LK Advani’s Blog

A very valuable addition to my personal library this week has been a beautiful Coffee Table Book from Amit Mehra titled India : A Timeless Celebration. I congratulate the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs for publishing this important book.

Amit Mehra is an outstanding photographer who has been contributing to several renowned magazines like Time, India Today, Der Speigel, Fortune, Vogue etc. Amit Dasgupta’s Introdution and Jaya Ramanathan’s textual explanation of the context of Mehra’s photographs are highly readable.

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a Coffee Table Book is “a large expensive book that usually has a lot of pictures in it and is meant to be looked at rather than read”.

Without doubt, the pictures with which Amit Mehra has embellished this book are a treat to scan. But to me, of even greater interest has been the Foreword written by Mark Tully, who was BBC’s celebrated correspondent in India and South Asia for twenty-five years. Mark Tully, whom I have known and admired for a long time, Click to Read More

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Friends, thanks for the enthusiastic response to my inaugural post.

I was wondering what to share with you today, because there is so much to share. Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha are fast approaching. Naturally, much of my communication will be political in nature and election-oriented. However, I must confess that I do not regard politics to be the be-all-and-end-all of our national life. Indeed, politics - and all else in public life -become meaningful and fulfilling only when they are guided by higher values and ideals rooted in India’s spiritual heritage. And there is so much that politicians and those in other professions have to learn from India’s spiritual masters, both ancient and modern.

A few days ago, a new book landed on my table - The Monk Without Frontiers - Reminiscences of Swami Ranganathananda. It is the latest publication of the Ramakrishna Mission, and has been brought out to commemorate Swamiji’s birth centenary (2008). Swami Ranganathananda, as I have recorded in my autobiography (My Country My Life , published last year by Click to Read More

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