Call Centres’ entered the Indian market in the late 90s, and since then have been an intriguing space for researchers, considering their crucial position as a conduit of ‘communicative capitalism’. Their success was instant and monumental¬—a quick glimpse into the numbers, in terms of export revenue brought by the Information Technology enable Service (ITeS) industry ($8.4 billion in 2006-7), as well as growth rate and employment (growth rate of 33.5% pa and employment provided to nearly half a million), gives us an estimate of their puissant presence in the Indian market.
The Indian software industry that flourished since the 1990s was central to the effervescent nationalist enthusiasm about the ‘new India’ in the making in the post-liberalization era. Now, we seemingly witness the waning of the industry, and hence it offers a great opportunity for social scientists to examine the Indian ‘software boom’ in its manifold hues. Carol Upadhya provides the readers with a nuanced exploration of the industry through her ethnographically dense analysis in Reengineering India.
One of the protracted conflicts of present times, involving three nuclear powered states, is in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan claim it as part of their larger territorial ambitions and national imaginations. Thus the national projects that assume the task of incorporating the territory do not only rely on explicit political aspects but other subtle, more ideologically driven, aspects negotiate such projects.
As a new imagery South Asia straddles the two competing conceptions of her own particularity, one as an invented abstraction, perhaps more theoretical and nomothetic, and the other as an existing reality, quite empirical and ideographic. As an abstraction it seamlessly weaves herself into a Wallersteinian classic of ‘sub-periphery’ situated in the global to catch up with the core, and as a concrete reality assiduously struggling to experiment the democratic project by some sort of venial state and a truncated civil society.
The Quotidian Revolution is an effort at delineating and illuminating the moment in Indian history when literary writings became manifest in vernacular languages. The book addresses the particular case of the literarization of Marathi in the thirteenth century.
2018
Jesus in Asia is a significant contribution from an Asian perspective to Christology, the author being a Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics in the University of Birmingham. It comes as a corrective intervention in the cultural adaptation and appropriation of Jesus of Nazareth by western academic theologians. The genius of the West to freeboot on the treasures of Asia was aided and abetted by the advantages of colonialism.
Indian Nationalism: The Essential Writings edited by S Irfan Habib is a timely intervention in the cantankerous debate on nationalism that has been raging unabated in the country for some time, especially since the Modi regime came to power in Delhi.
The book is a collection of papers by well known authors who are acknowledged experts in their fields of interest. The editors, Anita Weiss and Zulfiqar Gilani, have done excellent editorial work to bring out the basic problems that beset Pakistani society.
Diplomatic Divide co-authored by two eminent diplomats of India and Pakistan, in a mere 138 pages, brings out in a very readable form, numerous anecdotes, incidents and behind the scene activities which has also influenced, even if momentarily, the crucial phases of India’s relationship with Pakistan.
One of the major achievements of the organized working class in the market economies of the world, where wages are settled between employers and employees through collective bargaining, is its right to obtain compensation in wages from time to time by an agreed rate of dearness allowance for a given rise in cost of living.
1988
To very few would a person like L.K. Jha require any introduction. Having joined the Indian Civil Service in 1936, he held top economic posts in the Government of India. Apart from being the Secretary to two Prime Ministers, he held posts of Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Ambassador to U.S.A., Governor of the International Monetary Fund and Governor of Jammu & Kashmir.
The author Edward Duyker was attached to Griffith University at Brisbane and to the University of Sydney. Presently he is a full time writer. The book deals with one of the most politically turbulent periods of recent Indian history with particular reference to West Bengal.
The Non-Aligned summit in New Delhi in 1983 gave an impetus for several intellectual enterprises in India. Some have proved to be durable, like Namedia, a centre for the study of the mass media in the non-aligned countries, and others have turned out to be transient, like a quarterly magazine entitled. The Non-Aligned World, which was launched under the editorship of Professor M. S. Rajan, a good scholar with sound intellectual commitments.
Escott Reid was high commissioner of Canada in India from 1952 to 1957. These were the years when, with Conservative governments in Britain and Dulles making policy in Washington, Nehru found a more sympathetic hearing in Ottawa and formed a cordial personal relationship with St. Leurent, the Canadian prime minister.
Like its forerunners, the fifth volume in the second series of Jawaharlal Nehru’s, selected works makes delightful reading. If, in some ways, it is even more absorb¬ing than some of the preceding volumes, the reason is that it deals with a period closer to our times which also happened to be a crucial, indeed climactic, one. During it the nation suffered the trauma of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination at the hands of a Hindu fanatic, the Kashmir war dragged on, relations with Pakistan hovered on the brink and myriad pro¬blems of national integration and econo¬mic development cried out for attention.
1985
What is termed as Indo-Anglian poetry has been having a long innings with P. Lai’s Writers’ Workshop acting the role of a midwife, as it were, for a whole lot of poets, good, bad and indiffe¬rent during the last 30 years.
For the first time ever in a decade and more, the NCERT, the apex body advising the Government of India on educational matters, has woken up from its hibernation and brought out a book that is something worthwhile possessing or presenting to the younger generation. For here is a beautiful book to behold, to feel and to read. Ever since Dr. Malhotra migrated from the Vocational Education set¬up to NCERT, there has been a noticeable sea-change. This book is true evidence.
Everyone is aware of the fact that service in banks, especial¬ly nationalized banks, has deteriorated over the years in our country. Many attribute this to job security, which nationalization has given to the bank employees. It is this confidence in job security we thought, that infused a great deal of arrogance and indiffe¬rence among them. But a reading of the book under review shows up vast areas of hitherto unknown, behind-the-scene activities of bank personnel.
For about two decades now, there has been a very lively and often acrimonious debate on the questions of ‘free and balanced flow of information’, Freedom of the Press, the right to sources of news, the right to know, the right to privacy, protection against exploitation via media, distor¬tion, bias and misinformation, selective exposure and so on. The Third World’s demand for a New World Information and Communication Order has emerged from this debate.
This compact volume with an introduction by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chairman, Joint Chief of Staff, United States, consists of three essays. In the first one Geoffrey Kemp discusses ‘Maritime Access and Maritime Power, The Past, the Persian Gulf and the Future.’ The second by Admiral Robert J. Hanks and Alvin J. Cottrell deals with ‘The Strait of Hormuz: Strategic Choke-point’ and the third on ‘A Permanent Naval Presence in the Indian Ocean’ by Admiral Moorer and Alvin J. Cottrell, as is clear from the title, presents the case for a perma¬nent US naval presence in the Indian Ocean area.