My good friend Anwer Sher in Dubai makes a trenchant point that, as literature goes, Sir Salman Rushdie's work, "The Satanic verses," is unlikely to rank terribly high in the pantheon of enduring books. There are readers who buy books to read them, and there are buyers who acquire books by the yard so they look good on their shelves. To put it another way, Sir Salman's books are often talked about more than they are understood. As Mr. Sher puts it, anyone reading his books would scarcely take...

Bob Hormats is an author of great perceptiveness and intellectual depth. For more than four decades, he has been engaged with the issue of globalization -- long before the term "globalization" became en vogue. As vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, Hormats has had access to the corridors of high finance all around the world. As a member of several administrations in Washington, he's had access to the corridors of power in many chancelleries. Hormats writes with clarity and depth, an...

Bob Hormats is an author of great perceptiveness and intellectual depth. For more than four decades, he has been engaged with the issue of globalization -- long before the term "globalization" became en vogue. As vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, Hormats has had access to the corridors of high finance all around the world. As a member of several administrations in Washington, he's had access to the corridors of power in many chancelleries. Hormats writes with clarity and depth, an...

Among the younger journalists I've been quite impressed with is Nandini Lakshman of BusinessWeek. Her dispatches from India are very trenchant and astute. I'd recommend her latest dispatch, a mini-profile of the flamboyant entrepreneur Vijay Mallya. Very informative, very savvy. Lakshman might want to next tackle how Indian businessmen are participating in the Indian politicl process not only by buying politicians in the time-honored tradition, but also getting themselves into local legislatu...

By The Associated Press (June 7, 2007) India's economy is still showing signs of overheating in some areas despite a drop in overall inflation in recent weeks, the prime minister's top economic adviser said Wednesday. C. Rangarajan, who heads the Indian prime minister's Economic Advisory Council, said he was also concerned over the surge in foreign money coming into India, complicating efforts by monetary authorities to cool the economy. The Indian economy has grown more than 8.5 per...

My 10 favorite books on India? Humbly submitted (but not in any order of preference): 1. The Discovery of India, by Jawaharlal Nehru (nonfiction). 2. India Unbound, by Gurcharan Das (nonfiction). 3. The Devil’s Wind, by Manohar Malgaonkar (fiction). 4. Freedom at Midnight, by Dominic Lapierre and Larry Collins (nonfiction). 5. On the Grand Trunk Road, by Steve Coll (nonfiction). 6. May You be the Mother of a Thousand Sons, by Elizabeth Bumiller (nonfiction). 7. Arrow of the Blue-Skin...

Just read this on line BusinessWeek report: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh challenged business leaders Thursday to ensure the poor benefit from India's economic boom, and to shun the West's "wasteful lifestyles" of greed and conspicuous consumption. "Such vulgarity insults the poverty of the less privileged," Singh said at the annual conference of the Confederation of Indian Industry, a leading business group. He promised to continue fostering a business-friendly environment, but said...

We may have a rather long wait ahead of us before South Africa's Thabo Mbeki publicly denounces or scolds a fellow African head of government. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe may be a villain along the lines that the editorial page of The New York Times specifies (May 17), but he's Africa's villain -- a native son -- and, moreover, a fellow traveler of Mbeki during the long struggle against colonialism and apartheid. Both share a socialist past, and both men enjoy a personal friendship that was for...

I've just read David Remnick's review-essay of some Middle East books in the latest issue of The New Yorker in an airplane bound for the Middle East East. I have often asked this question, but it bears repetition: How does David edit a fabulous magazine every week, and yet manage to often write wonderfully lucid, richly details articles, reviews, and essays? As a fellow practitioner of journalism, I can only shake my head in sheer amazement.

Bernard Lewis is clearly losing his acuity, and clarity of thought, as evidenced in his Wall Street Journal op-ed article. It's almost as though he wrote that article to please the editors of the Journal's editorial page, whose views concerning the Islamic world are sometimes at variance with reality on the ground. I am saddened by Professor Lewis's decline. His best work is well behind him. Unlike, say, George Kennan who kept writing vigorous, well argued prose almost until his death in 2...

The thumping victory by Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party in legislative elections in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, represents a seismic shift in the nation's politics. Home of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated the Indian political landscape since the country's independence from the British 60 years ago, Uttar Pradesh has the largest bloc of seats in the national parliament, where a coalition led by the Nehru-Gandhi Congress Party has run the federal government since 2004...

Mira Kamdar again displays keen understanding of Indian culture, and how things work -- or don't -- in the world's biggest democracy. Her earlier book, "Motiba's Tatoos," was a wonderful memoir, and "Planet India" is a worthy follow-up effort. Kamdar writes with great clarity, which helps the everyday reader and professional one alike to gain sharp insights about the world's emerging economic giant. I might also cite the Hindi-language edition of "Planet India" as being very well translated. ...

"Anthony Cordesman, "Iraqi Perceptions of the War: Public Opinion by City and Region," May 2, 2007, released by CSIS. Available at: http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,3868/type,1/ Some of the study's observations: * Most Iraqis still want a unified country - only the Kurds want federalism; * 78% of Iraqis oppose the presence of U.S. forces on their soil, though far fewer favor an immediate pullout; * Most Iraqis thought the surge -- sending additional...

I attended the annual fundraising gala of the American India Foundation in New York on Friday evening, where it was announced by the co-chairmen, Victor Menezes and Rajat K. Gupta, that the six-year-old nonprofit had raised a record $3 million at its dinner. This is an astonishing figure, and a tribute to the skills of the AIF staff, particularly its executive director, Pradeep Kashyap. The foundation helps with education, computer literacy, women's employment, and health projects involvin...

I attended a benefit last Saturday evening in New York organized by Sakhi, a remarkable nonprofit organization that assists battered and abused women of South Asian origin. The venue was the cavernous SkyLight Lounge in SoHo, and it was elegantly done up. Instead of a typical fundraising dinner where people are required to sit at pre-assigned tables, there was open seating -- on diwans and couches -- so that people could help themselves from an assortment of buffet tables, and then circulate ...