Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 938732639X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Book Description
How did Indian banking protect itself from the Lehman Crash? What nearly wiped out the MFI sector in India? Why are public-sector banks suffering from so many non-performing assets? What is the conflict between the RBI and the finance ministry? From Lehman to Demonetization is the epic story of banking in India in the last decade. The years from 2007-17 were the most tumultuous and exciting years of this sector. It saw D. Subbarao, Raghuram Rajan and Urijit Patel as RBI governors working with finance ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley. What a decade it has been-from India's first MFI, SKS Microfinance, getting listed to the near death of the industry; the RBI giving the nod for twenty-three banks and becoming an inflation targeter; from 9 per cent economic growth for three years to the jolt of demonetization. These essays make for a riveting read. The book also features interviews with the who's who of this sector, including Deepak Parkeh, K.V. Kamath, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chanda Kochchar, Aditya Puri, Shikha Sharma, Raghuram Rajan, U.K. Sinha and Viral Acharya. If you had to read one book on banking in India, this would be it!
From Lehman to Demonetization
Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 938732639X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Book Description
How did Indian banking protect itself from the Lehman Crash? What nearly wiped out the MFI sector in India? Why are public-sector banks suffering from so many non-performing assets? What is the conflict between the RBI and the finance ministry? From Lehman to Demonetization is the epic story of banking in India in the last decade. The years from 2007-17 were the most tumultuous and exciting years of this sector. It saw D. Subbarao, Raghuram Rajan and Urijit Patel as RBI governors working with finance ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley. What a decade it has been-from India's first MFI, SKS Microfinance, getting listed to the near death of the industry; the RBI giving the nod for twenty-three banks and becoming an inflation targeter; from 9 per cent economic growth for three years to the jolt of demonetization. These essays make for a riveting read. The book also features interviews with the who's who of this sector, including Deepak Parkeh, K.V. Kamath, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chanda Kochchar, Aditya Puri, Shikha Sharma, Raghuram Rajan, U.K. Sinha and Viral Acharya. If you had to read one book on banking in India, this would be it!
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
ISBN: 938732639X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Book Description
How did Indian banking protect itself from the Lehman Crash? What nearly wiped out the MFI sector in India? Why are public-sector banks suffering from so many non-performing assets? What is the conflict between the RBI and the finance ministry? From Lehman to Demonetization is the epic story of banking in India in the last decade. The years from 2007-17 were the most tumultuous and exciting years of this sector. It saw D. Subbarao, Raghuram Rajan and Urijit Patel as RBI governors working with finance ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley. What a decade it has been-from India's first MFI, SKS Microfinance, getting listed to the near death of the industry; the RBI giving the nod for twenty-three banks and becoming an inflation targeter; from 9 per cent economic growth for three years to the jolt of demonetization. These essays make for a riveting read. The book also features interviews with the who's who of this sector, including Deepak Parkeh, K.V. Kamath, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chanda Kochchar, Aditya Puri, Shikha Sharma, Raghuram Rajan, U.K. Sinha and Viral Acharya. If you had to read one book on banking in India, this would be it!
A Bank for the Buck
Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 8184953968
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
The story of HDFC Bank.
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 8184953968
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
The story of HDFC Bank.
Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy
Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: Roli Books Private Limited
ISBN: 8194643368
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
For the past 25 years, Tamal Bandyopadhyay has been a keen student of Indian banking. A lifelong reporter and journalist, he is an award-winning national business columnist and a bestselling author. He is widely recognised for ‘Banker’s Trust’, a weekly column whose unerring ability to anticipate and dissect major policy decisions in India’s banking and finance has earned him a large print and digital audience around the world. The column won Tamal the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (commentary and interpretative writing) for 2017. Banker’s Trust now appears in Business Standard, where he is a Consulting Editor. Previously, Tamal has had stints with three other national business dailies in India, and was a founding member of Mint newspaper and Livemint.com. He is also a Senior Adviser to Jana Small Finance Bank Ltd. Between 2014 and 2018, as an adviser on strategy for Bandhan Bank Ltd, he had a ringside view of the first-ever transformation of a microfinance institution in India into a universal bank. Author of five other books, Tamal is widely recognised as a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy and Making of New India: Transformation Under Modi Government. In 2019, LinkedIn named him as one of the ‘most influential voices in India’.
Publisher: Roli Books Private Limited
ISBN: 8194643368
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
For the past 25 years, Tamal Bandyopadhyay has been a keen student of Indian banking. A lifelong reporter and journalist, he is an award-winning national business columnist and a bestselling author. He is widely recognised for ‘Banker’s Trust’, a weekly column whose unerring ability to anticipate and dissect major policy decisions in India’s banking and finance has earned him a large print and digital audience around the world. The column won Tamal the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (commentary and interpretative writing) for 2017. Banker’s Trust now appears in Business Standard, where he is a Consulting Editor. Previously, Tamal has had stints with three other national business dailies in India, and was a founding member of Mint newspaper and Livemint.com. He is also a Senior Adviser to Jana Small Finance Bank Ltd. Between 2014 and 2018, as an adviser on strategy for Bandhan Bank Ltd, he had a ringside view of the first-ever transformation of a microfinance institution in India into a universal bank. Author of five other books, Tamal is widely recognised as a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy and Making of New India: Transformation Under Modi Government. In 2019, LinkedIn named him as one of the ‘most influential voices in India’.
Sahara
Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 8184955464
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
FEATURES EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with SUBRATA ROY EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SUBRATA ROY AND SAHARA INDIA PARIWAR, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK… Sahara: The Untold Story is based on painstaking research to demystify India’s most secretive and largely unlisted conglomerate, the Sahara India Pariwar. It also delves into the group’s ongoing legal battle with the market regulator. Entrepreneur Subrata Roy, the guardian angel of the group, whose feet are touched by everybody in the Pariwar, wants to reach out to a million lives and feels impeded and shuttered in by regulations. So the clash with the regulators was inevitable. But when a regulator slams one door, maverick Roy opens another. This play has been on since 1978, when Sahara was set up. Roy is well known for glamour and his association with film stars, cricketers and politicians. He exudes patriotism, with a statue of Bharat Mata (the presiding deity of the group) on a chariot driven by four fierce-looking lions adorning his headquarters in Lucknow. He is the Robin Hood of a country where only 35% of the adult population has access to formal banking services. This India and its millions of illiterate poor depositors stand in awe and admiration of him. But does he also exploit them? Do these poor people actually keep money with him or are they fronting for others? EXCERPT FROM THE SAHARA INDIA PARIWAR DISCLAIMER ‘The book at best can be treated as a perspective of the author with all its defamatory content, insinuation and other objections, which prompted us to exercise our right to approach the court of law in order to save the interest of the organization and its crores of depositors and 12 lakh workers.’ TamalBandyopadhyay, a deputy managing editor of Mint, is one of the most respected business journalists in India. Tamal has kept a close watch of the financial sector for over a decade and a half and has had a ringside view of the enormous changes in Indian finance and banking over this period. His first book, A Bank for the Buck, released by P Chidambaram in November 2012, has been a non-fiction bestseller.
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 8184955464
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
FEATURES EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with SUBRATA ROY EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SUBRATA ROY AND SAHARA INDIA PARIWAR, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK… Sahara: The Untold Story is based on painstaking research to demystify India’s most secretive and largely unlisted conglomerate, the Sahara India Pariwar. It also delves into the group’s ongoing legal battle with the market regulator. Entrepreneur Subrata Roy, the guardian angel of the group, whose feet are touched by everybody in the Pariwar, wants to reach out to a million lives and feels impeded and shuttered in by regulations. So the clash with the regulators was inevitable. But when a regulator slams one door, maverick Roy opens another. This play has been on since 1978, when Sahara was set up. Roy is well known for glamour and his association with film stars, cricketers and politicians. He exudes patriotism, with a statue of Bharat Mata (the presiding deity of the group) on a chariot driven by four fierce-looking lions adorning his headquarters in Lucknow. He is the Robin Hood of a country where only 35% of the adult population has access to formal banking services. This India and its millions of illiterate poor depositors stand in awe and admiration of him. But does he also exploit them? Do these poor people actually keep money with him or are they fronting for others? EXCERPT FROM THE SAHARA INDIA PARIWAR DISCLAIMER ‘The book at best can be treated as a perspective of the author with all its defamatory content, insinuation and other objections, which prompted us to exercise our right to approach the court of law in order to save the interest of the organization and its crores of depositors and 12 lakh workers.’ TamalBandyopadhyay, a deputy managing editor of Mint, is one of the most respected business journalists in India. Tamal has kept a close watch of the financial sector for over a decade and a half and has had a ringside view of the enormous changes in Indian finance and banking over this period. His first book, A Bank for the Buck, released by P Chidambaram in November 2012, has been a non-fiction bestseller.
HDFC Bank 2.0
Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 9388423356
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
FOREWORD BY NANDAN NILEKANI “Tamal combines his financial knowledge, eye for detail, and an excellent storytelling style to create a vivid portrait of India’s most valued bank and its path to the future.” NANDAN NILEKANI, Co-founder and Chairman of Infosys and Founding Chairman of UIDAI (Aadhaar) “Tamal has enthusiastically documented the epiphany that HDFC Bank’s leadership had in starting out on their digital journey. India is set for seismic changes to day-to-day banking over the next few years and banks who don’t commit to fully re-engineering their practice around becoming a technology company that delivers real-time, contextual banking experiences will wither on the vine. HDFC Bank has made a solid start on this journey, but the final chapter has not yet been written.” BRETT KING, Founder, Moven and bestselling author of Bank 4.0 The seeds of change were sown in September 2014, when HDFC Bank MD Aditya Puri went to Silicon Valley to meet the brightest tech minds in the world. By the time he got back, he knew exactly what needed to be done. It was time for a revolution. Instead of waiting to be disrupted by fintech companies, HDFC Bank went all out to disrupt itself, recasting its role and scope on a scale that has never been attempted before. In one of the biggest transformations ever undertaken in any business, HDFC Bank wants to become a platform facilitating a financial experience. Tamal Bandyopadhyay chronicles HDFC Bank’s own digital disruption exercise through the very people who drove it, narrating a story that’s as compelling as unique in India’s financial system. With his keen eye for detail, deep knowledge of banking and unparalleled storytelling ability, Bandyopadhyay recounts the journey of India’s most valued lender from a life cycle bank to a lifestyle bank. TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY is a bestselling author, award-winning columnist and a keen observer of the Indian banking sector for over two decades.
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 9388423356
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
FOREWORD BY NANDAN NILEKANI “Tamal combines his financial knowledge, eye for detail, and an excellent storytelling style to create a vivid portrait of India’s most valued bank and its path to the future.” NANDAN NILEKANI, Co-founder and Chairman of Infosys and Founding Chairman of UIDAI (Aadhaar) “Tamal has enthusiastically documented the epiphany that HDFC Bank’s leadership had in starting out on their digital journey. India is set for seismic changes to day-to-day banking over the next few years and banks who don’t commit to fully re-engineering their practice around becoming a technology company that delivers real-time, contextual banking experiences will wither on the vine. HDFC Bank has made a solid start on this journey, but the final chapter has not yet been written.” BRETT KING, Founder, Moven and bestselling author of Bank 4.0 The seeds of change were sown in September 2014, when HDFC Bank MD Aditya Puri went to Silicon Valley to meet the brightest tech minds in the world. By the time he got back, he knew exactly what needed to be done. It was time for a revolution. Instead of waiting to be disrupted by fintech companies, HDFC Bank went all out to disrupt itself, recasting its role and scope on a scale that has never been attempted before. In one of the biggest transformations ever undertaken in any business, HDFC Bank wants to become a platform facilitating a financial experience. Tamal Bandyopadhyay chronicles HDFC Bank’s own digital disruption exercise through the very people who drove it, narrating a story that’s as compelling as unique in India’s financial system. With his keen eye for detail, deep knowledge of banking and unparalleled storytelling ability, Bandyopadhyay recounts the journey of India’s most valued lender from a life cycle bank to a lifestyle bank. TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY is a bestselling author, award-winning columnist and a keen observer of the Indian banking sector for over two decades.
Bandhan
Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 9386057204
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
This is the story of Bandhan, the only bank that emerged in eastern India after Independence. Founded by the son of a sweet vendor, with a mere Rs 2 lakh, the sum total of his life savings. On 17 June, 2015, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh stepped out of the Reserve Bank of India building in Mumbai with the much-coveted banking licence, beating some of the country's top corporate houses. This moment compensated for all the frustrations that had come along the way. A year later, Bandhan Bank was launched with 6.7 million small borrowers. So, how did Ghosh build India's biggest MFI from scratch and then, along with his team, transform it into a universal bank? Bandhan: The Making of a Bank chronicles that journey. This is also Ghosh's personal story-of a boy growing up in small-town Agartala struggling with poverty, but relentless in his ambition to make it big. He battles competition, hostile moneylenders, a tough economic climate and the perpetual lack of resources. Nobody in India perhaps knows better than him the psyche of a small borrower and the alchemy of doing business with the poor, profitably. This is one of India's biggest entrepreneurial stories.
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 9386057204
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
This is the story of Bandhan, the only bank that emerged in eastern India after Independence. Founded by the son of a sweet vendor, with a mere Rs 2 lakh, the sum total of his life savings. On 17 June, 2015, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh stepped out of the Reserve Bank of India building in Mumbai with the much-coveted banking licence, beating some of the country's top corporate houses. This moment compensated for all the frustrations that had come along the way. A year later, Bandhan Bank was launched with 6.7 million small borrowers. So, how did Ghosh build India's biggest MFI from scratch and then, along with his team, transform it into a universal bank? Bandhan: The Making of a Bank chronicles that journey. This is also Ghosh's personal story-of a boy growing up in small-town Agartala struggling with poverty, but relentless in his ambition to make it big. He battles competition, hostile moneylenders, a tough economic climate and the perpetual lack of resources. Nobody in India perhaps knows better than him the psyche of a small borrower and the alchemy of doing business with the poor, profitably. This is one of India's biggest entrepreneurial stories.
Who Moved My Interest Rate
Author: Duvvuri Subbarao
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 938605745X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
An insider's view of the Reserve Bank of India Duvvuri Subbarao's term as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2008 to 2013 was an unusually turbulent period. The global financial crisis erupted; India was in the throes of a decade-high, stubborn inflation rate, followed by a sharp depreciation of the rupee. This was also a time when questions about the breadth of the RBI's mandate, autonomy and accountability became subjects of debate in financial circles and in the media at large. Who Moved My Interest Rate is an authoritative account of the dilemmas and quandaries he confronted while leading the Reserve Bank through these extraordinary economic and political challenges.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 938605745X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
An insider's view of the Reserve Bank of India Duvvuri Subbarao's term as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2008 to 2013 was an unusually turbulent period. The global financial crisis erupted; India was in the throes of a decade-high, stubborn inflation rate, followed by a sharp depreciation of the rupee. This was also a time when questions about the breadth of the RBI's mandate, autonomy and accountability became subjects of debate in financial circles and in the media at large. Who Moved My Interest Rate is an authoritative account of the dilemmas and quandaries he confronted while leading the Reserve Bank through these extraordinary economic and political challenges.
Roller Coaster
Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 9393559589
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
Beyond Debit & Credit: The Untold Story of Indian Bankers Do you know what it meant when bankers said “Chinese cuisine”, “Punjabi food”, or “Gujarati thali”? An RBI governor let down his hair at his farewell dinner to swing to “Lungi Dance” from the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Chennai Express. The chairman of a financial institution relied on “signals” from the idol of a goddess kept in his cabin for clearing loan proposals. A public sector bank chairman liked to munch hot chilies with his lunch. A kitchen help was deputed to mop up the sweat from his bald head! Roller Coaster is a string of such stories and revelations from the country’s foremost banking journalist's affair with the industry—even though banks were not ideal partners for such liaisons. He has seen the industry and dramatis personae grow over two and a half decades, first as a rookie reporter, then as an editor and a columnist, and, finally, as an author. The book brings to light the lives of India’s commercial and central bankers. But it does not discuss their successes, failures, or the ever-evolving dynamics of monetary and fiscal policies. It's about their persona, warts and all—how they are as leaders, how they evolved, and how they changed the culture and ethos of the Indian banking sector. Dive in for inside information about some of the biggest names associated with Indian banking—Uday Kotak, Sandeep Bakhshi, Amitabh Chaudhry, V. Vaidyanathan, as well as C. Rangarajan, Bimal Jalan, Y. V. Reddy, D. Subbarao, Raghuram Rajan, Urjit Patel, Shaktikanta Das, and many more.
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 9393559589
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
Beyond Debit & Credit: The Untold Story of Indian Bankers Do you know what it meant when bankers said “Chinese cuisine”, “Punjabi food”, or “Gujarati thali”? An RBI governor let down his hair at his farewell dinner to swing to “Lungi Dance” from the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Chennai Express. The chairman of a financial institution relied on “signals” from the idol of a goddess kept in his cabin for clearing loan proposals. A public sector bank chairman liked to munch hot chilies with his lunch. A kitchen help was deputed to mop up the sweat from his bald head! Roller Coaster is a string of such stories and revelations from the country’s foremost banking journalist's affair with the industry—even though banks were not ideal partners for such liaisons. He has seen the industry and dramatis personae grow over two and a half decades, first as a rookie reporter, then as an editor and a columnist, and, finally, as an author. The book brings to light the lives of India’s commercial and central bankers. But it does not discuss their successes, failures, or the ever-evolving dynamics of monetary and fiscal policies. It's about their persona, warts and all—how they are as leaders, how they evolved, and how they changed the culture and ethos of the Indian banking sector. Dive in for inside information about some of the biggest names associated with Indian banking—Uday Kotak, Sandeep Bakhshi, Amitabh Chaudhry, V. Vaidyanathan, as well as C. Rangarajan, Bimal Jalan, Y. V. Reddy, D. Subbarao, Raghuram Rajan, Urjit Patel, Shaktikanta Das, and many more.
Weathering the Storm in China and India
Author: Ying Zhu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429998112
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
China and India have in recent years seen a change in leadership, with each wanting to make an impact on their respective societies by bringing about significant changes in governance. This book looks at the impact of major institutional disruptions on large-, medium- and small-sized enterprises in China and India. The book endeavours to systematically assess the impact of major institutional policy changes that seek to transform and overhaul the status quo at institutional, social and business levels. It also provides a holistic understanding of the impact of a major and turbulent policy shift on Asia’s two giant economies. This book is a must-read for those interested in gaining insights into the two dominant powers in Asia.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429998112
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
China and India have in recent years seen a change in leadership, with each wanting to make an impact on their respective societies by bringing about significant changes in governance. This book looks at the impact of major institutional disruptions on large-, medium- and small-sized enterprises in China and India. The book endeavours to systematically assess the impact of major institutional policy changes that seek to transform and overhaul the status quo at institutional, social and business levels. It also provides a holistic understanding of the impact of a major and turbulent policy shift on Asia’s two giant economies. This book is a must-read for those interested in gaining insights into the two dominant powers in Asia.
A History of Sri Lanka
Author: K M de Silva
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9351182398
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666
Book Description
Sri Lanka is an ancient civilization, shaped and thrust into the modern globalizing world by its colonial experience. With its own unique problems, many of them historical legacies, it is a nation trying to maintain a democratic, pluralistic state structure while struggling to come to terms with separatist aspirations. This is a complex story, and there is perhaps no better person to present it in reasoned, scholarly terms than K.M. de Silva, Sri Lanka’s most distinguished and prolific historian. A History of Sri Lanka, first published in 1981, has established itself as the standard work on the subject. This fully revised edition, in light of the most recent research, brings the story right up to the early years of the twenty-first century. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all aspects of Sri Lanka’s development—from a classical Buddhist society and irrigation economy, to its emergence as a tropical colony producing some of the world’s most important cash crops, such as cinnamon, tea, rubber and coconut, and finally as an Asian democracy. It is a study of the political vicissitudes of Sri Lanka’s ancient civilization and the successive phases of Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial rule. The unfortunate consequences of becoming a centre of ethnic tension and Sri Lanka’s long-standing relationship with India are also discussed. Exhaustively researched and analytical, this book is an invaluable reference source for students of ancient, colonial and post-colonial societies, ethnic conflict and democratic transitions, as well as for all those who simply want to get a feel of the rich and varied texture of Sri Lanka’s long history.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9351182398
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666
Book Description
Sri Lanka is an ancient civilization, shaped and thrust into the modern globalizing world by its colonial experience. With its own unique problems, many of them historical legacies, it is a nation trying to maintain a democratic, pluralistic state structure while struggling to come to terms with separatist aspirations. This is a complex story, and there is perhaps no better person to present it in reasoned, scholarly terms than K.M. de Silva, Sri Lanka’s most distinguished and prolific historian. A History of Sri Lanka, first published in 1981, has established itself as the standard work on the subject. This fully revised edition, in light of the most recent research, brings the story right up to the early years of the twenty-first century. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all aspects of Sri Lanka’s development—from a classical Buddhist society and irrigation economy, to its emergence as a tropical colony producing some of the world’s most important cash crops, such as cinnamon, tea, rubber and coconut, and finally as an Asian democracy. It is a study of the political vicissitudes of Sri Lanka’s ancient civilization and the successive phases of Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial rule. The unfortunate consequences of becoming a centre of ethnic tension and Sri Lanka’s long-standing relationship with India are also discussed. Exhaustively researched and analytical, this book is an invaluable reference source for students of ancient, colonial and post-colonial societies, ethnic conflict and democratic transitions, as well as for all those who simply want to get a feel of the rich and varied texture of Sri Lanka’s long history.