Arab News Review of "Sonia Gandhi"

The Middle East's leading English daily, the Arab News, has just published this extensive review.

What reviewers can't seem to get their head around is that Sonia Gandhi does not give interviews to biographers, period. She is a very private person who is in future also unlikely to give interviews to a biographer.

With that given, they should then review books understanding that this is probably the closest the public is going to get to the lady in question, at least for the moment. It is no use whatsoever venting their frustration that Sonia Gandhi does not speak to biographers!

She just doesn't. Got that?

NB comments on this review are quite interesting...

Chicago Tribune quotes "Sonia Gandhi" as World Leaders prepare for May 2012 NATO Summit

As Chicago prepares for an unprecedented array of world leaders to arrive for a two-day NATO summit starting May 20, 2012, security is a hot topic. So distinguished Tribune reporters Stephan Benzkofer and Mark Jacob have put together a report on security information with ten interesting points.

The reporting duo fished out a fact from "Sonia Gandhi" that I had discovered from written sources; that Indira Gandhi often wore a bullet-proof vest but did not do so the day she was assassinated, October 31, 1984 since she was going to be interviewed on film by actor Peter Ustinov.

I'm glad that the book, which contains a lot of hitherto unknown security information (even my copy editor asked if I'd had the information cleared, which I had) is being used by those heralding the NATO summit in Chicago!

New Column; "Leading Lights" and forthcoming appearance at India Business Forum

CB Patel, owner and founder of the ABPL group which publishes the weekly Asian Voice newspaper, has given me the task of writing about interesting UK-linked South Asians in a weekly column called "Leading Lights." I'll be posting up links but that, along with editing a magazine on British Punjabis, has kept me busy hence a little silence from me.

And I'm looking forward to moderating a panel at the India Business Forum organised by MBAs at the London Business School. I have also gotten the keynote speaker of the day for the school, and been guiding the students in a big-sisterly way. The day-long conference will be on April 26th 2012.