Jaswant Singh's "call to honour" release in Kolkata

Kolkata, Aug 12 (UNI) "A Call To Honour - In Service of Emergent India", and evocative account about a crucial period in Indian history and authored by Former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh was released here tonight amid a gala function.

The book release was followed by a interesting panel discussion on "are India and the USA are natural allies?".

Speaking to a packed gathering of eminent citizens of the city of joy on the last and the final leg of this nationwide event, Mr Singh, also the Former Union Finance Minister said that he had written the book, eight in succession as he felt that he had some urgent messages to convey to the people of this great country in the wake of an eventful decade.

Incidentally, the 446-page book and priced at Rs. 495 have already been sold more than twenty thousand copies since it was first released in New Delhi last month.

Elaborating his experience in writting the book Mr Singh said while the first chapter was dealt about his childhood and his life in the army the follwing chapters had vivid accounts of a number of earth shaking events concerning both India and the world including the Pokhran nuclear explosion and the 1998 Kandahar plain hijack episode.

Later participating in the panel discussion former Chief of Army staff Gen. Shankar Roy Chowdhury and two veteran journalist-- Mr Hiranmoy karlekar, consultant editor of "The pioneer" and Mr Rudrangshu Mukherjee of "The Telegraph" spoke at length about the necessity and the background of the two greatest democracies of the world coming closer and became natural allies.

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