Vol. XII No. 3,May/June 1988

Islam and Muslims are quite important subjects not only in India but in the world at large. The Middle East always remains in the news thanks to many regional conflicts in the area.

If daily news and commentary can be likened to an enormous and often indiges­tible meal, the daily cartoon must surely be—at least in the Indian context—the pickle, something to make you take a sharp breath or smack your lips or, on the rare occasion, force a muted expletive.

Earlier, texts were illustrated by pictures; today photographs are more often supple-mented by texts. This book is a collection of very beautiful photographs of the better-known monuments of Delhi, by a well-known photographer. It is not a guide-book, for it lacks the professional¬ism of one—no map, no index, no chronological chart (which is necessary in a book written entirely in terms of the various rules of Delhi), no bibliography.

The importance of the education of the handicapped is now universally recognized. All over the world special education is increasingly demanding and getting attention. In the developed countries interest in special education is certainly not new, issues involved in special education have been discussed, debated and acted upon since the last century.

Any publication in the value of the socio¬economic dimensions of education in India is a welcome addition as study in the field is much needed and writings are few and far between. This rather compre¬hensive collection of readings embraces a number of vital issues presented for dis¬cussion at a conference held at the McGill University in Montreal in June 1985.

Viswarupa is usually synonymous with the dazzling revelation of Krishna’s infinite divinity, as narrated in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita. The visual association that has gained popular vali¬dity is that of Vishnu, standing like a veritable pillar and the entire Hindu pantheon arranged around and in the space inhabited by the principal deity.

Two important books have appeared recently which seriously examine the environ-mental problems with the inten¬tion of working out a strategy for sur¬vival. These books differ in more than one way from each other. Still there is a commonality—they agree that all major malfunctions in society are ecolo¬gical. They intend to see ecology emerge as a ‘super’ subject, just like August Comte saw sociology and Karl Marx saw political economy.

In some recent literature on aspect of food problem, there is a welcome initia¬tive to look at some long neglected areas. For example, problems like pollution or depletion of drinking water sources, loss of forest-based foods including fruits, flowers and roots which prove particularly useful in drought years, the conversion of staple foods of the poor into luxury foods of the rich though various processing technologies, and of course the growing problem of wood-fuel shortage.

The Centre for Policy Research has a knack of selecting issues of national importance, investigating them in all aspects and bringing out policy impli¬cations for the benefit of planners and practitioners. The focus of this publication is on one such issue of great national significance i.e. people’s participation in family planning without which there is no guarantee that the programme will succeed in future.

The epistemological problem pervades all research. Demographic research is no exception. In fact, the epistemological problem seems to be more serious in demographic research which is characteri¬zed by large-scale sample surveys. Any¬thing smaller than a sample size of 5,000-10,000 households and as many respon¬dents is not only ridiculed but also frown¬ed upon.

The Security of South Asia edited by Stephen Cohen presents a thought provo¬king perspective contributed to by some of the principal commentators in the field, as they look ahead to the sub-continent’s future and examine the implications for the rest of the world.

For those not born to it, Hinduism is not an easy religion to understand, much less to warm up to. And it has not been well served by exegetists—both Indian and non-Indian—who been have swept off their feet by the epistemological and ontological absolutism of Adwaita Vedanta and have therefore tended to over¬emphasize the ‘other-worldliness’ of the Hindu view of life.