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Childhood Betrayed Child Abuse and Neglect in Ind
No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child. No slave was ever so much the property of his master as the child is of his parent. Never were the rights of man ever so disregarded as in the case of the child. Maria Montessori In India, where even stones and trees are worshipped, children are routinely beaten, neglected and abused. Daily news is rife with stories of abuse and neglect, often perpetrated in the name of discipline or protection. The Nithari case, female foeticide, instances of child marriage and the sexual abuse of minors the statistics are frightening. Lakhs of children are robbed of childhood and India is doing little to remedy that. While the government now acknowledges education and nutrition as the essential entitlements of children, there has been little legislation or initiative to safeguard their most fundamental rights. Child protection is still nowhere on the nations radar. Loveleen Kacker distilled several years of research to write this cogent and powerful volume on why child abuse and neglect happens and how it affects children in India. She examines physical, emotional and sexual abuse, as well as maltreatment, especially of the girl child. Bringing real-life instances and case studies together with Kackers own work on the rights of children, this is a guide for parents, policy makers, schoolteachers, paediatricians, childcare specialists indeed, anyone with a stake in the welfare of minors. A timely and much-needed addition to the literature on child rights, Childhood Betrayed is also a call for change nay a call to arms.
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The Year Of The Runaways
Three young men from very different backgrounds come together in a journey from India to England, where they hope to begin something new. To support their families, where they can, to build their future, to show their worth, to escape the past. They have almost no idea of what awaits them. In a dilapidated shared house in Sheffield, Tarlochan, a former rickshaw driver, will say nothing about his life in Bihar. Avtar has a secret that binds him to the unpredictable Randeep. Randeep, in turn, has a visa-wife in a flat on the other side of town, whose cupboards are full of her husbands clothes, in case the immigration men surprise her with a visit. She is Narinder and her story is the most surprising of them all. Utterly absorbing and beautiful in its scope, The Year of the Runaways is written with compassion and touched by grace. As Tochi, Avtar, Randeep and Narinder negotiate their dreams, desires and shocking realities, as their histories continue to pull at them, as the seasons pass, what emerges is a novel of overwhelming humanity: one which asks how far we can decide our own course in life and what we should do for love, for faith and for family.
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Pradyumna Son Of Krishna
The hero must rise from the ashes if he has to. But rise he must. As the world trembles on the threshold of Kali Yuga-4,32,000 years of unprecedented evil-the Kuru queen Gandhari curses Lord Krishna. Mankind will perish. Your name will be forgotten and so will your Gita! she rages. And, inexplicably, Krishna submits to her decree. Who, then, will save the world from the primordial Kali demon? Can Vama rise to the challenge in time? He learns that he is Vir Pradyumna, the son of Lord Krishna, who was kidnapped by the asuras. Destiny chases him from an asura kingdom to Dwaraka and Kurukshetra, forcing him to battle monsters, angry gods, blazing weapons and his own weaknesses. Pradyumna is a gripping saga of the rise of the mighty, swashbuckling hero whom all of humanity awaits.
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Chief Minister's Mistress
She is beautiful, she is smart, she is kind, She is a bloody rare find. But she is dead now . . . And those doe-like wonderful dark brown eyes no more offer warmth or love. The ruby red of those lips is now a cold blue. And the curve of that body is now frozen in rigor mortis. What happened? Who killed her—the chief minister’s secret mistress?
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The Dowry Bride
She is 21, married, childless . . . and she is about to be burned. As the dowry culture in India, in spite of the Dowry Law, remains an ugly reality, will Megha Ramnath contribute to changing it, or will she silently succumb to its dark existence? As Megha wakes up in the dead of night to the squeaking of the woodshed door, she steps out to see the cause behind it. What she witnesses is something so dangerous, so sinister that she is soon racing through the deserted streets of Palgaum, with only one thing on her mind: to put as much distance as she can between herself and the place she has come to call home for the past year, for her very family members—husband and mother-in-law—are plotting to burn her alive that very night! What will she do now? Where will she go? Making her way through the dim-lit streets, there is only one name that comes to her mind—Kunal, the one man who has shown her friendship and respect in her new household. Hiding in his apartment, he becomes her protector. As the forbidden attraction between them grows and complicates an already messy situation, will Kunal be successful in safeguarding Megha? Torn between her affections for Kunal and the conventional ethos of the society, which path will she choose? Follow Megha as she struggles to piece together her life and work towards an unblemished future, unveiling the brutal realities faced by the Dowry Brides.
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The 3Rd Woman
She cant save her sister Journalist - Madison Webb is obsessed with exposing lies and corruption. But she never thought she would be investigating her own sisters murder. She cant trust the police - Madison refuses to accept the official line that Abigails death was an isolated crime. She uncovers evidence that suggests that Abi was the third victim in a series of killings thats been hushed up as part of a major conspiracy. She can exposethe truth - In a United States that has yielded to the Peoples Republic of China, corruption is rife - the government dictates what the truth is. With her life on the line, Madison must give up the story or face the consequences.
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The 6Th Extinction
A remote military research station sends out a frantic distress call, ending with a chilling final command - Kill us all! Personnel from the neighboring base rush in to discover everyone already dead and not just the scientists, but every living thing for fifty square miles is annihilated - every animal, plant and insect, even bacteria. The land is entirely sterile and the blight is spreading. To halt the inevitable, Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma must unravel a threat that rises out of the distant past, to a time when Antarctica was green and all life on Earth balanced upon the blade of a knife. Following clues from an ancient map rescued from the lost Library of Alexandria, Sigma will discover the truth about an ancient continent, about a new form of death buried under miles of ice. From millennia old secrets out of the frozen past to mysteries buried deep in the darkest jungles of today, Sigma will face its greatest challenge to date - stopping the coming extinction of mankind. But is it already too late?
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The English Spy
She is an iconic member of the British Royal Family, beloved for her beauty and charitable works, resented by her former husband and his mother, the Queen of England. When a bomb explodes aboard her holiday yacht, British intelligence turns to one man to track down her killer - legendary spy and assassin Gabriel Allon. Gabriels target is Eamon Quinn, a master bomb maker and mercenary of death who sells his services to the highest bidder. Fortunately Gabriel does not pursue him alone, at his side is Christopher Keller, a British commando turned professional assassin who knows Quinns murderous handiwork all too well. And though Gabriel does not realize it, he is stalking an old enemy - a cabal of evil that wants nothing more than to see him dead. Gabriel will find it necessary to oblige them, for when a man is out for vengeance, death has its distinct advantages.