Identifying the core areas and patterns, the authors set out to unravel the contemporary context of mediatization of public life leading to the emergence of media-public or info-public. New keywords like Twitterati, WhatsApp-publics, Media public, Info public, though coming to limelight, mediatized public sphere continues to follow the ‘pre-existing grammar of political mobilization’
As is well known, after his return to India in 1915, Gandhi launched the noncooperation movement in the 1920s and the civil disobedience satyagraha in the 1930s. These were the decades when the loin cloth-clad Gandhi was viewed as a bit of a rustic rockstar by the people of Tamil Nadu. Wherever Gandhi travelled in the old Madras State, people would get wind of his whereabouts and proceed to mob him in hundreds or thousands.
The merit of the study is that it breaks the stereotype of the analysis of the State’s contemporary politics from a myopic view of religious identity.
Despite several biographical works on Azad, a definitive biography was still awaited because the previous biographers had not explored adequately the Urdu writings of Azad and other such sources. This new biography by S Irfan Habib, a Delhi-based historian with a firm grasp on the Urdu language attempts to fill the gap by uncovering some of the enigmatic aspects of Azad’s life, thought and politics. In doing so, he has made extensive use of Azad’s works in Urdu and brought to the fore the enriching and curious facts associated with him.
Desai’s introspection in this book is of a deeper significance and for that reason should be of utmost importance to any thinking person within and beyond ideological boundaries. Modi’s India would have to wake up from its euphoric slumber and grapple with the truth that economics is about people and not about growth rates, though the relationship between the two is a complicated one.
The book provides a commentary on the relevance of the growing numbers of free trade agreements among different countries in the global economy, with a special reference to India. FTAs have a lot of significance for India. This is not only when India participates in such arrangements with one or the other trade partners but also without direct participation.