By Indira Chowdhury

Homi J. Bhabha, one of the stalwarts of Jawaharlal Nehru’s team who steered the growth of science in India, has always been a subject of great enthusiasm for historians of science. Often this interest in him has led to situating him within the frame of Nehruvian nationalism and the building of the nuclear technology establishment of the country, and of late, to addressing the relationship between science and the Indian state. The book under review veers away from these historiographical frames, and portrays Bhabha as an institution builder, and concentrates on the institutional history of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, one of the centres of scientific excellence in India.


Reviewed by: Shiju Sam Varughese
By Suman Gupta, Richard Allen, Subarno Chatterji, and Supriya Chaudhuri

The book under review examines the status of English Studies in India, as well as the aspirations pinned on it by students, teachers, policy makers and society. It is an invaluable resource book for academic readers who are interested in English Studies as a discipline at the higher education level. In this context, English Studies consists of the study of English literature, language, linguistics as well as cultural studies.


Reviewed by: Veena Kapur
By Daniel Haines

After the attack on an Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri sector on 18 September 2016 by the militants in which twenty Indian soldiers lost their lives, the Government of India gave a call to scrap the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) of 1960 between India and Pakistan. This created ripples in both countries. For Pakistan the Indus River System (IRS) is a lifeline and without water from the rivers constituting the system, the country would lose its existence. In India many welcomed this decision while some questioned its rationality.


Reviewed by: Amit Ranjan
Edited by T.V. Paul

The editor of the volume under review, T.V. Paul, is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. The book is rather dense and a difficult read, and consequently can only be recommended for the cognoscenti. Its 14 contributions are by well-chosen academics who attended a workshop with the theme ‘Globalisation and the Changing National Security State’ organized by the editor and his project team in late 2013.


Reviewed by: Ali Ahmed
Edited by Manuella Ciotti

Years of feminist research have taught   us that gender is a significant component of our identity. The script of gender may be provided by social norms but gender remains integral to how a self experiences his or her identity, as well as to how others identify one. Masculinity and femininity, as two dominant forms in which one’s gender identity is manifested, are the object of study in the articles being reviewed here. Manuella Ciotti’s edited Unsettling the Archetypes: Femininities and Masculinities in Indian Politics is a collection of articles which examines the effect on gender identities of political struggles of non-elite groups in Indian society and they negotiate their gender identity when they struggle against their non-elite status.


Reviewed by: Shefali Jha