Book Review

Articles

• Choices, Priorities, Freedoms and Mahbub ul Haq | Aijaz Ahmed
  25 May 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Reflections on Human Development Edited by Mahbub ul Haq
  Oxford University Press Inc. UK
  1996, 272 pages Price: 34 pounds
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  The central theme of Mahbub ul Haq’s book, Reflections on Human Development, revolves around a novel development paradigm centered on human well-being. It argues that while income growth is important, it should not be seen as the sole indicator of development nor as the ultimate goal of human life. (…)

• Review: Switala on A Social Ecology of Capital by Eric Pineault
  25 August 2023

  BOOK REVIEW
  Reviewed by Leon Switala
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  A Social Ecology of Capital by Éric Pineault
  Pluto Press 2023. 176 pp. Paperback ISBN: 9780745343778 eBook ISBN: 9780745343792 __0__
  In a recently held presentation, the Canadian sociologist Éric Pineault stated that he was writing his book to show that on a theoretical and empirical basis ‘there is nothing between degrowth and green growth’. He gives systematic arguments that neither position for a growth perspective seems to be (…)

• Review of Alpa Shah’s The Incarcerations | Anand Chakravarti
  4 May 2024, by Anand Chakravarti

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India
  by Alpa Shah
  HarperCollins Publishers India 2024, xxii + 561pp. Rs.699 P-ISBN 978-93-5489-986-7 (Paperback)
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  This is a book by a scholar of conscience – one who is deeply affected by the perverse use of state power to incarcerate sixteen persons accused of conspiring against the state in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case (henceforth BK case, and (…)

• Review of Svetlana Alexievich’s Zinky Boys | John Lloyd
  23 March 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  ZINKY BOYS: The Record of a Lost Soviet Generation
  by Svetlana Alexievich
  translated by Julia Whitby and Robin Whitby.
  Chatto, 192 pp., January 1992 0 7011 3838 6
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  Among the many thoughts which this sad, sometimes unreadably sad book suggests is this: did the Afghan war mark the beginning of the most dramatic military event of our time, the dissolution of the Soviet Armed Forces? Did the crumbling of belief and will (…)

• Commanding prescription for furthering justice through privileging politics over economics | Vijay Kumar
  25 May 2024, by Vijay Kumar

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Justice by Means of Democracy
  by Danielle Allen
  Indian Print by Satyam Books Pvt. Ltd. 2023 Page 282 Price Rs.995/-
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  The ‘Theory of Justice’ by John Rawls was published in 1971, and since then has been holding the reign of most original work, at least in the post-second World War. The fundamental of Rawlsian paradigm was challenged first time by Prof. Amartya Sen in ‘Idea of Justice’ in 2009 by shifting the focus from (…)

• A poignant docu-memoir on the Sikhs of Kashmir | Joydip Ghosal
  2 November 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Those Who Stayed, The Sikhs of Kashmir by Bupinder Singh Bali
  Manjul Publishing House Pvt Ltd 2024, 308 pages ISBN-10 ? : ? 9355436297 ISBN-13 ? : ? 978-9355436290
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  Those Who Stayed, The Sikhs of Kashmir by Bupinder Singh Bali is a poignant narrative on the Sikhs of Kashmir. In this deeply personal saga, he interweaved their past, present and future which stared at deep abyss of uncertainty. In mainstream media and (…)

• Henschel. Review of Rosamund Johnston’s, Red Tape: Radio and Politics in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1969
  28 September 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Red Tape: Radio and Politics in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1969
  by Rosamund Johnston
  Stanford Studies on Central and Eastern Europe Series
  Stanford University Press
  2024. 308 pp.
  (paper), ISBN 978-1-5036-3869-3
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  Reviewed by Frank Henschel (Kiel University)
  Communism on Air
  Rosamund Johnston

• Burn Manipur, Burn! Documenting State-Sponsored Brutalities | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  19 July 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  Viewing Indian Polity from the Prism of Manipur: A Compendium on the Continuing Manipur Conflict and Crisis
  Compiled by: Dr Syeda Hameed, Clifton D’Rozario
  Manak Publications, USA Pages: 119; Price: Rs 400/$ 15
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  There cannot be a much better example than Manipur to prove the abject and colossal failure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-touted and supposedly magical “double engine government”.
  Modi’s long silence on (…)

• How America
  14 June 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]
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  The Long Southern Strategy:
  How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics
  by Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields
  Oxford University Press:
  Pages: xxiii + 534
  ISBN-10 ? : ? 0190265965
  ISBN-13 ? : ? 978-0190265960
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  For a long time, Democrats had painted the entire southern United States blue, winning the hearts of the white majority in the sprawling region. There was a reason for this. The Democratic Party (…)

• AMU: Institution of Learning or Intellectual Ghetto? | M.R. Narayan Swamy
  22 February 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
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  AMU: Institution of Learning or Identity
  by Anil Maheshwari and Arjun Maheshwari
  Ink/Occam
  Pages: xvii + 431; Price: Rs 899
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  Anil Maheshwari, the lead author I know, is as secular an Indian as one can be. The book recognises, and rightly so, how the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has come under repeated and unfair attacks from the Hindu Right because of its Islamic character. The authors are against the Modi government