Chapter 4, on page 99 of Zitzewitz’s book The Art of Secularism begins with a quote by painter Gulammohammed Sheikh where he says, ‘in one sense it is the communal situation that opened doors to understand the role of religion in life.
History always offers rich pickings and an edited volume of rigorous historical research seldom disappoints. Shifting Ground: People, Animals and Mobility in India’s Environmental History is an excellent example and one thing can certainly be said about it—that even though a little unevenly, it shifts ground very effectively.
This is a collection of forty-nine articles, transcripts of speeches and lectures by a former diplomat divided into seven sections of seven pieces each; seven to represent the sapta-chiranjeevi or seven immortal beings in the Hindu pantheon; each section carries a helpful subtitle, Hanuman as the first Indian diplomat to be sent abroad, Vibheeshana who stands for righteousness and so on.
The Indo-US relationship assumes importance in a multipolar world with shifting alliances—new partnerships are being formed, some are being renewed and others are breaking up. The US and India have never been as aligned as they are today.
Given the plethora of debates that have come up in the last few years on the stability of Pakistan, Pakistan: Making The Economy Move Forward, makes an attempt to address this key stability-instability paradox, by critically examining the strengths and faultlines of Pakistan’s economy.
Kaushik Roy takes a long view of the processes that have shaped the geo¬politics of Afghanistan, unlike most of its recently published military histories. In his words, this publication consists of a political and military narrative of Afghanistan’s conventional and unconven¬tional warfare spanning five centuries.