Ideas and practices associated with India’s living document, the Constitution of India have remained central to the political imagination and assessment of democracy in contemporary India. Recent writings on ideas, institutions and processes in Indian politics have attempted to foreground the language of democracy in deliberations involved in the making of India’s Constitution.
The argument for an electronic silk road, promoting free trade and by extension, harmonious global values and laws, is an inherently appealing idea to all digital natives used to an ‘open web’ experience.
Public memory is short. A regime of public accountability requires safe-guards against the brevity of memory. For a nation such as India, where the governmental presence is looming and large, disclosure norms are of recent vintage and their functioning leaves much to be desired.
For several decades now, historians have hotly debated the socio-economic and political developments in the eighteenth century in South Asia, with some viewing it as a period of chaos and decline, and others describing it as marked by economic growth and socio-cultural efflorescence.
For many observers the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 stands as a pivotal event in turning India from a pluralistic and secular society to one founded on a monolithic concept of ‘Hindu’ identity.
Before North East India got identified with political unrest, Assam was known for its tea. In fact Assam teas a global brand name. It took years of frantic search, botanical experiments, massive entrepreneurships, colonial machinations and above all the blood and toil of millions of labourers to create that brand name.
To get rid of poison, a stronger dose of poison is required. This poison is Revolu-tion.’ This powerful message, among many others, from revolutionary literature of early twentieth century Bengal sought to impress upon people that colonial rule was irredeemable and only a revolution could bring change.
Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi is perhapsthe most prominent of the iconic figures of the revolt of 1857. Her outstanding heroism became the subject of alarge number of literary productions fromthe late nineteenth century onwards. It is atheme that continues to interest novelists,producers of comic-books, and film-makersdown to the present day.
Globalization: the word is hardly fifty years old but the process has been going on for a very long time. Scholars generally trace its origins to the early seventeenth century, but it is possible to go back much further.
2015
Typhoon is the story of three women with different backgrounds, though connected by the manner in which past plays a critical part in their lives. Naghmana is a glamorous woman from the city, Chaudhrani Kaniz, a land baron based in a village, and Gulshan, an innocent homemaker.
Many years ago I was on a highway driving happily towards a friend’s house for dinner. Well into the trip I realized that I failed to come across any of the landmarks cited by my friend. When the friend called to enquire how I was coming along, I told him that I had good news and bad news. The good news was that I was making very good time, and the bad news was that I was horribly lost.
The book under review catalogues the exhibition with the same title held in 2013 in New Delhi, Rampur and Lucknow. This beautifully illustrated book brings together the rich diversity within Amir Khusrau’s work which is seminal in creating a sense of urban heritage.
2015
It is said that Rabindranath Tagore had himself remarked that his play Chirakumar Sabha could never be translated. According to him, audiences could misinterpret the relationships presented in the translated play.
Mamang Dai’s recent novel The Black Hill is fascinating. Written in the genre of historical novel, it is an account set in the middle of the nineteenth century among the Himalayan societies of present day Arunachal Pradesh.
2015
‘And I quit life as I would an inn, not a home, for nature has given us lodging for a sojourn, not a permanent residence’. (Cicero) No Country, Part III, ‘Brendan: “Rose of Erin”’
2015
I kept the company of Hangwoman, a novel by K.R. Meera for more than two months, leaving it from time to time to attend to more worldly duties.
The subject of films has been approached from the perspective of stars, auteurs and spectators. At other times the collaborative nature of the cinema is emphasized by bringing in the contribution, or noise, of other players which include, among others, story writers, lyricists, music directors, cameramen, fight masters, choreographers and even minor actors.
2015
Indian Sisters: A History of Nursing and the State, 1907–2007 is a comprehensive inquiry into, and, an analysis of the attractions and challenges of the nursing profession as it evolved in India over a century.
2015
Reconciling growth and development has decidedly been an important challenge for the Indian economy. Scholars have appraised the economic reforms since the nineties in a divergent fashion in the wake of persisting backwardness and increasing inequality.
The two books under discussion here analyse the fifteenth (2009) and sixteenth (2014) general elections in India, and provide an insight that beyond the shifts in voting preferences, how preferences of the Indian citizens as well as the policy allurements given by parties and leaders transform both the power structure and institutions as well as political processes in the country.