Pakistan’s failure to utilise foreign aid for socio-economic development has contributed to its sorry plight and such is the obsession of its political elite with military security that the country hasn’t developed even after 67 years of independence, an Indo-Canadian academic and author says. Discussing his book, “The Warrior State” (Vintage House), 

The attack on the Indian consulate in Afghanistan's Herat Friday brings into sharp focus a book, written by an American journalist and published this year, that traces Pakistan's link to the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in 2008. Written by Carlotta Gall, “The Wrong Enemy - America in Afghanistan 2001-2014” reveals how Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was involved in the July 7, 2008, 

Veteran actress Waheeda Rehman, who has shared her life journey in the book “Conversations with Waheeda”, was tight-lipped about her alleged relationship with filmmaker Guru Dutt.
Asked about it at the book launch event, she said: “I don’t want to get into it... my private life is nobody’s business.” Coming to her rescue, the book’s author Nasreen Munni Kabir said: 

Veteran actor Prem Chopra has launched his biography titled "Prem Naam Hai Mera" penned by his daughter Rakita Nanda. "I always thought how is this possible what you want to write. This is my normal life, what you want to write? She was interested to write and she did. She went to my friends with whoever I have worked...," Prem said at the unveiling of his biography in Mumbai.

MUSSOORIES - It's pointless banning a book in today's day and age when everything is easily available at the click of a mouse. A ban, instead, hypes up even a not-so-worthy book for readers, said noted writer Ruskin Bond. "It is no use banning a book in today's age because one can easily read it from the internet. So it becomes difficult to ban any form of literature now," the 79-year-old said at the Cambridge Bookstore...

As the world's largest democracy gears up for the general election, political parties are literally promising the moon. Amid this extensive wooing, a few books have done honest postmortems of Indian governance, highlighted grievances of people in a perceived corrupt polity and urged citizens to ask questions to form "informed opinions" before going to vote. Even though most of the publishing houses...

NEW DELHI - Another book on Hinduism by American indologist Wendy Doniger has come under attack from the same Delhi-based group which had compelled the publishers of an earlier work by her to withdraw the title. Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti (SBAS) has demanded that the Aleph Book Company stop sales and pulp all remaining copies of Doniger's book 'On Hinduism', published in 2013.

Noted Hindi writer Manu Bhandari, whose novel “Yahi Sach Hai” was adapted into a movie “Rajnigandha” in 1974, says filmmakers of today do not read Hindi literature anymore.“The difficulty is that Hindi directors do not read literature. You see directors of Bengali movies, all the Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay-literature has been made into films and many other movies have been made on literature and that is because the filmmakers there read literature,” Bhandari said...

The 300-years-old Sanskrit and Malayalam books penned by famed 18th century Jesuit priest Fr Johann Ernst Hanxleden, popularly known as Arnos Padre, will soon get English versions. Fr Arnos, who arrived in south India as part of his missionary work, wrote a number of books includig ‘Puthan paana’ (New Hymn), Devamatavinte Vyakula Prabandha (‘poem on the Distress of the Divine Mother’), Umma Parvam (Epic Song on Divine Mother’) in regional languages.

Hailing the young crop of writers in Hindi, noted Indian playwright and novelist Syed Asghar Wajahat says good and innovative writing has emerged recently in cinema because of them. Wajahat has himself written the story for filmmaker Muzaffar Ali’s movies “Gaman” and “Aagman”. “Writing has changed in recent times. A lot of new and challenging subjects have come to the fore and it is a welcome step. Hindi writing is very strong because the new generation is contributing a lot,” Wajahat...