“Surely, looking at the photographs, one can half-close one’s eyes and see, not photographs, but real scenes. One can feel again the warm air and hear the hum of the insects; one can see the shifting sunlight as the mid-day breeze stirs the leaves and throws the tiger into alternate light and shade; and, lastly, one can see the living, breathing tiger as he lies, and yet have no final vision of the magnificent…

Rani Bagh 150 Years is so much more than a coffee table book. It is a historical record, natural history display book, citizens’ campaign dossier and loving tribute, all rolled into one. The thick-papered, glossy pages reveal a fascinating story of one garden’s journey through time, and its relationship with the city of Mumbai.

Often described as Charles Darwin’s living heir, E.O. Wilson is an original thinker whose assessment of the human impact on the biosphere will probably be remembered as a defining narrative of the future history of the planet.

An astounding postulation by Valmik Thapar – that both lions and cheetahs may have been imported from Africa and might never have been native to India – throws consternation into the ranks of conservation historians. This ‘teaser’ merely states the postulation.

December 2012: Reviewed by Bittu Sahgal, Editor, Sanctuary Asia: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford.

Pavan Sukhdev, Founder-CEO of GIST Advisory, who is helping corporates and governments to come to terms with business in an era of climate change, reveals all by starting his introduction with…

December 2012: Reviewed by Ayesha Bapasola, Editorial Assistant, Sanctuary Asia:  Anwaruddin Choudhury’s most recent publication, The Secrets of Wild Assam, nicely ties up the themes of his prior books on the mammals, birds, and specific wildlife reserves of the lush northeast Indian state of Assam.

December 2012: Reviewed by Bittu Sahgal, Editor, Sanctuary Asia:  Shyam Chainani was my friend. He was also one of those who taught me how to fight battles effectively, without in any way getting personal, unpleasant or despondent about friends and compatriots who did not live up to expectation.

October 2012: Aseem Shrivastava and Ashish Kothari have put together a critique of an extremely flawed economic developmental model that has been driven by powerful forces for over a century, from John Maynard Keynes to Dr. Manmohan Singh. It deals as much with human nature as with economics. And, while human nature has remained relatively unchanged over the centuries, the magnified, collateral damage…

August 2012: Threatened Birds of India, Author Asad Rahmani
Published by Oxford University Press, Hardcover, XVI + 864 pages, Price: 3,000/-

June 2012: The book is an academic account of forest and land use patterns in colonial times, then post-Independence India, until the 1990s. The differing claims of local communities and administrations that not merely ignored the rights of forest dwellers and peasants, but rode roughshod over them, are laid bare in this book. Today’s conservationists and social activists should read…