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Time and again Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate and polymath, has stimulated our thoughts and world-view through his ideas. In his new collection of cultural essays Sen examines social justice and welfare, by addressing some of the fundamental issues of our time like deprivation, disparity, hunger, illiteracy, alienation, globalization, media, freedom of speech, injustice, inequality, exclusion, and exploitation.Sens deeply informed and humane writing connects history, culture, literature, economics, and politics. Several of the essays are concerned particularly with India - its historical traditions and the issues it faces today; many - such as his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2004 - engage with global concerns. All are written with a passion and conviction, a gently persuasive style, and a characteristically undogmatic engagement with differing points of view.Most of these essays were first published in the Indian literary publication The Little Magazine. Others are published here for the first time. The book is introduced by Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former Indian diplomat and governor of West Bengal, who is also the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.

Breakfast with Evil and Other Risky Ventures is a pre-emptive attempt to bring together the scattered writings of Ashis Nandy over his entire span of writing career and scan those scattered lectures, interviews, and writings including essays and columns for newspapers and journals for an in-depth analytical study. As the author himself explains, these are not his musings on static, time-bound issues, rather they capture how he confronts and negotiates the living past in the political, social, and cultural landscape of South Asia-starting from the manmade famine of 1943 to the Partition and freedom of India and the birth of Pakistan in 1947, the Bangladesh War in 1971, and the protracted civil war in Sri Lanka (1983-2009). The essays, often written as forewords to other scholars' works, straddle languages, systems of knowledge, and forms of voice and silence. Nandy attempts to identify a critical and intellectual strategy for survival in the Third World. He establishes that though a traumatic ambience-marred by aggressive development, instant nationalisms, or the brutalizing spectacles of modern nation-states-numbs one's imagination, it can also lead to new worldviews and multiple creative forms of resistance.

In mankind's relentless quest for prosperity, Nature has suffered great damage. It has been treated as an inexhaustible reserve of resources. The indefinite scale of global expansion is still continued and now the earth's very survival is under threat. But against this exploitation of nature, there is a concept of Entropy that places a finite limit on the extent to which resources can be used in any closed system, such as our planet. Considering the impact of entropy, this book examines the key issues of sustainability-social, economic, and environmental. It discusses the social dimension of sustainability, showing how it is impacted by issues of economic inequality, poverty, and other socio-economic and infrastructural factors in the Indian context. It also highlights how Indian households suffer from clean energy poverty and points to the inequality in distribution of different fuels and of fuel cost among households. It assesses India's power sector and its potential to be a significant player in bringing the third industrial revolution in India by replacing fossil fuels to new renewables. It concludes by projecting power sector scenarios till 2041-42 achievable through alternative, realizable policy with respect to energy conservation and fuel substitution, and thus paving the way for the green power.

Based on new translations of Pali texts and rare sources, Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns analyses the portrayal of women in the Pali canon and commentaries. Focusing on the differences between canonical and commentarial literature, the author goes beyond the practice of using the commentaries to merely enhance the understanding of the Pali canon; she emphasizes the differing social and historical milieus out of which these genres of literature were born. Assessing each genre on its own terms, the work demonstrates that the Pali canon, contrary to how it has been presented previously, is more favourable to women. The first part of the volume contains biographies of the six best-known Buddhist nuns who were considered to have been direct disciples of the Buddha. These biographies throw light on gender relations as they evolved in the early centuries of Buddhism in India. The life stories also serve as the foundation for discussion of Buddhist women in the second part. From notions of beauty and adornment to family, class, and marriage, various themes in the biographies are explored in this work, and through this exploration the changing form of Buddhism in early India is captured.

Jim Corbett is world famous for his classic man-eater stories. However, the three volumes collected here show a very different side to this remarkable man.In My India, he describes the villages of the Kumaon Hills, and the customs and lifestyles of the people he encountered. Jungle Lore is the closest Corbett ever came to writing an autobiography, combining recollections of his earliest days with frank views on the need for conservation which were well ahead of their time. Finally, in Tree Tops, the only book Corbett set outside his beloved India, he captures the savage beauty of Kenya's wildlife as well as telling the story of the royal visit of 1952, during which Princess Elizabeth learned she was Queen.

Why has India's astonishing economic growth not reached the people at the bottom of its social and economic hierarchy? Travelling the length and breadth of the subcontinent, this book shows how India's 'untouchables' and 'tribals' fit into the global economy. India's Dalit and Adivasi communities make up a staggering one in twenty-five people across the globe and yet they remain amongst the most oppressed. Conceived in dialogue with economists, 'Ground Down by Growth' reveals the impact of global capitalism on their lives. It shows how capitalism entrenches, rather than erases, social difference and has transformed traditional forms of identity-based discrimination into new mechanisms of exploitation and oppression. Through studies of the working poor, migrant labour, and the conjugated oppression of caste, tribe, region, gender, and class relations, the social inequalities generated by capitalism are exposed.

The book ventures to look into eras bygone in order to chronicle the passage of three mega species-the rhinoceros, tiger, and elephant across millennia in early north India. It carefully sifts through an archive comprising faunal remains and visual depictions retrieved from the archaeological record as well as a gamut of Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, and classical Western accounts to document the presence of these big mammals in various cultural niches from hunter-gatherer societies to the first urban civilization of India and beyond. The narrative goes beyond treating these species as mere cultural icons to one that is also sensitive to their importance as markers of ecology. The focus is two-fold: to comprehend perceptions, attitudes, and sensibilities oscillating between veneration and persecution in order to reconstruct the cultural dimensions of human-megafaunal relations in the past, as also to use these species to understand the larger ecology of ancient India.At a time when the conservation of our megafaunal heritage is a major concern for biologists, ecologists as well as conservationists, this book underlines the need to historicize human interactions with these mega mammals keeping in mind that an animal's past is critical in thinking about its future.

The book is an ethnographic study of Christian groups in contemporary Goan society that come under the umbrella of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. Most studies on Pentecostalism in India are from a theological perspective. This work is an attempt to fill this gap and provides a sociological understanding of religion in a modern globalised context. It is an attempt to understand the rapidly expanding and overtly evangelistic movement of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in pluralist, non-Christian societies, both as a social process and as an embodied everyday practice. It is specifically an ethnographic exploration, into the religious journey of a neophyte from one's conversion and initiation into the new movement to his/her religious life, worship patterns, worldview, and life-cycle rituals till his/her death. This book is an important contribution to the growing field of 'new religious movements' in India, characterised by their distinct modes of interaction with mainstream religious establishments and their specific religious identities, beliefs, rites and rituals.

'Philosophy has to be deductive, poetry romantic, plays and fiction humorous, and politics intriguing if they are to catch my attention,' writes Kaushik Basu. All these interests are on display in An Economist's Miscellany, which brings together an eclectic collection of writings on the world of academe, politics, policy, travel, and more. This book offers unique glimpses of the author's engagement with the world: his opinions on contemporary policies and economic issues; his exploration of different parts of the world; and his reflections on people, ideas, and books that have influenced him. An Economist's Miscellany also puts on display his literary forays-translations of two hilarious Bengali short stories and a four-act play on academe, love, and cultural misunderstandings. This second and much-expanded edition of the book features a new set of essays that reflects the author's dual perspective of the world: one from the groves of academe and one from the policymaker's perch, in New Delhi and in Washington, DC. In the world of policymaking he was not just an observer but an active participant, and many of the new essays dwell on ideas gathered from this hands-on engagement.

This Short Introduction aims to offer a clear analysis of the state of employment in India. In a simple and concise manner, it narrates the past trends, current issues, and future possibilities of employment. Beginning with employment conditions at the start of India's planned development and mapping its evolution, it highlights how this evolution has been linked to growth strategies, demographic change, and institutional developments. Defining basic concepts, such as employment, unemployment, labour force and labour participation, it also touches on theories of employment, its broad features, and issues relating to its analysis and policy, providing empirical data wherever essential.

While the prohibition of custodial torture is absolute and it applies even during war or other emergency situations, the fact is that custodial torture continues to prevail in today's times of modernization and globalization. The only thing that has changed with time is the degree of meticulousness and sophistication with which it is practiced today. This work analyses custodial violence, ill-treatment, and crimes committed by the police and armed forces in India. It analyses custodial violence in the light of the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; Committee against Torture; European Commission; Asian Human Rights Commissions; National Human Rights Commission; National Crime Record Bureau; police journals; international and national NGOs; and other international standards. Providing a detailed overview of the Indian police system and examining its structure and functions, the work critically examines the role and accountability of the police in India and lays emphasis on the human rights of citizens referring to the guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission for the prevention of custodial violence and protection of victims and their rights.

Conceptualized outside the theoretical framing of both liberal as well as critical approaches, this book re-imagines the law by exploring the contradictions and polarities of in terms of its relationship with violence. It encompasses and interweaves themes and ideas as diverse as death penalty, community might, state sovereignty on the one hand, to animal rights, sexual consent, children’s agency and LGBT rights, on the other. While acknowledging that law is fundamentally and inherently tied to violence, the objective of this eclectic collection is to respond to and engage with the violence of law by exploring alternate ways of conceptualizing, reading, practising, and making the law.

The objective of this work is to understand the evolutionary process of economic and legal policies that brought international regime of private property rights over the common property resources, especially seeds and plant varieties. Unbalanced model of development would increase disparity in income and impact agricultural infrastructure development and environment sustainability. Though materialization of farmers' rights was fulfilled by a compromise arrived at between NGOs and Industry together, there are several grey areas both at the conceptual and the procedural levels that subordinate rights of farmers in reality. This monograph analyzes the impact of legal policy reforms during 'second green revolution' phase on farmers' customary rights and livelihood, particularly in the context of the extension of private property rights to plant varieties and seeds and migration of cultivators to the cities.

This book examines facets of North Indian Muslim identity c. 1850-1950. It focuses specifically on the role of literature and poetry as the medium through which certain Muslim 'voices' articulated, negotiated, configured and expressed their understandings of what it meant to be Muslim and Indian, given the socio-political exigencies of the time. Specifically, a history of the public space of poetry will be presented and half of the book will chart a history of the mushairah (poetic symposium) over this period. In doing so it will analyse the multiple ways in which this space adapted to the changing economic, social, political and technological contexts of the time. The second half of the book will present a history of the ideas that were often articulated in the space of the mushairah and changing notions of the watan (homeland) amongst various Muslim individuals will be analysed. In particular the book will seek to locate changing ideas of hubb-e watan? (patriotism) in order to offer new perspectives on how Muslim intellectuals, poets, political leaders and journalists conceived of and expressed their relationship to India and to the trans-national Muslim community.

Following the death of the great historian, Ainslie T. Embree, this remarkable document was found in his study, a project to which he had devoted the last years of his life. It is an insightful exploration of how the boundaries of the modern South Asian states were created in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, based on a careful examination of original materials in archives in England and India. Artfully written with rich local detail, this book reveals the fascinating interplay of colonial and local interests as the modern states were carved into being. It is destined to be a classic in the history of South Asian nation building.

Gandhi (1869-1948) was one of the few men in history to fight simultaneously on moral, religious, political, social, economic, and cultural fronts. During his time as a lawyer in South Africa he developed his strategy of non-violence: the idea of opposing unjust laws by non-violent protest, which he made the basis of his successful struggle against British rule in India.In this Very Short Introduction to Gandhi's life and thought, Bhikhu Parekh outlines both Gandhi's major philosophical insights and the limitations of his thought. He looks at Gandhi's cosmocentric anthropology, his spiritual view of politics, his unique form of liberal communitarianism, and his theories of oppression, non-violent action, and active citizenship. He also considers how the success of Gandhi's principles was limited by his lack of coherent theories of evil, and of state and power, and how his hostility to modern civilization impeded his appreciation of its complexity.Gandhi's life and thought has had an enormous impact both within and outside India, and he continues to be widely revered, as one of the greatest moral and political leaders of the twentieth century.

The book is about residents of Dhaka: migrant and non-migrant, poor and non-poor, men and women, young and old. It is about how they have experienced the city's rapid transition for the two decades between 1991 and 2010 in terms of quality of life and livelihoods, and their prospects for a shared future. It is not so common to come across urban studies based on longitudinal data largely due to the high mobility of urban households. Over the 20-year period, the city's population more than doubled and reached double digit figures at 15 million. At the same time, its contribution to the national economy almost trebled from 13 per cent to 36 per cent. An unmistakable trend of economic growth is evidenced along with the rapid decline of urban poverty and a downward trend in inequality in the country during the same reference period. At the other end of the spectrum are the environmental challenges in the context of high density and Dhaka's worst livability ranking. The book answers some of the doubts generated by these contradictory signals of rapid urbanization: is the poorer segment of urban population that migrates with dreams for better lives and livelihoods benefitting from positive economic trends? Are these benefits sustainable in the long run? Have these benefits brought qualitative changes creating scope for this group to have a stake in the city's growing prosperity like their non-poor counterparts?

Health crises plague most economies irrespective of their average per capita income levels, and this is largely due to chronic and repeated illnesses. Contextualizing this paradigm in India, the India Public Finance and Policy Report: Health Matters is an attempt to discuss some of the most crucial issues faced by Indian health sectors and to examine alternatives for policymakers to provide affordable, reliable, and effective health care facilities to the people. This report compares three government-run social health insurance schemes-the Swasthya Sathi Scheme, the Aarogyasari Community Insurance Scheme, and a community-based health insurance scheme-to examine their effectiveness in reducing household's vulnerability to health shocks. Additionally, it brings to light the manipulation of health package deals by private hospitals to increase the amount patients spend on them. The report also estimates the inefficiencies across states and districts of India with regard to health care personnel and infrastructure. Moreover, the editors have put together a series of interviews with different stakeholders associated with the health care system, such as doctors, nurses, patients, and medical representatives, who discuss the problems that perturb this sector. Written in a lucid and non-technical language, this is a deeply researched theoretical and empirical commentary about health care and public polices in India.

This volume is an account of the Naga ethnic movement going on in India since 1918, covering both historical and contemporary aspects of the conflict. Based on over a decade of ethnographic work among the Naga rebels and movement zones, personal interviews, and secondary data, the author offers a compelling on-the-ground narrative of the Naga armed conflict, and explains how it has affected the daily lives of the Naga people. The book presents and analysis of narratives of people who have thought about the conflict, been born into it, taken part in it, or have been directly or indirectly influenced by it. It includes glimpses into their love for their land, the poignant mix of identity, politics, emotions, culture as well as the very real inter-ethnic differences that fuel the conflict.

The Indian diaspora is increasingly engaging with the homeland by forming a range of migrant organizations — organizations constituting a growing sector of non-State actors who engage with the host country and the country of origin in a sustained and profound way.Research on migrant organizations tends to focus only on transnational migrant organizations in host countries. Indian Migrant Organizations analyses a set of local and transnational organizations formed by Indian migrants, whose activities include mobilizing resources and connections and engaging in numerous development initiatives in India, and studies their engagement particularly in the Indian healthcare and education sectors.In particular, the book discusses how these organizations have evolved, what kind of healthcare and educational projects and activities they are carrying out, and how such collective efforts are affecting development dynamics in India.

The Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru has established its position as the single most important, authoritative, and reliable source on Nehru's life, work, and thought. It is indispensable to the scholar, fascinating to the layperson, and at times something of a primer in politics, democracy, and world affairs, as Nehru intended his periodic letters to his chief ministers to be. It provides a panorama of home and the world as seen from the centre of power in India by an acutely sensitive observer and skilful player. Given the literary talent, creative urge, and singular position of the author, it is a continuous source of pleasure, sometimes of amusement, and always of enlightenment.

The Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru has established its position as the single most important, authoritative, and reliable source on Nehru's life, work, and thought. It is indispensable to the scholar, fascinating to the layperson, and at times something of a primer in politics, democracy, and world affairs, as Nehru intended his periodic letters to his chief ministers to be. It provides a panorama of home and the world as seen from the centre of power in India by an acutely sensitive observer and skilful player. Given the literary talent, creative urge, and singular position of the author, it is a continuous source of pleasure, sometimes of amusement, and always of enlightenment.

Widely regarded as one of the most eminent legal thinkers of his time, Upendra Baxi is a leading scholar on matters relating to human rights, legal and social theory, and comparative constitutional law and theory. A set of four volumes, Law, Justice, Society: Selected Works of Upendra Baxi documents and critically engages with his thoughts and writings over four decades. The volumes are a collection of Baxi's essays and lectures centred on the major themes of his writings: human rights, constitutionalism, law and society, and legal education. Structurally, the essays in each volume are introduced by the volume editor, an expert in the field, who provides an assessment of Baxi's works over the years. Each volume informs the reader with an interview conducted between the editor and Baxi, contextualizing the latter's research and discussing the themes covered. The respective volumes essentially conserve and reflect on pedagogic and research contributions made by Baxi to the concepts of law, justice, and society.The first volume, edited by Amita Dhanda, examines Baxi's writings on the contemporary discourses on the nature of human rights. The second volume, edited by Arun Thiruvengadam, presents a selection of Upendra Baxi's works on the broad theme of constitutionalism. The third volume, edited by Kalpana Kannabiran, presents a selection of Upendra Baxi's work, illustrative of his intellectual engagements and writing over five decades, in the field of the sociology of Indian law. The fourth volume,edited by Amita Dhanda, shows how Baxi's writings reflect his vision of studying law in context and training students as soldiers of constitutional justice.

What histories do objects like coins or gems help us to trace? How can we read photographs and paintings? How do fictional tales, imaginative biographies, basic lexicons, or accounts of Sufi masters code intellectual worlds and reveal cultural and religious shifts? What range of sources is available to the historian of medieval and early modern India? How can textual sources illuminate material objects, sites, and practices, and vice versa? What historicalmethods do the different sources and material objects require?Drawing on the rich scholarship of Simon E. Digby (1932-2010) on South Asian medieval history and culture, the essays in this volume offer method lessons in a wide range of historical fields.

Ludwig Wittgenstein's interest in the writings of Rabindranath Tagore, is recognized among scholars worldwide though little has been written on his fascination with Tagore's poetry and symbolic plays. In Language, Limits, and Beyond, Priyambada Sarkar explores Tagore and Wittgenstein's philosophical arguments on the concept of 'threshold of language and meaning', highlighting the systematic connections between Tagore's canon and Wittgenstein's early works. Situating her study in the early 1900s, when Tagore's poetry had just become available in Europe, Sarkar finds similarities between Tagore's and Wittgenstein's exploration of the limits of language. She argues that Wittgenstein's early philosophy can be better understood when juxtaposed with Tagore.Drawing parallels between the worlds of philosophy and poetry, Sarkar identifies the point of convergence of their two philosophies in the realm of language, tracing how they reach surprisingly similar conclusions through entirely different paths of inquiry. Sarkar finally claims that such important points of contact will help one to arrange the pieces of the Tractarian jigsaw puzzle in a manner where all the pieces of logic, language, world, and the mystical will fall into place and form a coherent picture.

This book places Biruni in his historical and cultural context within the long-term history of medieval Eurasia. It outlines the course of Biruni's life, clarifying key questions about his associations, travels, and patrons. Following an overview of Biruni's chief interests, it details his major works to illustrate the breadth of Biruni's output and his intellectual approach, especially his attention to language, esteem for knowledge, and commitment to objective truth. An account of his institutional context and relationships elucidates his friendships and rivalries, notably with Avicenna. The book also shows how varied paths of transmission affected the legacy of Biruni and its reception in global scientific and literary traditions. Finally, a timeline, list of key works, and detailed bibliographic essay will guide readers into further study of Biruni and his thought.

Data Structures using Python provides an introduction to design, analysis, and implementation of data structures using the powerful language Python. This book is designed for a first course on the subject. It is written for the undergraduate engineering students of Computer Science, Information Technology and allied disciplines.The book begins with an overview of the concept, need, nomenclature followed by discussion of Arrays, Stacks, Queues, Double Ended Queues, Linked List - all under a chapter on Linear Data Structures. This is followed by a chapter on Non-linear Data Structures where Heap, Hash Table, Trie, and Disjoint Sets are discussed. Trees, though a non-linear data structure, is discussed as a separate chapter to emphasize upon its importance. The last few chapters of the book discusses Graphs, Searching, and Sorting finally ending with an appendix on Python built-in class functions.

In a conversation about youth agency, the most common discourses that come up are of acts of liberation, resistance, and deviance. However, this perspective is fairly narrow and runs the risk of reinforcing pervasive and often polarizing depictions of youth. In order to broaden the understanding of young people's collective actions and their potential social implications, it is necessary to ask: What types of agency do young people demonstrate?This book aims to scrutinize some of the conceptual ideas that underlie prevalent visions of youth as agents of social change and as a source of hope for a better future. As a part of the Education and Society in South Asia series, it provides insightful accounts of students' daily routines on and around a public university campus in Kathmandu, Nepal, and calls attention to a group of non-elite university students who have remained less visible in scholarly and public debates about student activism, youth unemployment, and international migration. By placing different strands of literature on youth, aspiration, and mobility into conversation, In Search of a Future unveils new and important perspectives on how young people navigate competing social expectations, educational inequalities, and limited job prospects.Series: ESSAthis series seeks to problematize our understanding of education, as process, in the context of the making of citizens in a 'modern', changing South Asia. Education has been examined in its institutional avatar ad nauseam. Such efforts view educational institutions as organizations that transmit and evaluate educational knowledge and provide certification based on academic achievement. The causes of inequality, located in gender, caste, class and religion have perhaps been examined in this context as these shape individuals' lives in multiple and complex ways. At the same time, educational institutions are spaces, as processes, through which participants bring meaning and create worlds that hugely impact their personal and intellectual development. Other books in the Series include:Social, Ecological and Moral Vision for Inclusive Education: J. Krishnamurti and Educational Practice

The debate around growth has been an important feature of economic planning in India since Independence. This book deals with the wide range of issues related to the country's growth and development between 1951 and 2011, covering the 11 Five Year Plans formulated and implemented during this period, as well as in the decade after that.The author traces the changing nature of planning over time-from rigid state control on economic activities, to reliance on market-based planning in the time of economic reforms. He has dealt with the transition from growth measures in the 1970s, to the use of a mix of growth and redistribution in the 1980s, and the economic reforms and liberalization measures from 1991 onwards, and the inclusive growth we have seen in the twenty-first century. The central theme of the book is to analyse the role that planning played in maximizing the rate of economic growth and in improving the living standards of the people. Considering India's rapidly changing socio-economic environment, many of the issues around growth and development are contentious. The author discusses them here with academic rigour and an insider's insight, thus enabling a fair assessment.