The metaphorical ‘atlas’ that describes the hand/ life/ character of Mukunda, the protagonist of this debut novel, can hardly subsume the ‘impossible longings’, the ‘pining for what is not’ that is also attributed to him.
The Economic Cooperation Organization is the fourth incarnation of the regional group that goes back to the peak of the Cold War. In the mid-fifties, the United Kingdom, with the United States lurking in the background, brought Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Pakistan together under the Baghdad Pact to serve as a wall against the Soviet influence in West Asia.
Two most momentous events of the last decade of the twentieth century changed the focus of much economic thinking. For one, the end of the Soviet empire and the Communist regime in Russia ended the debate on whether a centrally planned system of pricing was better than the decentralized pricing system of a capitalist economy.
Ever since the Treaty of Westphalia ended the thirty years war in Europe in 1648, modern nation-state boundaries and jurisdiction have been a major area of contention across the globe.
The young author of this book was born in Halifax UK in 1900 and died fighting in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. In a short and rich life Fox not only became one of the founders of the Communist Party of Great Britain but gained a well earned reputation as a novelist, social historian, journalist and translator.
During the last two decades, women’s studies have acquired enormous institutional visibility in India. Started as a scheme within the non-formal education by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 1986, it was institutionalized in a centre for women’s studies within a few universities. At present there are 66 UGC-sponsored women’s studies centres across India.
Health, nutrition and education are interrelated in such a manner that one cannot really afford to deal with them separately. Unfortunately, our public policy has often tended to undermine this interrelationship where deficiency on one count leads to deprivation on the other.
The book brings together nineteen essays written and published by the author over the last five years or so. Though the papers are divided into four different sections, they share a common thrust. They offer a critical analysis of the contemporary economic trends and the consequences that the process of ‘globalization’ is likely to have for India’s economy and society.
The book under review is the outcome of a seminar organized by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, at the behest of the Ministry of External Affairs.
A Fiscal Domain for Panchayats is a curious title for a book which primarily deals with the taxation of agricultural income. Of the nine chapters in Indira Rajaraman’s slim volume, apart from the Introduction and Conclusion, eight deal with different aspects of taxing the income from agriculture, including a land tax or land revenue.
There is much to recommend in Deepak Raja’s book. India’s premier Hindustani vocalist Ulhas Kashalkar has written the Foreword and the Introduction is by Lyle Wachovsky, the well-known American producer of Indian classical music who runs the label ‘Indian Archive’ from New York.
Ever since the collapse of socialism in East Europe and the Soviet Union the political project of Marxism has been seriously questioned. A spate of philosophies and social movements has arisen casting doubt about the relevance of Marxist theories for understanding contemporary problems.