‘But the burden of every death can be assumed symbolically by a culture and a social memory (that is even their essential function and their justification, their raison d´être). Culture and memory limit the ‘reality’ of individual death to this extent, they soften or deaden it in the realm of the symbolic.’…
The book starts off quietly and gently, almost too quietly—the same momentum is sustained throughout—but gradually draws the reader into the world created by the author. There are fascinating glimpses into the world of Sudan in the 1950s and the tentative forays into modernity, all seen through the eyes of a wealthy and influential family that has had its share of tragedy and relationship conflict issues…
Savia Viegas’s debut novel Tales from the Attic (2007) brought to life the fascinating but fast vanishing world of a Catholic community in South Goa. The novella’s protagonist Mari is in an operation theatre for hysterectomy. In the process of losing consciousness under the care of an impatient anesthetist, she reminisces about her childhood in a village in Salcete where every one ‘had the same surname and shared a blood kinship and had big empty houses…
Pahari Paintings of an Ancient Romance:The Love Story of Usha-Aniruddh, brings to our reach the entire run of the great romance Usha-Aniruddha, popular amongst the art patrons, during a certain period of history in India…
When thinking about the significance and meaning of images, one must remember that art works are produced through specific historical contexts, and then subsequently encountered in diverse settings by people with wide ranging ideological dispositions…
The name of S. Balachander (1927-1990) is less well known now than it used to be, but there was a time when he was regarded by many, and certainly by himself, as a major player on the Carnatic stage. Younger readers will scoff, but there was a world before internet and Wikipedia…
There is a sudden spurt of interest in Sufism among a section of our population that did not have such an interest a decade or two ago, and there are several reasons for this. Some were introduced to Sufism and its spiritual philosophical moorings through interactions…
This book grew out of an exhibition by the same name that was organized by the Asia Society, New York with the help and support of several institutions, museums and private collections, including the Government of India…
It is a rare study that can encompass within its bounds the writings of the Sikh Gurus as well as several other writers who followed and then draw threads of arguments that run from sacred texts to later polemical essays in order to develop a holistic view of the evolution of various aspects of the Sikh faith…
In the streets of Portau-Prince, the capital of Haiti, armed members of the disbanded military move around in cars and engage in target practice by shooting down children on the streets of the city…
Economic Reforms and Growth in India is a collection of articles from the Economic and Political Weekly on the Indian growth trajectory in the post-liberalization period. The articles are spread between the years 2004 to 2010 focussing mainly on those article written in the later stages of the economic reforms. The introduction to the book by Balakrishnan offers an overview to the five sections in which the book has been divided, and provides a rationalization for the compilation…
The relationship between financial development and economic growth is well documented in the economic development literature. More recently, the debate has expanded to include financial inclusion as a necessary condition for sustaining equitable growth…
As libraries in most universities in India are in decline, books unavailable and institutes out of reach, there is a fear that many of the most incisive and important articles written by scholars get lost to the new generation of scholarship…
Part of the four sets of Readers that have been designed by the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur as Readings in Gender Studies, this happens to be the second volume of the first set. The other three are listed as forthcoming and having gone through the already published material, one looks forward to the forthcoming publications…
There has been a huge academic industry on Kerala’s demographic transition.Birth rates in Kerala began to decline in the second half of the 20th century despite little urbanization, industrialization, and economic growth—key factors that had led to demographic transition in the West in the 19th century…
This volume of the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru covers the period of two months from November 1957 till December 1957. Its relevance is two fold. One, it contains enough data to throw light on some important facets of Nehru’s life and politics. Two, like earlier volumes on the 1950s, this too has a contemporaneity. Many of the issues that Nehru talked about and engaged with are still with us in some form or the other, some unresolved and some unresolvable…
The book under review represents a scholarly endeavour to analyse the role of ideas in the interpretation of Indo-Muslim politics since the time of its advent in the mid-nineteenth century till the vivisection of India in 1947…
The decades following the Independence of India witnessed the study of early Indian history taking significant strides in more than one direction and thereby adding new and fresh dimensions in the realm of Indian historiography…
Nestled within an idyllic ecological environment, the hill stations have always been an ideal summer retreat. However, the quietude of these settlements and the tranquility of their landscapes belie a history of conflicts and negotiations mostly dated to the nineteenth century, between the hill communities and the British…
This is a volume of engaging essays intended as a festschrift in honour of the eminent sociologist, Professor A.M. Shah, edited by two of his former students who are today well known academics themselves. Covering a vast array of subjects, the volume is eclectic in character, bringing to the reader the freshness of each contributor’s individual on going academic interest…
The dominant scholarship on India’s North East is focused on the study of militancy and violence in the region. The concern of scholars, by and large, has been to understand and explain the conditions, circumstances and background driving the agendas of local identity movements, their grievances leading to radicalization in the public sphere, and the politics of militancy and their outcomes (Baruah 2005; Misra 2000; Hazarika 1994; Nag 1990)…