Download or read book The Unquiet River written by Arupjyoti Saikia and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-25 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unruly Brahmaputra has always been an agent in shaping both the landscape of its valley and the livelihoods of its inhabitants. But how much do we know of this river’s rich past? Historian Arupjyoti Saikia’s biography of the Brahmaputra reimagines the layered history of Assam with the unquiet river at the centre. The book combines a range of disciplinary scholarship to unravel the geological forces as well as human endeavour which have shaped the river into what it is today. Wonderfully illuminated with archival detail and interwoven with narratives and striking connections, the book allows the reader to imagine the Brahmaputra’s course in history. This evocative and compelling book will be interesting reading for anyone trying to understand the past and the present of a river confronted by the twenty-first century’s ambitious infrastructural designs to further re-engineer the river and its landscape.
Download or read book The Braided River written by Samrat Choudhury and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-04-28 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Brahmaputra is by some margin the largest river in India. After its confluence with the Ganga in Bangladesh, it becomes the largest in Asia. In The Braided River, journalist Samrat Choudhury sets out to follow its braided course from the edge of Tibet where it enters India down to where it meets the Ganga at a spot marked by the biggest red light district in Bangladesh. Along the way, he meets suspicious Indian spies, gets packed off on the back of a cement truck by soldiers, visit a shelter home for baby rhino and elephant orphans in Kaziranga, and hops from river island to riverside town meeting the locals. The tales of these encounters spice up a story that weaves in the history of the emergence of the border between India and China in Arunachal Pradesh, the formation of the Assamese identity -- a matter of great contemporary relevance owing to the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act -- and the ecological challenges posed by proposed dams. This is a genre-bending book that touches upon several hot-button issues -- environmental, military and political -- as it blends travel, memoir and history with the present.
Download or read book Tales from the River Brahmaputra written by Tiziana Baldizzone and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Boy Who Grew a Forest written by Sophia Gholz and published by Sleeping Bear Press. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2020-2021 Keystone to Reading Elementary Book Award List Notable Social Studies Trade Books list – Winning Title! 2019 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award - Winning Title Florida Book Award Gold Winner Recipient of the 2019 Eureka! Honors Award Winner -Best of 2019 Kids Books - Most Inspiring Category As a boy, Jadav Payeng was distressed by the destruction deforestation and erosion was causing on his island home in India's Brahmaputra River. So he began planting trees. What began as a small thicket of bamboo, grew over the years into 1,300 acre forest filled with native plants and animals. The Boy Who Grew a Forest tells the inspiring true story of Payeng--and reminds us all of the difference a single person with a big idea can make.
Download or read book The Brahmaputra Basin Water Resources written by Vijay Singh and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2004-02-29 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Brahmaputra River represents nearly 30% of India's water resources potential and 41% of its total hydropower. No sustainable future for this underdeveloped region can occur without a plan combining social, political, economic, cultural, and legal considerations with scientific paradigms. This book pools the talent, knowledge and experience of a wide range of water resource professionals to provide an exhaustive study of the Brahmaputra River basin, present and future.
Download or read book River Dog written by Mark Shand and published by Little Brown GBR. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birthplace of legends, embracing the great religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, the mighty Brahmaputra begins its journey as a tiny glacial stream high on the desolate plateau of western Tibet, and sweeps eighteen hundred miles through three countries, to end, as wide as a sea, in the Bay of Bengal. No one is known to have travelled its entire length, a challenge described by one explorer as the 'last great Asian adventure'.In River Dog, celebrated travel writer Mark Shand chronicles his attempt to complete this journey. Undeterred by seemingly insurmountable political and geographical logistics and bureaucratic tangles, using superhuman patience, persistence and the black art of persuasion, Mark is constantly manipulated by the power of the legendary river.
Download or read book Bells of Shangri La written by Parimal Bhattacharya and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2023-01-20 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost all of the Himalayas had been mapped by the time the Great Game - in which the British and Russian empires fought for control of Central and Southern Asia - reached its zenith in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Only Tibet remained unknown and unexplored, zealously guarded and closed off to everyone. Britain sent a number of spies into this forbidden land, disguised as pilgrims and wanderers, outfitted with secret survey equipment and tasked with collecting topographical knowledge, and information about the culture and customs of Tibet. Among them was Kinthup, a tailor who went as a monk's companion to confirm that the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra were the same river. Sarat Chandra Das, a schoolmaster, was also sent on a clandestine mission, and came back with extensive data and a trove of ancient manuscripts and documents. Bells of Shangri-La brings to vivid life the journeys and adventures of Kinthup, Sarat Chandra Das and others, including Eric Bailey, an officer who was part of the British invasion of Tibet in 1903. Weaving biography with history, and the memories of his own treks through the region, Parimal Bhattacharya writes in the great tradition of Peter Hopkirk and Peter Matthiessen to create a sparkling, unprecedented work of non-fiction.
Download or read book Empire s Garden written by Jayeeta Sharma and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2011-08 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the colonial tea plantation regime in Assam, which brought more than one million migrants to the region in northeast India, irrevocably changing the social landscape.
Download or read book Unruly Waters written by Sunil Amrith and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-12-11 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a MacArthur "Genius," a bold new perspective on the history of Asia, highlighting the long quest to tame its waters Asia's history has been shaped by her waters. In Unruly Waters, historian Sunil Amrith reimagines Asia's history through the stories of its rains, rivers, coasts, and seas -- and of the weather-watchers and engineers, mapmakers and farmers who have sought to control them. Looking out from India, he shows how dreams and fears of water shaped visions of political independence and economic development, provoked efforts to reshape nature through dams and pumps, and unleashed powerful tensions within and between nations. Today, Asian nations are racing to construct hundreds of dams in the Himalayas, with dire environmental impacts; hundreds of millions crowd into coastal cities threatened by cyclones and storm surges. In an age of climate change, Unruly Waters is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Asia's past and its future.
Download or read book The Water Kingdom written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries. Water has been so integral to China’s culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history. In The Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization. Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture. In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities, and inspiration provided by the waterways. Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters ? to provide irrigation and defend against floods ? was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale. It is a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China’s future. The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China’s art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.
Download or read book One Hundred Years of Servitude written by Rana Partap Behal and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a hundred-year history of tea plantations in the Assam (Brahmaputra) Valley during British colonial rule in India. It explores a world where more than two million migrant laborers worked under conditions of indentured servitude in the plantations, producing tea for an increasingly profitable global market. Behal traces the genesis and early development of the tea industry; the links between the colonial state and private British capital in fostering plantations in Assam; the nature of the 'tea mania,' and its consequences, which led to the emergence of the indenture labor system in Assam's tea gardens. The book describes process of labor mobilization and the nature of labor relations in the tea plantations. It deals with the operational aspects of labor recruitment, which involved the transportation and employment of migrant laborers, from the 1860s until the the indenture system was formally dismantled. It focuses on the power structure that ruled over the organization of production and labor relations within the plantations. This power structure operated at two levels: around the Indian Tea Association, the apex body of the tea industry, and the tea planters' coercive authority. The book examines the role of the colonial state and provides statistics on production, while also telling the story of everyday labor life in the tea gardens, and of the resistance to the oppressive regime by 'coolie' laborers who had been coerced into generational servitude. It analyses the forms of their protests, and raises the question whether the transformation of these migrant agrarian communities working in conditions of unfree labor was proletarian in nature.
Download or read book Land of Two Rivers written by Nitish K. Sengupta and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2011 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Land of Two Rivers chronicles the story of one of the most fascinating and influential regions in the Indian subcontinent. The confluence of two major river systems, Ganga and Brahmaputra, created the delta of Bengal--an ancient land known as a center of trade, learning and the arts from the days of the Mahabharata and through the ancient dynasties. During the medieval era, this eventful journey saw the rise of Muslim dynasties which brought into being a unique culture, quite distinct from that of northern India. The colonial conquest in the eighteenth century opened the modern chapter of Bengal's history and transformed the social and economic structure of the region. Nitish Sengupta traces the formation of Bengali identity through the Bengal Renaissance, the growth of nationalist politics and the complex web of events that eventually led to the partition of the region in 1947, analyzing why, despite centuries of shared history and culture, the Bengalis finally divided along communal lines. The struggle of East Pakistan to free itself from West Pakistan's dominance is vividly described, documenting the economic exploitation and cultural oppression of the Bengali people. Ultimately, under the leadership of Bangabandhu Mujibur Rahman, East Pakistan became the independent nation of Bangladesh in 1971. Land of Two Rivers is a scholarly yet extremely accessible account of the development of Bengal, sketching the eventful and turbulent history of this ancient civilization, rich in scope as well as in influence.
Download or read book Sons of Brahma written by Dhruba Hazarika and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jongom, an unassuming scholar, spends his days in the world of books. Until, to his bewilderment, he is singled out by a dangerous rebel leader, Anjan Phukan, who wants him to write for the separatist cause. They are arrested without warning on their first meeting, and Anjan is shot dead trying to escape. Now Jongom is forced to escape from both the police and the rebels who hold him responsible for their leader’s death. He takes with him his loyal best friend, Pranab, and together they race through the lush Assamese countryside, facing the macabre world of north-east politics and discovering along the way a terrible secret that binds them together in ways they never thought possible. Addictive and gripping, Sons of Brahma is an enthralling Assam novel.
Download or read book Raging Waters written by Nilanthi Samaranayake and published by . This book was released on 2018-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Search for the Pink Headed Duck written by Rory Nugent and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty-two years after the pink-headed duck was last seen in the wild, Rory Nugent set off for India in search of this exceptionally rare bird. In Calcutta he prowled the fowl market, where a few of the ducks used to appear during the Raj. Traveling on to Delhi, he was befriended by a Cambridge-educated smuggler, and he learned of remote regions to the north where the duck might be found. In Sikkim, following the trail of a Yeti, he became lost in the Valley of Bliss and nearly imprisoned inside a forest of rhododendrons, each the size of a ranch house. Making his way to Assam, he bought a 13-foot skiff and paddled the Brahmaputra River from Burma to Bangladesh, with stops on an island, considered to be Kali’s left breast, and at a Tantrist temple, where he stumbled on a grisly ritual in a graveyard. In a secluded marsh along the river he may have spotted the world’s rarest duck.
Download or read book Next Door written by Jahnavi Barua and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2008 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Eleven Superbly Crafted Stories Jahnavi Barua Takes Us Into The Private, Individual Worlds Of A Varied Cast Of Characters And Exposes The Intricate Mesh Of Emotions So Often Concealed Under The Façade Of Everyday Lives. Innocent Desires And Furtive Longings, The Complexity Of Fierce Love And The Terrible Consequences Of Its Betrayal, Simple Aspirations That Compel Brave Action, Life S Startling Reversals That Reveal Deep Insecurities And Yet Pave The Way For Forgiveness And Reconciliation These Are Just Some Of The Themes Played Out In These Remarkably Nuanced Snapshots Of Life. Predominantly Set In The Verdant, Politically Charged Landscape Of Assam, Yet Constantly Transcending The Particular, The Stories In Next Door Are Unerringly Human. Subtle And Evocative In Their Telling, They Mark The Introduction Of A Highly Accomplished Voice.
Download or read book The Brahmaputra written by Arup Kumar Dutta and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this riveting account of one of the greatest river systems in the world, we acoompany the Tsangpo-Brahamputra as it emerges from the icy heights of tibet.The book seeks to sketch a profile of this fascinating river and acquaint the reader with the society which evolved on its banks.