PANAJI
In International Centre Goa (ICG)’s book discussion programme ICG-Kitaab, author Shakti Sinha will speak on his recently released book, ‘Vajpayee: The Years That Changed India’ on January 8, at 8-5 pm at ICG, Dona Paula. The discussants are Himanshu Roy, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) and Constantino Xavier, Fellow, Foreign Policy and Security, Centre for Social and Economic Progress. The programme is the latest in the Kitaab: Books in Discussion series organized by ICG. Past guests have included Puja Mehra (The Lost Decade (2008-18): How India's Growth Story Devolved into Growth Without a Story, Penguin 2019) and Nikhila Henry (The Ferment: Youth Unrest in India, Macmillan 2018).
For safety reasons, the programme will be held outdoors with a limited number of attendees. All standard protocols will be followed. Entry is free and open to the public but registration is required (by sending an email to: [email protected]).
Incidentally, author Shakti Sinha, has a fairly long association with Goa where he served in various capacities between 1985 and 1992. Sinha who is currently the honorary director of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Policy Research and International Studies, MS University, Vadodara and a distinguished fellow at the India Foundation, was earlier the director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML). Sinha, a former civil servant, first got to know the late prime minister in 1980, and worked closely with him for three and a half years in the 1990s, as secretary to the leader of the Opposition (1996-97) and as his private secretary (1998-99).
In his book, Sinha helps us understand Vajpayee as a decision-maker in the context of the political challenges he faced, and focuses on some of his key initiatives in the strategic and economic fields during his first term as prime Minister. Among others, the book discusses the Pokhran-II nuclear tests; the Golden quadrilateral highway network; and the transformation of India's relations with the United States; and provides an insider's account of how the former prime minister thought and worked.
