Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

This is a hilarious coming of age story set in Madras of the 1970s. The author obviously belongs to an illustrious family—and is an illustrator, cartoonist, graphic designer and writer, all of which you can see the protagonist of the book Gopi has the potential for becoming later in life.

We are fast moving towards an era when we look to admire tigers in far­off forests, enjoy the antics of monkeys in zoos and fish in glass bowls.

When asked to review the book Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by The Ramayana, I was initially quite excited. The reasons were many, but primary was the fact that due to the interest of my four-year old daughter in Indian mythology, I had been reading the Ramayana almost every night with her, telling her the story of ‘Ram-Sita’.

The work of Professor T.N. Madan is in the league of classical sociology in India, which echoes the issues that heralded the Lucknow School of Sociology in mid-twentieth century. Though there has been considerable discomfort in dubbing it a school of thought Lucknow did play a key role in the early sociology of India.

Chamars have emerged as an important political category capable of influencing larger electoral consequences in North Indian politics. It has been possible due to the ongoing struggle and movement in over a century inside the group.

As the struggle for self-determination and against oppression is being waged in Central and East India, this book is a timely contribution. It is a useful compilation of the different policy briefs and declarations by indigenous people, United Nations and international finance institutions (World Bank and Asian Development Bank) on the rights of indigenous people in the past two decades.

What is the relationship between the public histories of societies and movements, and the personal stories of individuals who participated in them, shaped their direction, and witnessed their transformation? Is there an aspect of history which we can access only through tracking the trajectories of an individual’s thinking and action? These questions are particularly pertinent in the case of political movements that possess a strong ethical orientation.

This interesting if hugely controversial story of Arjun Singh’s life takes off with a rather colourful phrase: ‘It all started when the first grain of sand fell into the crucible of time on 5 November 1930, the date on which I came into this world.’

‘E- governance’ is now commonly referred to as the fourth wave of administrative reforms. In India as well, the verve of E-Governance based initiatives, which began in the late 1990s continue to be seen as the primary mechanism for improving service delivery.

This handbook deals with a wide range of India’s economic development experiences on poverty, industrialization, displacement, demography, institutional reforms, macroeconomic reforms, sectoral reforms and issues related to globalization, besides giving a sketch of India’s development experience at the macro-level both from colonial and post-Independence periods.

The book under review brings together fifty-one book reviews and essays written by A. G. Noorani over the past four decades.