. As experts in communication have pointed out since long, what you write does not necessarily come across to the reader in the way you meant it to. Rather, it ‘s the reader who decides how she will interpret what you have written. A hallmark of excellent writing is when the writer can get the reader to be in sync, as it were, with his thoughts and feelings even if he writes about a character in a novel.

Jeff Bezos and Amazon

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Amazon, Jeff Bezos

This is one book I would definitely put on my reading list. The story of Jeff Bezos and Amazon, one of the companies that have changed the way the world shops. Today with revenues of $ 61 billion Amazon has everything you would want to shop for.

“The Everything Store” by Brad Stone, published by Little, Brown and Company looks to be a very interesting biography of a company that “placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read. ”

 

Remembering P G Wodehouse

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birth anniversaries, Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, P G Wodehouse, The Wodehouse Society

Like I did yesterday, I am sure all over the world many from The Wodehouse Society of which I am a proud member would have raised a toast to celebrate the 132 nd birth anniversary of one who I believe is the finest writer in the English language, Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975).

Using Social Media

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keeping abreast, social media

Let’s face it. It’s not only here to stay but social media has swamped our lives, at home just as much as at work. Irrespective of your age or position in the organization, you find yourself pulled into the web of social media. If not to be with the times, or simply to know what is going on, even older people who looked down on Facebook or Twitter as passing fads have had to re-think.

“100 Disruptive Heroes” Bill Jensen

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Bill Jensen, disrupt, disruptive heroes

I had the pleasure of reading a very interesting book published earlier this month.  It’s called, “Disrupt! Think Epic. Be Epic” and is by Bill Jensen, CEO of the Jensen Group, a firm that specializes in “simplifying work complexities.” Some of you may have seen my writing blog, “Writing To Be Read.” You may like to see my review of the book. I would urge you to read Jensen’s latest book,  if you want to survive and thrive in today’s disruptive world.

Meet The Author: Sheila Kumar

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author interviews, writing blog

You may have read the interviews here in a series called “Interesting People.” In my writing blog, “Writing To Be Read” too I am doing a series of interviews. This one is called “Meet The Author.”

Second in the Series: Meet The Author: Abhijit Bhaduri

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Abhijit Bhaduri, best practices in hiring

Here’s a top corporate executive who is also a well-known author of fiction. He is the Chief Learning Officer of Wipro.

His recent non-fiction work on hiring the right talent, “Don’t Hire The Best: An Essential Guide To Picking The Right Team” is a “must read” for anyone who has anything to do with hiring the right talent for their organizations.