This book is important—not as a study of the American police—as for projecting the bias inherent in police-acade¬mic collaboration. Public criticism of police harassment of minorities and dissidents, the failure to con¬trol rising crime, in countered by a better appreciation of police work through research programmes into police performance.
The book under review forms the substance of a seminar held in 1979. It was jointly organized by National Insti¬tute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi and International Insti¬tute of Educational Planning, Paris. The two papers, ‘Edu¬cational Disparities, World Politics and the New Inter¬national Economic Order’ by Johann Galtung and ‘Inequal¬ities in Education and In¬equalities in Employment’ by Louis Emmerij were among the background papers circu¬lated at the seminar. The seminar focussed on three main themes: Role of edu¬cation in: a) Reduction of in-equalities in income and wealth; b) Increase in emp¬loyment; and c) Development of rural area.
Education Under Siege is the outcome of the doctoral thesis of Nirmal Singh. The investi¬gator has studied seven colleges under private manage¬ment in the City of Kanpur at micro-level in the broad frame of the growth and deve¬lopment of higher education in India at the macro-level.
The book under review is the fifth in the series of annuals brought out by Sage Publica¬tions in cooperation with the Section on the Political Eco¬nomy of the World-System of the American, Sociological Association. As indicated by the Series. Editor, Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘the intent of this series of annuals is to reflect and inform the intense theo¬retical and empirical debates about the ‘Political. Economy of the World-System’ (PEWS).
Aurobindo Ghose pierced the veil of Vedic mysticism during the second decade of this century. His line was followed up by masters like Nolinikanta Gupta, Kapali Shastri and others. Simultaneously, Swami Pratyagatmananda revealed the Vedic vision of Sound in Japasutram and the deep scientific basis of Veda in Ved-O-Vijnan; and Ramendrasundar Trivedi laid bare the symbolism of Vedic ritual in Yajna-katha. Kshitimohan Sen discovered the link be¬tween the Vedas and Baul—the most progressive dharma of the world.
When any institution has functioned for a considerable length of time of 30 years, it calls for an examination of its successes and failures. From that point of view, Prof. Umashankar Joshi, the former President of the Sahitya Akademi, was perfect¬ly justified when he stressed on the assessment of 25 years of its existence the need to have ‘a close, even a hard, look’ at the working of the Akademi.