Besides English, most Indian language publishing hasn’t seen too much of corporate involvement, though Bengali and, to an extent, Hindi might be exceptions. But now, Penguin Random House is stepping into as many as five languages – Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi – with a determined drive into the non-English segment.

Of course, both Penguin Random House and HarperCollins have had short Hindi lists even earlier, publishing either by themselves or in collaboration with others. The pre-merger Penguin Books and Yatra Books used to work together, for instance.

But now, a new partnership with Manjul Publishing – which publishes in nearly a dozen Indian languages – will see a much wider list being developed. What will be published? Most likely, translations of titles on PRH’s current list – both new books and perpetual sellers.

Manjul is already big on publishing international bestsellers – led by perennial categories like self-help and spiritual – and this could put more momentum behind the programme. About 50 titles are expected to be released in 2016, which could, in numbers, amount to about 15 per cent of PRH’s total annual output.

For PRH, Vaishali Mathur, who runs the company’s commercial publishing editorially – think Ravinder Singh, Durjoy Datta, et al – will head the list as head of language publishing and rights. The company needs this expansion for growth as English language book sales for the big publishers are beginning to stagnate in India.

Now if only these new books are edited as rigorously as English ones!

Our recommendation for the list: Changez Ka Bayan, the Hindi translation of Mohsin Hamid’s remarkable novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which charts the unwilling hardening of the mind of a successful Pakistani finance professional in the US who returns to his homeland after 9/11.