Anuradha M. Chenoy and Kamal A. Mitra Chenoy, Maoist and Other Armed Conflicts, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2011. This is a high impact low fuss book. Within its covers the authors provide a remarkably comprehensive and lucidly written survey of the three geographical zones where armed conflicts are currently taking place within India – J& K, the Northeast trouble spots of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, Bodoland, and the Maoist resistance in the central forested regions of the country – one sixth of the country’s area in all. By the objective standards established by the Geneva Conventions these are all ‘armed conflicts’ but are never described as such by the Indian government. The preferred labels are insurgency, militancy, terrorism, etc., because otherwise New Delhi could be held much more strongly to account for its behavioural disregard for the norms and rules of warfare as laid down in these Conventions. That would not do any good to the image that elite India and the state that succours this elite would like to present to the world — of an India that is not only rising but which proudly declares itself as the largest and enduringly vibrant of democracies!