Bibliofile

How should the media treat war coverage? Particularly when it involves your own country? The cnn coverage of the American horror is a case in point. A worthwhile effort in this direction is The Kargil Conflict and the Role of the Indian Media published as part of idsa’s Delhi Paper series. Journalist and analyst Ajai Rai looks comprehensively at the Kargil war and the role of the Indian media. TV was the new element, in addition to an army of young intrepid reporters, most of whom were covering war and even defence for the first time. All this has added enormously to the sale of television sets across the country. Rai takes the reader through a maze of contemporary and comparative media coverage in the West and famously quotes the then bbc chairman during the Falkland war: "The bbc is not and could not be neutral between our country and the aggressor. Our interviewers and newsreaders are not sitting on some kind of lofty Olympian fence, mediating between two equally culpable contestants."

You’d think French travellers would have exhausted ideas by now for writing books on India. But film scriptwriter Jean Claude Carrier found an unusual way to see and present his India. Called In Search of the Mahabharata, it is a slim book sprinkled with his inimitable sketches of his travels with Peter Brook while researching for their famous play. Ask him what he thinks of India, and he’ll resort to, what else but the Mahabharata. "Getting to know India is like Dusshasan disrobing Draupadi," Carriere confessed at a book launch event in the French ambassador’s house. "It’s impossible to see her naked. The more you pull off, the more she is covered."