India's long-standing tryst with coal

Book review of India's Coal Story

India’s Coal Story

From Damodar to Zambezi

Subhomoy Bhattacharjee

Sage

246 pages; Rs 450

Writing about India’s coal sector, circa 2017, can be both potentially rewarding and fraught. The sector has been through a turbulent few years in India, providing more than enough material for an engaging and rewarding narrative about the past. But the sector is also likely poised at the edge of a global decline, albeit a slow one, after a century and a half of dominance over the industrial landscape, which makes speculating about the future a risky prospect. 

Through most of its 246 pages, Subhomoy Bhattacharjee’s India’s Coal Story focuses