Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

If there is any one specific condition that belies the hype of the success of the new economy in India, then it is that of the state of food security.

In the spring and early summer of last year, British newspapers and tele­vision repeatedly covered the subject of the recruitment of mercenaries in the United Kingdom; but even if you were a regular reader or viewer, you could not always be certain of just what slant was being given to the subject.

India’s tentative economic miracle faces many hurdles, but one of the chief difficulties is sustaining the political impetus for reform.

This book contains a number of papers, mostly in the field of public fin­ance, written by Professor Nanjundappa during the years 1961-1968. Except for two articles on ‘Wages, Prices and Em­ployment’ and ‘Restrictive Trade Pract­ices and Public Policy’, the articles in­cluded in the volume deal with questions…

More than a century of Indian cricket history is comprehended in this succinct work, Indian Cricket. The book deals with first-class cricket in India and also touches on the tours by Indian teams abroad and by foreign teams in India.

Book selection represents the sphere of librarianship which distinguishes the profession from many other occupations. There has been a controversy in the past whether the process of book selection is an ‘art’ or ‘science’.

When one opens a volume like this with an impressive array of contributors, one does so with a certain expectation. But this volume disappoints totally. B.R. Nanda’s introductory article sets a tone for the rest of the book. It is an uninspired piece of writing and only summarizes what the other eleven articles have to say.

The stubborn facts of history and politics are often hidden from the public gaze. Jawaharlal Nehru lifted the curt­ain a little on this in one of his statements, ‘ … It is very well to talk about foreign policy. But you will appreciate that no person charged with a country’s foreign policy can really say very much about it.

Studies on the national movement and the movements for social reform during the nineteenth and twentieth cen­turies have often dwelt on the influence of western liberal thought on Indian leaders who spearheaded those move­ments.

During the recent Emergency, anyone who wanted to get the real news went over to the nearest newspaper office and, if he had a trustworthy friend, asked him if he could have a look at the list of for­bidden items from the censor. Till a few years ago, anyone who wanted to know what the Central Board…

The Indian family has always been a subject of great fascination for sociologists and social anthropologists. This fascina­tion owes itself to the emphasis placed in the Indian tradition upon joint family living and the central place accorded to the domestic unit in ritual and religious activities…

Is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) a good thing or bad? The answer depends on whom you ask.

South Asia is quite unfortunate when it comes to energy resources. It is home to about one-fifth of the global population, yet it has less than one percent of global oil and gas reserves. Its endowment is slightly better for coal and hydropower resources, but still they are less than 10 per cent.

With the heightening of a heated nationalism debate, this book is a timely contribution to the constitution making process in Nepal. There has been no dearth of constitutions in Nepal with those of 1948, 1951, 1959, 1962, 1990 and 2007.

As a new civilian government finds its feet following the historic transition of democratic power in Pakistan, it is important to carry out a holistic analysis of the multiple crises plaguing Pakistan.

The three and a half years of Lord Wavell’s Viceroyalty from October 1943 to March 1947 was probably the most difficult and momentous period of office that any Viceroy has had to face.

Election behaviour has been taken as an important component of political behaviour and therefore much research attention has been directed towards

The behaviour of Indian political parties in pre-independence days is no doubt fascinating, though only of acade­mic interest. If one is to write about events which occurred half a century and more ago, it is inevitable that one must turn to official and other documents to be found in archives, British and Indian…

Most comparisons of India and Pakistan are defined by which side of the border (or the Line of Control) you are standing on, and are often heavily rhetorically loaded: Pakistan as a failed army-state overrun by radicals and terrorists, India as a corrupt, unmanageable confederacy grappling with poverty and insurgencies.

Professor Cohen’s writings on the India and Pakistan have always elicited great debate in both the countries since his first work on the subject.