M.S.S. Pandian

The political trajectories of regions of India have been quite varied. Different regions have not only had diverse pasts but their post-colonial presents have also evolved differently. This has been despite the common colonial experience and a shared national framework of politics and economics over the last six decades. Caste has, for example,


Reviewed by: Surinder S. Jodhka
Fali S. Nariman

In 1985, addressing the bench and the bar on Law Day, Chief Justice P.N. Bhagwati declared: “the judicial system in the country is almost on the verge of collapse.” The “weight of arrears”, the hopelessness-inducing delays, the gamble that is litigation, the incapacity of the subordinate judiciary to attract talent,


Reviewed by: Usha Ramanathan
Gopa Sabharwal

This book which threatens to inundate you with unending details eventually promises you something: ethnicity is something that we need to look for as an explanation for the social dynamics of our urban settings. Ethnicity transcends such frameworks as caste with which sociologists have honed their craft hitherto and remains the mutating presence amidst the creeping universality.


Reviewed by: Valerian Rodrigues
Johanna Brenner

This book, written by a Marxist feminist who has been actively involved in the socialist and women’s movements since the 1970’s, is a collection of articles written from the mid-1980’s to 2000. It thus spans a period during which socialist-feminist associations gradually lost organizational strength,


Reviewed by: Wandana Sonalkar
Tanh-Dam Truong, Sasika Wieringa and Amrita Chhachi

The UN document on human security, Human Security Now, 2003, defines human security as the protection of the `vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedom and human fulfilment.’ Amartya Sen, who was a co-chair of the Commission which published the report,


Reviewed by: Ratna Kapur
Paul Ginsborg

The volume under review is an analysis of everyday local politics with a view to inventing new forms of democracy to foster participative citizenship. Taking off from the experience of a local civic protest movement in Florence in 2002 – what the author calls Florentine


Reviewed by: Amit Prakash