This is a book about poor urban slum women and children using collective violence to contest their vulnerabilities. The author has attempted covert ethnographic research among Shiv Sena women belonging to the Mahila Aghadi, frequenting Sena women’s homes, ‘shakhas’ and meetings in temple premises.
This volume is a collection of seminar papers written by academics and police officers. Like all seminar papers, they are informative, at times insightful and repetitive. How original can a dozen speakers be, dealing with the same subject? Here they tend to be prolix as well. Not many chairpersons have succeeded in putting limits to academic verbosity on the podium.
Boris Kagarlitsky, one of Russia’s best known Marxist dissidents has written widely on a range of issues. His latest offering, one of his best, is a history of Russia (and the Soviet Union) that situates it firmly in a wider European and world framework
Thirty years ago Stephen Alter chose a name – Debrakot, for a hill station in which he depicted the lives of a bunch of people from the Anglo-Indian community. Alter has drawn stories out of their fantasies and fears, hopes and aspirations in the Indo-nostalgic style that is found in his writings.
Bindu Chawla has worked tirelessly to preserve the memories of her father the eminent teacher and vocalist Amarnath. A few years ago she brought out a stately volume Conversations With Pandit Amarnath – a series of interviews that Amarnath informally gave his daughter on vocalism and musicology.
Was there ever a diplomat that didn’t wield, A pen so deft it could normally yield A tome on topics as varied as politics or gastronomy, Or the limitations on ambassadorial autonomy? Kiran Doshi has surpassed in verse, Subjects on which one would normally be terse The question is, will it be understood Beyond the civil service brotherhood?