The preface to the book puts it succinctly why it is a must for one's own personal reference library. Specialist textbooks designed for professional lawyers, more often than not, prove to be a minefield of confusion for lay people on the lookout for information on environmental laws. Such books assume prior knowledge of court procedure and the legal system that is only typical of a qualified lawyer. Students, private citizens, even public officials and journalists do not know where to run to. The pillar-to-post workout is cut short by this compilation which furnishes crucial background information vital for the understanding and use of the legal system by non-professionals. Due to an increasing lack of government officials specialising in forestry, wildlife or environment protection matters, the private citizen is coerced into a situation where s/he has to play a role in the enforcement of environmental laws. Even those who are not activists would need this handbook (slightly bulky, though it is). Enforcement officials, for instance. These people, usually overwhelmed and intimidate by courtroom wrangles and hassles, would now find something to alleviate their agony. And this compilation would be of immense help to professional environmentalists, who have not only not studied law, but also find it difficult to pay lawyers for every aspect of law that might be needed to be looked into. Journalists writing on environmental issues too end up a confused lot when reporting on certain cases. Now they know what to refer to.

If you have currency notes to tear up and flush down the commode, do it - don't buy this shame of an encyclopaedia. Forget the pricey Rs 1100/- tag, it is not even worth keeping for free. Yes, it can have one utility value - you can use it as a paperweight. But perhaps even that would not be worth it. Anyone conversant with Northeast India seeing you with the book is likely to snigger at you. Why? The reasons are very many. Firstly, an encyclopaedia is supposed to have entries, preferably alphabetically arranged. This one is one rambling thesis (broken up into eight chapters for the "eight" Northeast states) of a man's personal perceptions and (lack of) understanding of the region. Facts are distorted and the disdain for insurrectionists is obvious. The writer, it is evident, has little or no love for the people of the region. The brick-sized book reads like official government propaganda justifying whatever it has done by meddling in the region and needling the simple-minded people of the Northeast. The Indian government (read, politicians) have done no wrong to the Northeast. If anyone is responsible for today's state of affairs there are those creepy, venomous terrorists. The language too is appalling. Just reading the blurb on the inside-back flap should be enough. The author, it seems, "expertise (sic!) in the field of socio-economic and political studies". This e-zine cannot afford waste precious bytes, but then readers have to be warned too.

It is no more the ultimate and authoritative family reference book. The Guinness Book of Records itself might hold the record for being the world's bestselling copyrighted book, but entries seem to be becoming more and more bizarre by the year. The "amazing new design" that has been advertised is not that amazing. The "amazing new records" are not that amazing either. They are getting more and more macabre by the edition. If not, they are becoming more and more inane as well. As some reader at amazon.com suggested, it is better to buy an earlier edition. It would be too much of a sweeping statement to say the Guinness Book is junk. It is not, but it certainly is carrying an increasing quantity of junk every year.

The man never ends to fascinate. Filmmaker, composer, writer, artist - you name one creative-artistic aspect of life, and he would revel in it. If there has been any man in India who has been a one-man institution after Rabindranath Tagore, it has been Satyajit Ray. What went into the making of this genius? Most of what used to be known about India's greatest filmmaker's days prior to the making of his 1955 classic debut venture (Pather Panchali) particularly about his days as a youngster is what can be culled from his countless interviews given over the years. But when all these come from the horse's mouth seven years after his death, it comes as another classic. Ray's greatness lay in his knack for detail and his ability to portray all these in plain and simple terms. Originally penned in Bengali, Ray's widow has brought out his memoirs in a form that is as lucid and seamless as his films were. Presented are glimpses into the life of a man who was perceived to be serious and aloof to many of his viewers, but comes across a more accessible Ray - humorous, tender and affectionate. He tells about his first taste of an icecream, his initial understanding of the principle of photography, and the teasing he had to endure at school because of his famous father Sukumar Ray and grandfather Upendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury. With unassuming elan, he writes about his vast, exceptionally talented family, where each member had his or her unique quirks and eccentricities. Ray also shares his experiences while shooting Pather Panchali and subsequent films, particularly his sensitive and deft handling of children. He describes how an entire field of kaash flowers was eaten up by crows before he could shoot his famous train scene in Pather Panchali, and how a circus tiger let loose in a bamboo grove for Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne chased away a group of curious onlookers in the blink of an eye. These anecdotes were originally written for the Bengali magazine, Sandesh, which was launched by his grandfather and resurrected by himself when he could afford it. This compilation is a must for Ray fans, and also those who would want to know what is it about our grooming and growing up that makes Ray, Ray, and us, us.

When the Assamese militant outfit, United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), abducted social-environmental activist, Sanjoy Ghose, in July 1997, they did not what they were dealing with. There was an uproar. Protests, appeals and condemnations poured in from the world over. The ULFA panicked. It kept issuing contradictory statements - that he was safe and sound, and that he had died. Finally, the Indian Army intercepted an ULFA message indicating that he had died in the neighbouring mountainous state of Arunachal Pradesh. The ULFA admitted as much, but the family refused to accept it on face value. They wanted proof of Sanjoy's death - they still are. What happened in the bargain was that the man whose only claim to fame in the state of Assam was his undoubtedly commendable work to save the world's largest riverine island from being eroded away for good by the mighty Brahmaputra, became an icon overnight. Pegging on Sanjoy Ghose, opinion started building up against the terror tactics and senseless violence indulged in by the ULFA. Ghose, who had friends and well-wishers in all the right places, was increasingly seen as a nonviolent man taking on an out-and-out terrorist organisation all by himself, and becoming a glorified martyr in the process. His wife started collating his writings, letters and diaries and stitched them together as this book. It traces Sanjoy's journey as an activist which first found expression in his pursuit of rural management studies at the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), and led to his setting up the Uttar Rajasthan Milk Union limited (URMUL) in Bikaner. After nine years in the state of Rajasthan, in April 1996, he moved with his family and colleagues to live and work in Majuli island in Upper Assam. It was here that he drew the ULFA's ire. He started speaking his mind out and paid for it. The book conveys a message - it is an indictment of the use of terrorism as a means to achieve social justice. What it does not is why Ghose was hell-bent in taking on an enemy far more powerful than he could ever be. He was not drawn into any vortex, he himself mixed up social priorities and political prejudices, giving one the impression that perhaps he was more keen on becoming a martyr. Who won and who lost? Not his organisation, Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development -Northeast (AVARD-NE), which left the island the work unfinished. Not the people of Majuli who made a determined but vain effort, working more on emotion than on purpose, to carry on his good work. Not the other nongovernmental organisations which too fled fearing similar reprisals by the ULFA. And certainly not his near and dear ones, for whom the loss was immense. If it achieved anything, it made the ULFA more hated than ever before. But then, was it what he was there in Majuli for, in the first place?