Indian puppetry is unique for it has 17 or 18 distinct traditional forms. The most well known are Katputlis or the traditional string puppets of Rajasthan. Thus the word for ‘puppet’ in Hindi, namely ‘Katputli’ is synonymous with these traditional puppets from Rajasthan.
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December 2008 . VOLUME 32, NUMBER 12India has been aptly recognized as a melting pot, displaying a large degree of cultural diversity. This diversity has also manifested in tolerance and sensitivity towards nature. The omnipresence of birds, their distribution across vast zoogeographic zones, their dazzling hues and acoustic skills make them special.
The author often uses the term ‘brown’ interchangeably with ‘Indian’. Roy seems to be blissfully unaware of the racial connotations behind the casual usage of ‘brown’ to describe Indian officers and men.
This is a part of the series, ‘New perspectives in South Asian History’, a path-breaking work on the history of Indian Railways during the colonial period, with a comprehensive ‘Introduction’ by the editor.
Ramin Jahanbegloo is unusual in more ways than one. He is an Indologist in the best sense of the word. But he is not a scholar in the pay of sinister imperialists. He is an Iranian intellectual who studies India, writes about India and unabashedly loves India.
As independent India, under the leadership of Nehru, embarked on the ‘slippery path of progress’, it soon became clear that the path was not just slippery, but was also hampered by multiple roadblocks, u-turns, crossroads and obstructions ahead.
2008
Alas if this was actually so! Border regions in India are like dead ends; they are terminal points and lead nowhere. They do not connect regions and they do not allow passage. Absence of contact and connectivity creates a feeling of isolation and leads often to hostility rather than friendliness with neighbours.
This book is unique in that it looks at Delhi as a site of play of power, cooption and contestation between authoritarian governance of colonial power—its utopian imagery at odds with the material practice by the native Indians.
Much ink has flowed in the academic debates about Indian writing in English and translations from Indian languages into English, the respective merits and demerits of each, their importance or lack of it,
Premchand occupies a unique position in Indian literature. He shaped the genre of fiction in two language literatures, i.e., Urdu and Hindi, by giving it a realistic base, diverting it of its preoccupation with the world of fantasy and romance.
2008
Bama’s Vanmam is in many ways a marked departure from her earlier works Karukku and Sangati. Moving away from her earlier autobiographical mode Vanmam steers clear of the familiar confessional, conversational tone and adopts a linear, descriptive,
During the December 2007 music festival in Chennai, I attended a dance performance by Alarmel Valli. The programme included a short piece, based on a verse from Madurai Meenakshiammai Pillaittamil.
Three miraculous events have happened on this earth: the birth of three men of great purity of soul (mahashuddhatma), many years apart in time—and in countries far away from each other. They taught the world a mantra of immense significance.
2008
Meera Kosambi’s earlier collection of essays, Crossing Thresholds: Feminist Essays in Social History (2007) had introduced us to the writer Kashibai Kanitkar (1861-1948). This reviewer had been particularly intrigued by Kosambi’s section on Kanitkar’s utopian novella Palkhicha Gonda (The Palanquin Tassel, written in the late 1890s but published in 1928).
The structures of the institutions of family, society and the state acquire new dimensions when seen from women’s perspective. Factors like religion, social values and hierarchies intertwined with patriarchy play an important role in moulding women’s lives.
2008
This collection of articles reflects in essence the dark brooding face of Kerala: the violence faced by women of all classes, castes and communities, experienced within families, at workplaces, and several institutions. What the studies also do emphatically is to extend what is already being established over several years now: that in addition to a socio-economic paradox,
2008
It is a truism to say that the index of the civilization is the status of its women. The honour and manhood of the state also rests on its capacity to shield and protect its women particularly the weak and the vulnerable. The Indian widow has for long been a metaphor for the humility and capacity for self sacrifice to inspire the Indian fighting for the freedom of his country thanks to Mahatma Gandhi.
This book as the title implies, covers three of the most important issues in development namely gender, food security and rural livelihoods. Finding enough to eat still remains a major concern for at least a third of the Indian population despite high levels of growth and substantial investment in rural development.
The waves of liberalization and globalization in the Indian economy since the early 1990s have thrown up new challenges for labour. With the advent of new forms of production organizations, necessitated by the integration of markets, there have been drastic alterations in technologies used and processes handled by small enterprises in the country.
The updated and improvised new estimates on global poverty released by a World Bank study last August have opened up a new debate on the impact of these estimates on the poverty profiles of developing countries.