*Attar Chand - M.G. Ramachandran, my blood brother

* Chandrababu, B. S. - Social protest and its impact on Tamil Nadu: With reference to self respect movement, from 1920's to 1940's*Christopher John Baker - The Politics of South India, 1920-1937 , 1976

A collection of 35 essays written by the Czech playwright and human rights dissident who became the president of his country in 1989, focuses on the challenges facing an East learning democracy from scratch and a West unused to the multicultural complexities this process involves. Their organizing principle is that what is necessary now in politics and statecraft is the reaffirmation of values.

"...Throughout my life I have held in high regard all those who joined internal resistance movements during the Second World War and defied Nazi power. I have always asked myself: were I confronted with the same situation, would I be able to do what they did - to risk my life every day for the values I believe in.

To me, resistance fighters have always personified the highest standards of moral strength, courage, and fidelity to oneself, standards that have offered to me a permanent challenge.... They were well aware what they were risking, but chose to go into battle, all the same, being deeply convinced that evil had to be combated from the very beginning, regardless of the odds against immediate success.

It does not take much effort to arrive at the philosophic conviction that resistance to evil is never pointless. But it is not so easy to risk one's own life for that conviction and not to back down even in the face of death; in most cases, only a minority are able to take that course...

Resistance fighters were first and foremost bearers of light, founding fathers and mothers of a better future. To me personally, their endeavour serves as proof that the roots of a free, democratic, and equitable society lie deep in the sphere of morality - that such a society would in fact be unthinkable without a moral anchor.   I would  even go so far as to say that, if someone is prepared to risk his or her life in a fight whose outcome cannot he foreseen, to risk it not for his or her own sake but for the benefit that such an action may possibly bring to posterity, to humankind and human values as such, this decision emanates not from morality as mere human decency, but from morality as a metaphysical phenomenon..." [**also at  amazon.co.uk]

*Adolf Hitler - Mein Kampf, 1928

"...The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and these must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulae..."

* James Joll - Gramsci, 1977

*Jeyak�anta�n - A literary man's political experiences : Tamil Nadu politics since 1946

*Pi. Ci. Ka�n�eca�n - Daughter of the South : biography of Jayalalitha

*Arthur Koestler  - Darkness at Noon / Paperback / 1984

*Lee Kuan Yew - From Third World to First : The Singapore Story: 1965-2000, October 2000 

"Lee Kuan Yew was born in Singapore on September 16, 1923, a third-generation descendant of immigrants from China's Guangdong Province. He read law at Cambridge University, England. In 1954 he formed the People's Action Party, which won the first Singapore general election five years later. Lee became the country's first prime minister in 1959, at the age of thirty-five. In November 1990 he resigned the office to assume the post of senior minister in the Singapore cabinet." more

* Mohandas, K. MGR: The Man and the Myth, Panther Publishers, Bangalore, 1992

*Palanithurai, G - Role Perception of the Legislators : A Case Study of Tamil Nadu ,1991

*Pamela G. Price - Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India / Hardcover / Published: May 1996

Rajendran, N - The National Movement in Tamil Nadu, 1905-1914 - Agitational Politics and State Coercion, Madras Oxford University Press, 1994

*Ramamurti, P - The Freedom Struggle and the Dravidian Movement - Orient Longman, 1987

*Sankaran Nair V - Role of Students in Freedom Movement : With a Special Reference to Madras Presidency , 1991

 *Rajeev Sharma - Beyond the Tigers: Tracking Rajiv Gandhi's Assassination

"Rajiv Gandhi's assassination remains the most mysterious political murder in the history of independent India. Was it the handiwork of a group of fall guys who executed the conspiracy without knowing who their general was? It seems to be the case. It is not just the LTTE which did it. Of course, the LTTE was involved. But there were forces beyond the tigers.A jet-setting tantrik, a clique of unscrupulous politicians hand in glove with international arm dealers and terrorists, obliging foreign secret agencies and above all an overly ambitious late Sri Lankan president R Premadasa--these could have an important bearing on Rajiv's slaying."Beyond the Tigers" seeks to probe these questions and makes out a strong case for the government to order fresh police investigations into the dark areas of Rajiv's assassination.It should not matter which political party Rajiv Gandhi belonged to. It is the question of salvaging the Indian honour which has been mauled by foreign forces on Indian soil"

*John Ralston Saul - Voltaire's Bastards - The Dictatorship of Reason in the West

"...The ongoing high levels of violence associated with American civilisation are usually attributed to the frontier tradition. They could just as easily be attributed to the syndrome of solving social problems with force, which was produced by the Revolution. The real answer, may be far more general. The threat or promise of change brings out the frail nature of mankind's psyche. And sudden change is an imposition of instability. The rational argument, from its modern beginnings, has tried to avoid dealing with this reality.... revolution is a sign of the failure of both those who lose power and those who gain it. It provokes an instability which the people and the new leaders seek to control as rapidly as possible. But once let loose, this instability takes on a momentum of its own - a momentum that produces physical suffering and blood. The end result may be that certain problems are solved, but in the process, the civilisation is permanently scarred by the violence. The violent act usually fosters both increased levels of inflexible extremism and yet more violence..." '"...Voltaire's Bastards is a hand grenade disguised as a book. The pages explode with insight, style, and intellectual rigor...[This book] will leave you challenged, intrigued, and at times troubled."- Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post ...

*Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago Vol. I
*Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago Vol.II
*Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago Vol. III

*S. Srinivasa Raghavaiyangar - Memorandum on the progress of the Madras Presidency during the last forty years of British administration

*Tommy Koh (Editor), Li Lin Chang (Editor) The Little Red Dot: Reflections by Singapore's Diplomats (Paperback)

M. Venkatesan - E V Ramasamy Naickarin Marupakkam (The other side of E V Ramasamy Naickar)

*Washbrook, D.A. - The emergence of provincial politics : the Madras Presidency, 1870-1920

* Drew Westen - The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, 2007

* William Howard Wriggins - J.R.Jayawardene of Sri Lanka: 1906-56 v.1: A Political Biography (Vol 1)Men and Memories: Autobiographical Recollections and Reflections, 1992