DNA – The Secret of Life

DNA – The Secret of Life

Author: James Watson

Publisher: Arrow Books

Pages: 432

Dedication: For Francis Crick.

Nothing can be more rewarding than having a book about DNA straight from one of the co-discoverers of its double helix structure. Francis Crick and James Watson discovered its internal structure in 1953 and were duly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. The style and structure of the book is inimitable. An unbroken chain of sly humour makes it eminently attractive and compels the reader to get stuck to it even though the topic of discussion is pure science and technology. Though Watson was accused of ‘scientific racism’ in his later years, the book presents no such example. On the contrary, his avowed enmity to racism is amply evidenced in his tirades against the proponents of Eugenics in the beginning of last century. Eugenics prompted many states in US to adopt laws for sterilizing people with genetic disorders so that their genes won’t pass along. Many a times, the victims were mainly of African or Asian origins.

Many physicists or would-be physicists took part in the search for DNA. Erwin Schrodinger, who needs no introduction to physics students wrote a book titled, “What is Life?” in which he suggested that the language of life might be like Morse code, a series of dots and dashes. In fact, the language of DNA is a linear series of As, Ts, Gs and Cs. And just as transcribing a page out of a book can result in the odd typo, the rare mistake creeps in when all these As, Ts, Gs and Cs are being copied along a chromosome. These errors are the mutations geneticists had talked about for almost fifty years. Watson was attracted by Schrodinger’s sound logic and Crick was actually a physicist who turned to biology after reading “What is Life?”. He asserts that, “The discovery of the double helix sounded the death knell for vitalism. Serious scientists, even those religiously inclined, realized that a complete understanding of life would not require the revelation of new laws of nature. Life was just a matter of physics and chemistry, albeit exquisitely organized physics and chemistry”.

Watson discusses several genetic disorders, citing the defect at the root of all, in genes. Sickle cell anemia, a genetic disorder common in Africans, makes the red blood cells of victims tend to become deformed, assuming a distinctive “sickle” shape and the resulting blockages in capillaries can be horribly painful, or lethal. The difference between the normal gene and those afflicted with the disease amounted to a single amino acid. Glutamic acid, found at position 6 in the normal protein chain, is replaced, in sickle cell hemoglobin, by valine.

Explanation of GM foods are neat and to the point. Example of BGH is cited. Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) is similar in many ways to human growth hormone, but it has an agriculturally valuable side effect: it increases milk production in cows. Monsanto Corp cloned the BGH gene and produced recombinant BGH. The milk yield increased by 10%. The milk produced is indistinguishable from that produced by non-supplemented cows. As the GM food debate swirls around us, it is important to appreciate that our custom of eating food that has been genetically modified is actually thousands of years old. In fact, both our domesticated animals, the source of our meat, and the crop plants that furnish our grains, fruits and vegetables, are very far removed genetically from their wild forebears. Agriculture did not suddenly arise, fully fledged, ten thousand years ago. Many of the wild ancestors of crop plants, for example, offered relatively little to the early farmers: they were low yield and hard to grow. Modification was necessary if agriculture was to succeed. Early farmers understood that modification must be bred in if desirable characteristics were to be maintained from generation to generation. And in the absence of gene guns and the like, this activity depended on some form of artificial selection, whereby farmers bred only those individuals exhibiting the desired traits – the cows with the highest milk yield, for example.

Bt Cotton is also explained nicely. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) naturally assaults the cells of insect intestines, feasting upon the nutrients released by the damaged cells. The guts of the insects exposed to the bacterium are paralyzed, causing the creatures to die from the combined effects of starvation and tissue damage. First used as a pesticide in France in 1938, the bacterium was originally thought to work only against moth/butterfly caterpillars, but different strains have subsequently proved effective against the larvae of beetles and flies. The success of the mechanism has inspired genetic engineers. Instead of applying the bacterium scattershot to crops, it would be better to engineer the gene for the Bt toxin into the genome of crop plants. The farmer would never again need to dust his crops because every mouthful of the plant would be lethal to the insect ingesting it (and harmless to humans). The method has at least two clear advantages over the traditional dumping of pesticides on crops. First, only insects that actually eat the crop will be exposed to the pesticide; non-pests are not harmed, as they would be with external application. Second, implanting the Bt toxin gene into the plant genome causes it to be produced by every cell of the plant; traditional pesticides are typically applied only to the leaf and stem.

In 1992, UNICEF estimated that some 124 million children around the world were dangerously deficient in vitamin A. The annual result is some half million cases of childhood blindness; many of these children will even die for want of the vitamin. Since rice does not contain vitamin A or its biochemical precursors, these deficient populations are concentrated in parts of the world where rice is the staple diet. An international effort, funded largely by the Rockefeller Foundation has developed what has come to be known as “golden rice”. Though this rice does not contain vitamin A per se, it yields a critical precursor, beta-carotene (which gives carrots their bright orange color and golden rice the fainter orange tint that inspired its name).

Watson led the Human Genome Project (HGP) in its beginning. A 3 billion dollar effort with cooperation across countries and academy and industry helped it become a grand success. The HGP has proved Darwin more right than Darwin himself would ever have dared dream. Molecular similarities stem ultimately from the way in which all organisms are related through common descent. A successful evolutionary ‘invention’ is passed down from one generation to the next. Once evolution solves a particular problem – for example, designing an enzyme to catalyze a particular biochemical reaction – it tends to stick with that solution. Some 46 percent of the proteins we see in yeast also appear in humans. Also, 43% of worm proteins, 61% of fruit fly proteins and 75% of fugu proteins have marked sequence similarities to human proteins. A comparison of the gene count of several species are given.

Common name Number of genes

Human 25,000

Mustard plant 27,000

Nematode worm 20,000

Fruit fly 14,000

Baker’s yeast 6,000

Gut bacterium 4,000

The Neanderthal genes were sequenced successfully. They had more in common with human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) than with those of chimpanzees, telling us that Neanderthals were unquestionably part of the human evolutionary lineage. At the same time, however, there were dramatic differences between the Neanderthal sequences and all 986 available sequences of modern human mtDNA. The sum of the genetic evidence leads us to conclude that while Neanderthals do have their place on the evolutionary tree of humans and their relatives, the Neanderthal branch is a long way from the modern human. If, when they encountered each other in Europe 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals and humans had indeed interbred, their mtDNA sequences would have entered the modern human gene pool. That we see no evidence of such input implies that modern humans eliminated the Neanderthals rather than interbreeding with them.

The rationale for skin color is given. Why did people living in higher latitudes lose melanin? The best explanation involves vitamin D3 synthesis, a process carried out in the skin and requiring UV light, D3 is essential for calcium uptake, which in turn is a critical ingredient of strong bones. As our ancestors moved out of Africa into highly seasonal environments, with less year round UV radiation, natural selection favoured pale-skinned variants because they, with less sun blocking pigment in their skin, synthesized D3 more efficiently with the limited UV available. The same logic may apply to the movements of our ancestors within Africa too. The San tribe, for instance, in South Africa, where UV intensities are similar to those of the Mediterranean, have a strikingly pale skin. But what about the Inuit peoples, who live in or close to the hardly sunny Arctic but are surprisingly dark? Their opportunities for producing the vitamin would appear to be further limited by the need to be fully clothed all the time in their climate.

Human genome has a striking similarity to that of the chimpanzee. They have 24 chromosome pairs whereas we have 23. It turns out that our chromosome 2 was produced by the fusion of two chimp chromosomes. There are also differences in chromosomes 9 and 12 and several inversions within chromosomes.

DNA fingerprinting is also explained in detail. This technique was discovered by accident by a British geneticist, Alec Jeffreys. He noticed that a short piece of DNA repeated over and over again and such repeats varied in number from individual to individual. Jeffreys determined that the repeats were junk DNA, not involved in coding for protein, but he was soon to discover that this particular junk could be put to good use.

The book covers all the aspects of genetic research and examines the burning issues in detail and with an endorsement by the author that nothing is amiss in the new technology. When ill informed people rally up against Bt Cotton and GM food, it is very helpful for the society to have a dissenting voice. Watson’s definitive approval lends weight to several counter arguments to have science have its way and keep politics and superstitions away from it.

Overall rating: 5 Star

Four Elements

Four Elements

Author: Rebecca Rupp

Pages: 351

Publisher: Profile Books

An eminently readable scientific book, presented in an easy to read and simple language. It traces the origins of scientific thought and the quest for elements which are the building blocks of matter. The book presents a historical survey of water, air, fire and earth, the ancient Greek’s fundamental components of the universe. Thales of Miletus posited that water was the basic element of matter. His pupil, Anaximander (610-546 BC) chose earth, Anaximenes (585-525 BC) chose air and Heraclitus chose fire. Empedocles combined all four in a ‘unified theory’. Plato taught his atomic theory in his academy. It was the closing of Plato’s Academy in 529 AD (after 900 years of service) on orders of Justinian that traditionally marks the beginning of the dark ages. Aristotle added the fifth element, ether to the list. Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan (Geber) postulated that all matter is composed of sulfur and mercury which could then be recombined in a different ratio to generate another metal, say, gold. Effective recombination required a catalyst, which Geber referred to as al-iksir (or elixir). Paracelsus of 15^th century combined the Greek and Arabic scholars while Robert Boyle (17^th century) refuted all these and built the foundations of modern Chemistry.

The book then delves into varied and interesting data on each of the four elements, beginning with water. A very interesting anecdote is given, proving the gullibility of the unsuspecting public. Nathan Zohner, a student in the US collected signatures of 86% of his class to ban the substance “Dihydrogen Monoxide” which he claimed is responsible for thousands of deaths annually (by accidental inhalation), is a prime component of acid rain, and has been shown to accelerate the corrosion and rusting of many metals. In gaseous form, it causes severe – even fatal – burns. And the stuff is addictive. Dependency on it is irreversible: complete withdrawal results in certain death!

The book then explains water’s molecular structure and properties, water cycles, presence of it in early earth, history of swimming, and on and on. It is an excellent browser’s paradise. So many topics, in so few pages. A perfect beginning for those who want more.

An excellent work by Ms Rupp. Nothing more, nothing less.

Overall rating: 4 Star

Being Digital

Being Digital

Author: Nicholas Negroponte

Publisher: Vintage Books

Pages: 240

Dedication: To Elaine, who has put up with my being digital for exactly 11111 years.

About the author: Negroponte, Professor of Media Technology at MIT is also founding director of the Media Lab.

Synopsis:

Today, fiber is cheaper than copper, including the cost of electronics at both ends. The only real advantage of copper is the ability to deliver power.

Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC) was a poet of classical Greece who was noted for his prodigious memory. When the roof of a banquet hall collapsed just after he had been called from the room, he found that he could identify the mangled remains of guests based on where they had been sitting: he inferred that tying material to specific spots in a mental spatial image would aid recall. He used this technique to remember his long speeches. He would associate parts of his oration with objects and places in a temple. Then while delivering his speech, he would revisit the temple in his mind to call forth his ideas in an orderly and comprehensive manner. The early Jesuits in China called this same process the building of “palaces of mind”.

When the Media Lab premiered its LEGO/Logo work in 1989, kids, kindergarten through sixth grade from the Hennigan School, demonstrated their projects before a full force of LEGO executives, academics and the press.

In October 1981, Seymour Papert and the author attended an OPEC meeting in Vienna. It was the one at which Sheikh Yamani delivered his famous speech about giving a poor man a fishing rod, not fish – teach him how to make a living, not take a handout. In a private meeting with Yamani, he asked the author if they knew the difference between a primitive and an uneducated person. The answer was simply that primitive people were not uneducated at all, they simply used different means to convey their knowledge from generation to generation, within a supportive and tightly knit social fabric. By contrast, an uneducated person is the product of a modern society whose fabric has unraveled and whose system is not supportive.

The Physician

The Physician

Author: Noah Gordon

Pages: 712

The theme of the book is the extra ordinary journeys done by a 11^th century boy in search of knowledge. Robert Jeremy Cole was orphaned when he was 9 years old. He had an unusual sense of impending death by feeling the hands of sick people. He had the same experience with his parents and he was sure that they would soon die. Since his father was a carpenter, the guild took care of the children and distributed them among various people for upkeep. Young Rob was assigned to a barber surgeon. In those days, these barber surgeons traveled far and wide, displaying juggling and magic to draw the crowd, entertain them, sell medicine named Universal Specific, which is mostly liquor and provide consultation to patients, also including some of the surgical procedures. Rob was bothered by the lack of their knowledge and he craved for knowledge. The barber died some time later and Rob continued alone. One day, he met a Jew, and from him, learned of a place called Ispahan in Persia which is famous for its medical hospital, Maristan and the master physician there named Avicenna or Ibn Sina in Persian.

Rob earned enough and decided to undertake the travel. He crossed the Channel and entered France. With a local man he traveled up to Germany. The book is resplendent with the absence of rule of law at those times. He joined a caravan bound for Constantinople and traveled along with them. During the journey he came across a Scot family and came across Mary Cullen whose father was traveling to Anatolia to buy exotic sheep. They fell in love and by the time they were to separate at the end of the journey, Rob was in a dilemma whether to enter marriage with Mary and go to Scotland and become a land lord there or to go as planned before to Persia. His career ambitions prevailed and he forsake love for knowledge. In those days, caravans used to break journey during winter months and he had stayed with three Jews he had made friends of, during the journey. Jews were a despised lot in Europe at that time and were subject to the worst forms of reprisals. He learned the Jewish ways during the stay and decided to pretend to be a Jew in Persia, because Christians were forbidden to enter the academy at Ispahan. He reached Ispahan after a long and tiresome journey which lasted 18 months.

Ala al Daula was the ruler of Persia and he had saved Rob’s life from a tiger during the last stages of his travel. To Rob’s dismay, he found that the academy didn’t admit students simply to study medicine, but they had to study Philosophy, theology, jurisprudence and Quran. He had an altercation with the administrator and was sentenced to a day of torture. Released, he went straight to the Shah’s court and demanded asylum claiming that it was the Islamic duty of the king who saved his life. Ala gave him a calaat, which entitled him to a house, a horse and some money. He was enrolled as a student at the academy. He slowly rose to the rank of Hakim (Professor), but not before attending to a Plague epidemic and accompanying a campaign to India. He came to know of a European father and daughter stranded nearby and was glad to find that it was the Cullens. The father had died of ‘side sickness’ (Appendicitis) and he wed Mary Cullen. He became the favourite student of Ibn Sina. Opening up human body was proscribed by all three religions, but Rob did some, to study the side sickness.

Ala al Daula made a disastrous campaign against Mahmoud of Ghazni. The Afghan army occupied Ispahan and Rob fled with his wife and two sons. He reached London and decided to start practice as a physician. Barber surgeons were for common people and the rich always sought the service of physicians. London proved too hot for him and he had to send his family to Kilmarnock in Scotland which was the home of Mary. Rob was accused of witchcraft and fled London. He reached Kilmarnock and rejoined the family. His marriage was formally solemnized and he was pleased to find that his elder son inherited his sense of impending death. He lived a joyous life thereafter.

The book is really a page turner, keeping the readers in pleasant anticipation as the turn of events slowly unwinds in this 712 page narrative. Except for the lewd description bordering on obscenity, of some of the sexual encounters which abound in this novel, this book is eminently readable. Moreover this book clearly enunciates the spirit of the times, namely the utter ignorance in which the common masses were steeped in, the hatred towards Jews and the atrocities against them, the lawlessness of public roads, especially continental Europe, the opulence, lasciviousness, fanaticism and respect for learning as enshrined in ancient Persia.

Tamerlane

Tamerlane

Author – Justin Marozzi

Publisher – Harper Perennial

Pages – 424

Dedication – “This book is dedicated to my mother and to the memory of my father”

Tamerlane – Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World by Justin Marozzi is a biography of Tamerlane (1336-1405), the Mongol turned Islamic conqueror of Central Asia. Marozzi details the gruelling marches through the Asian vastness, grim tales of death, destruction, pillage and lust. Being a travelling historian, he visited Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to find the prominent places in the tale at first hand. Samarkhand and Bukhara still survives, the former being the capital of Temur. The post Soviet era Uzbekistan has identified Temur with the national identity and he is celebrated as a hero. Temur’s dynasty fell into fratricidal and patricidal warfares soon after his death and was out of the scene in less than a century.

Some quotations from the book showing the fanatically religious nature of Temur

In March 1398, Temur made clear his unswerving intention.

‘Although the true faith is observed in many places in India, the greater part of the Kingdom is inhabited by idolaters. The Sultans of Delhi have been slack in their defence of the Faith. The Muslim rulers are content with the collection of tribute from these infidels. The Koran says that the highest dignity a man can achieve is to make war on the enemies of our Religion. Mohammed the Prophet counselled like wise. A Muslim warrior thus killed acquires a merit which translates him at once into Paradise. Now that the empires of Iran and Turan and most of Asia are under our domination, and the world trembles at the least movement we make, Destiny has presented us with the most favourable opportunities. The troops will ride south, not east. India through her disorders has opened her doors to us. (p 239)

The first skirmish came when Temur’s reconnaissance party of seven hundred cavalry was attacked by the forces of Mallu Khan, who was then ruling Delhi through Sultan Mahmud Khan. The Tatars held off the Indians, and returned safely to camp, but there were important consequences. First, Temur had managed to tempt Mallu Khan into battle, albeit little more than a scuffle. This augured well. After the interminable siege of Multan, Temur was minded to take Delhi as quickly as possible. He did not want to be forced to sit and wait for the city to surrender from starvation. Far better to lure Mallu into a pitched battle and settle the issue without delay. Second, the rush of troops against the Tatars had been met with roars of approval from the hundred thousand Hindus taken prisoner en route to Delhi. Such was the fervour of their reaction, born out of hopes of liberation, that Temur, fearing a rebellion in his rearguard, gave orders for each and every one to be killed on the spot. The command was to be obeyed on pain of death. Even the holy men travelling with Temur’s army were required to act as executioners, and many were their tears as they sent innocent men and women to their deaths in cold blood. ‘The history of mankind cannot furnish another example of so horrid an act of deliberate cruelty’, wrote the 19^th century historian Sir Malcolm Price, ‘yet the being who perpetrated it has been exalted by historians and poets into a demi-god; and severalm not contented with ascribing to him that valour, policy and martial skill, which he undoubtedly possessed, have extolled him for this numberless virtues; and above all, for this justice and clemency’. (p 264-65)

Casting scorn on the Indians’ feeble resistance, Ferishta portrays the terrors of a city given over to fire and the sword.

“The Hindus, according to custom, seeing their females disgraced, and their wealth seized by the soldiery, shut the gates, set fire to their houses, murdered their wives and children, and rushed out on their enemies. This led to a general massacre so terrible that some streets were blocked by the heaps of the dead; and the gates being forced, the whole Mongol army stormed inside, and a scene of horror ensued easier to be imagined than described. The desperate courage of the Delhians was at length cooled in their own blood, and throwing down their weapons, they at last submitted like sheep to the slaughter…. In the city the Hindus were atleast ten to one superior in number to the enemy, and had they possessed souls, it would have been impossible for the Mongols, who were scattered about in every street, house and corner, laden with plunder, to have resisted.” (p 270-71)

Laden with booty, the army made laborious progress on its north-ward journey, some times as little as 4 miles in a day. One of Temur’s first stops was the celebrated marble mosque built by Sultan Firuz Shah on the banks of the Jumna, where the emperor gave thanks to Allah for his recent success, and which may have inspired Temur’s monumental Cathedral Mosque in Samarkand.

This was to be no leisurely return, however. More battles awaited the Tatars, for the Jihad had not ended. There were still many more infidels to be killed or converted. First the army swung round to the north-east, sacking the stronghold of Meerut before reaching the Ganges and slaughtering 48 boat loads of Hindus in addition to an undisclosed number of Zoroastrians. Into the foot hills of Kashmir and the Himalayas Temur’s forces continued, fighting 20 or so pitched battles and plundering profitably wherever and whenever the occasion presented itself. The Muslim shah of Kashmir submitted with promises of a vast tribute. The Hindu Raja of Jammu was captured in an ambush and hastily converted to the True Faith. An expedition was sent against Lahore to punish a prince who had already submitted to Temur but had conspicuously failed to reappear as instructed. Lahore was seized and the careless prince executed. (p 273)

Faced with another Tatar invasion,the Georgians retreated to higher ground, secreting themselves in impenetrable mountain caves. The difficult terrain and the unexpected tactics of his adversary demanded a new approach. First, Temur had baskets worn that were big enough to hold a man. Archers stepped inside them and were lowered over the cliffs until they reached the mouths of the caves. Once there, they fired flaming arrows soaked in oil into the farthest recesses, smoking the enemy out and sending them to agonizing deaths. The capital, Tiflis, first seized by Temur in 1386, was stormed again. Within a short space of time, mosques, minarets and muaddin occupied the ground on which the Christian churches and their priests had stood. At the point of a sword, pragmatic Georgians recited the sacred words which defined themselves as Muslims: “La ilahah Illallah, Mohammedan razul’Allah”. Death was the penalty for those who clung on to Christianity. (p 283-84)

The Tatar, who had long aspired to recognition within the Islamic world as the greatest defender of the faith, took pains to inflict miserable deaths on the city’s Christian community. While the sipahis were buried alive, others had their heads tied between their thighs before being thrown into the moat to drown. According to Johann Schiltberger, the Bavarian squire captured by Temur in 1402, 9000 virgins were carried off into captivity. Those who were fortunate enough to escape the slaughter fled from Sivas in horror. As for the city itself, it was, reported Arabshah, ‘utterly destroyed and laid to waste’. (p 288)

State of Fear

State of Fear

Author: Michael Crichton

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 580

Crichton presents environmental facts in a new light in this thriller. He argues that Global Warming, which every one of us take for granted as true, is at the most an unproved scientific theory, if not a fraudulent one. The theme of the novel is that an environmental organization, using criminals and sophisticated equipment to influence world opinion by precipitating catastrophic events like calving of a giant piece of ice from the Antarctic ice shelf, materializing flash floods from an ordinary thunder storm in Arizona and the creation of a tsunami wave from New Guinea, calculated to hit the shores of California. But by the timely intervention of the lead characters, John Kenner, Sanjong Thapa, Peter Ivans and Sarah, these efforts are frustrated. The presentation is typical Crichton style – stunning facts, actions, a little bit of science and generalization of ideas.

Crichton claims that the graphs, charts and references given in plenty of footnotes are real. He argues that Global Warming is only a theory which is not borne out by observational data. He gives data for a number of cities which shows a clear downward trend in temperature data. Temperatures are showing a rising trend from 1850 onwards, he says, and not just from 1970. This period was preceded by 400 years of cooling. He also states that politicians, lawyers and media are intent on generating a fear psychosis (The State of Fear) in ordinary citizens to make the work easy for them. Media started giving undue emphasis on environmental disasters from 1989 onwards, he says. This was precisely after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Communist states. The people, who were terrorized by the communist menace were then no longer subservient to that threat, and so, they devised environmental problems and global warming as the substitutes. His argument is convincing.

The City of Joy

The City of Joy

Author: Dominique Lapierre

Publisher: Arrow Books

Pages: 511

Dedication: To Tatou, Gaston, Pierre, Francois, James and to ‘the lights of the world’ of the City of Joy

Lapierre’s book describes life in a Calcutta slum named Anand Nagar (The City of Joy). He narrates in gaudy detail the story of life as it unfolds in Calcutta and many other parts of India. Hasari Pal and his family had to flee to Calcutta to escape the drought of his native village. He finds work as rickshaw puller and contracts TB. He dies after several years, on the day of his daughter’s marriage. Stephan Kovalski, a Polish evangelist who adopts Anand Nagar as his home in the service of the poor, Max Loeb, a Jewish American doctor who spent some years in the slum are the other main characters in this fiction (as claimed by Lapierre). He had established a foundation for the upliftment of Indian poor from the proceedings of the sale of this book. It lists almost all of the vices in India and ends with a mocking commentary of the celebration in the slums on the nuclear explosion conducted by India.

One cannot help wonder at the utter contempt and mocking disregard for every Indian ritual or custom. He conveniently addresses Indians by their religions and not by their names. The tea shop owner invariably becomes Surya, the Hindu, like wise. The only thing an impassionate reader of the book learns is that Indians are incompetent, inefficient, leaderless and still require white masters to show them their way around. All the positive aspects of Indian culture and tradition are eclipsed and minor aberrations conveniently amplified to show the world that India still lives in medieval times and not able to comprehend modern technology. Lapierre considers it blasphemy, the testing of the atomic bomb. It seems that the motivation behind writing this book is the seething rage the French mind cultivates against nuclear India. Remember Shakti 1998! France was the most vociferous opponent in denouncing India globally, while they were notorious for their under sea nuclear explosions conducted in the South Pacific, far away from their pompous home land. Of course, one should not judge the native country of an author from his work, but these are some of the thoughts naturally coming to one’s mind.

The factual errors in the book is amazing. According to him, all Indian marriages take place at mid night, millions of people die from snake bites every year etc are only a few. The hilarious part is that he establishes these blunders with authority. He is often in error, but never in doubt! Lapierre’s condescending attitude is irritating and verges on the unbearable at times. This attitude is what he cultivates because ample evidence can be cited from the ‘Freedom at Midnight’ also. The docile way in which Nehru and Patel submits to the diktats of Lord Mountbatten whom they made the Governor General is a clear pointer.

Lapierre might be a friend of India, because of the foundation and the charitable work they do. But from what he writes, this is not the impression he conveys.