Interesting readings

1. New socialism in Uttar Pradesh of India
2. The world of Masanis:  Minoo Masani, as we all know, began his political career with strong socialist leanings, only to abandon it in the wake of communist totalitarianism. He then became among the early champions of the Swatantra Party (India’s only true liberal party ever), opposing tooth and nail Jawaharlal Nehru’s socialist policies. He finally settled with the anti-Indira Gandhi post-Emergency coalition, only to be finally disillusioned with active politics. His personal life was no less troubled, spanning relationships with various women, which did not end with his third marriage (to Shakuntala, the author’s mother). 
3. A shoebox of ashes; 
4. "My father's role as the founder leader of Swatantra Party, India's first serious parliamentary Opposition, is well known; and it is ironical that our present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledges Minoo Masani as his main ideological inspiration, rather than Pandit Nehru," the London-based Zareer writes. 
   
   
   More-dynasty is deeply rooted in theIndian political tradition.....

   ‘Where does one turn if you are like me and don’t like the BJP? Mindnight child-masani

    And more
   
   
   The Indira wave-Excerpted with permission from Penguin Books India from And All is Said: Memoir of a Home Divided by Zareer Masani
   
   
   
   
5. Dangerous lies by Tavleen Singh: Ms Roy was among a handful of privileged Indians who inhabited a tiny oasis of prosperity in an ocean of desperate poverty. She taught aerobics at the Taj Palace in Delhi and made forgettable films with silly names. As one of the people in her aerobics class, I had opportunity to converse with Ms Roy often and remember her as being astoundingly apolitical. She appears to have developed her whole political philosophy after becoming a celebrated novelist (ex-novelist?) and has a very limited understanding of economic and political issues.