Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

The finest testament to good writing is surely the demand for an accurate response in its reader. Sunetra Gupta’s So Good in Black refuses the exigencies of large frames. Hers is not a global or postcolonial novel.

A Fragile World, the English translation of Bishnu Mohapatra’s Oriya poems, published in 1997 under the title Pakhira Swabhabik Mrityu (‘The Natural Death of a Bird’) is the poet’s first collection. Like all first collections it expects to do something different from the ones that came before and to introduce a new poet promising to set a new trend in the genre of his writing.

Sometimes idols always fail to impress on first sight leaving dedicated fans vaguely dissatisfied. My first glimpse of the legendary Lata Mangeskar was in pre-Emergency 1970s when Doordarshan featured excerpts from the ‘Lata Mangeshkar Nite’ held at Asoka Hotel, Delhi

In this impassioned study based on what the inside cover of the volume describes as ‘situated reflections, story telling and ethnographic accounts,’ Angana P. Chatterji, a social and cultural anthropologist at the California Institute of Integral Studies, in the United States, attempts to understand organized Hindu majoritarianism in the eastern province of Orissa.

‘Judicial Reforms’ is a theme which is much talked of so much about but too little is done. The Indian judicial system has a long history right from the pre-British days. In the 18th century a uniform pattern of judiciary emerged and during the British regime High Courts were established in presidency towns.

Interested in the social and cultural practices underlying popular politics in India and elsewhere, in this volume, Michelutti investigates the engagement of the important Yadav caste-cluster with the political and electoral processes in North India.

The South Asia Defence and Strategic Yearbook has been an important yearly publication highlighting the main events that have happened in the larger South Asian region.

The book under review is a massive sweep on the contours of India’s continuously evolving foreign and economic policy challenges that are in tune with the changing times. The volume contains as many as nineteen chapters by scholars from India’s premier universities and think tanks covering many leading countries and regions with which India’s foreign policy has remained significant. The contributors are leading.

The present global economic crisis has generated considerable interest in the role of central banks in regulating the behaviour of commercial banks. Though the Indian story in this regard is seen in positive terms, we do not clearly know for certain as to what channels the monetary policy actions are transmitted to the real economy.

Did India have economists before 1947? If so, how many? Who were they? What did they do? Until J. Krishnamurty decided to find out, these questions had not been asked in a any serious manner.