Noted Marxist theorists Leo Panitch and Greg Albo have edited the latest annual issue of The Socialist Register (2015) and devoted it to the analysis of class on a global scale. Comprised of as many as eighteen chapters, Transforming Classes covers various manifestations of classes in different parts of the world such as India, China, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa, Chile, Brazil, the USA and the regions of Europe.
In the last two decades a number of autobiographies have been published both in English and regional languages documenting the experience of dalit-ness and the constitution of the dalit self. Some of these autobiographies are by dalit women and it forefronts the gendered experience of caste, critiquing dalit men, the dalit movement and the mainstream feminist movement..
The known academic culture of India also harbours within it another unknown culture made up of provincial universities rooted in the spirit of the area.
At the core of the spread of mass schooling in democratic nations has been a set of ideas and beliefs. It is a widely held, if not universally accepted, view that not only does schooling provide individuals with important competencies; it is an important tool of social engineering and overall progress of a nation. A democratic nation has, therefore, important stakes in educating every child for as many years as possible regardless of social origin, geographic locations and economic circumstances.
Beginning in the 1970s, sociology of education in India has been marked more by debates and theories than field work. Ethnographies of Schooling in Contemporary India is an important contribution to this context. The essays presented in the volume under review are based on the study of everyday processes in different types of schools.
Part of the Oxford Series of short introductions Political Economy of Reforms in India by Rahul Mukherji runs over 200 pages. The book’s four compact chapters addressing the major themes of economic reforms and social change in a chaotic democracy delineates both the success of India’s growth model in the post-liberalization period as well as the predicaments of poor infrastructure, inefficient public delivery system and low literacy levels that it produces.