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Book review: Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and its Discontents South Asia Research Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Sharmila Narayana
Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and its Discontents (London: Profile Books, 2022), xiv + 178 pp.
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Book review: Nikhil Govind, The Moral Imagination of the Mahabharata South Asia Research Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Sheetala Bhat
Nikhil Govind, The Moral Imagination of the Mahabharata (New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2023), 161 pp.
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Book review: Simi Mehta, Vibhuti Patel and Satyam Tripathi, Advocating a Feminist Foreign Policy for India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Waseem Ahmad Bhat
Simi Mehta, Vibhuti Patel and Satyam Tripathi, Advocating a Feminist Foreign Policy for India (New Delhi: Impact and Policy Research Institute, 2023), 72 pp.
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Book review: Akshya Saxena, Vernacular English: Reading the Anglophone in Postcolonial India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Vani Krishnan
Akshya Saxena, Vernacular English: Reading the Anglophone in Postcolonial India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022), xiii + 206 pp.
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Book review: Ajeet Kumar Pankaj, Dalit Migrants: Assertion, Emancipation, and Social Change South Asia Research Pub Date : 2024-01-08 V. Kalyani
Ajeet Kumar Pankaj, Dalit Migrants: Assertion, Emancipation, and Social Change (Cham: Springer, 2023), xxiii + 140 pp.
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Book review: Sara Rizvi Jafree, Social Policy for Women in Pakistan South Asia Research Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Nasir Iqbal
Sara Rizvi Jafree, Social Policy for Women in Pakistan (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), xxv + 382 pp.
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Traditional Hierarchies of Zamindars and Kammis in Pakistani Punjab: Contemporary Contests Through Vartan Bhanji South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-05-12 Abdul Qadar, Arslan Waheed
This article challenges the traditional understanding of the role of landownership in rural Punjab in the context of recent socio-economic restructuring of Pakistani society. Based on extensive eth...
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Bombay Lights: Gas Light and the Transition to a Modern City South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Jesse S. Palsetia
Gas lighting, part of a re-envisioning of cities as modern metropoles, was one of the first ‘modern’ technologies implemented in nineteenth century Bombay. The debates over the implementation of ga...
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Environmental Law With Non-Human Features in India: Giving Legal Personhood to the Ganges South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Moe Nakazora
Against the wider backdrop of a global acceleration of Right of Nature (RoN) legal provisions, this article focuses on recent Indian court cases that created legal personhood for the Ganges and Yam...
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Land Ownership and Well-Being of Women in a Village in Kerala South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Ann Mary Chacko, Suma Scaria
This article scrutinises to what extent land ownership improves the well-being of women, focusing on a village in Kerala, a South Indian state known for its land reforms ‘model’ that provided land ...
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Exclusion of Pasmanda Muslims and Dalit Christians from the Scheduled Caste Quota South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Arvind Kumar
Based on a re-reading of the Indian Constituent Assembly Debates in light of subsequent developments, this article provides new insights about the extent to which the Indian constitution allows aff...
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Famine, Caste Differences and Missionary Christianity in Colonial India: Burning Hunger South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-05-06 Chakali Chandra Sekhar
This article sheds light on the conditions of Dalits, their experience of caste differences, discrimination and destitution during the Great Famine of 1876–78 in Rayalaseema, one of the Telugu-spea...
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Participatory Advocacy Journalism in Central India: ‘Every Reader is a Reporter’ South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-05-06 Annapurna Sinha
This case study of a community newspaper, Namaskar, and its impact in ‘underdeveloped’ areas of coastal Odisha in India, discusses the potential of alternative media for social change. It scrutinis...
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Mother Cow and Maternal Behaviour in Colonial North India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Lloyd Price
This article offers a historical analysis of the interdisciplinary question to what extent animal behaviour influences domestication, by exploring how socio-cultural representations of cows as moth...
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Book Review: Riho Isaka, Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c. 1850-1960 South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Amrita Shodhan
Riho Isaka, Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c. 1850-1960 (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), xii + 193 pp.
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Book Review: Fakrul Alam, Reading Literature in English and English Studies in Bangladesh: Postcolonial Perspectives South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Mohammad A. Quayum
Fakrul Alam, Reading Literature in English and English Studies in Bangladesh: Postcolonial Perspectives (Dhaka: writers.ink, 2021), xvii + 518 pp.
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Book Review: Mashal Saif, The ‘Ulama in Contemporary Pakistan: Contesting and Cultivating an Islamic Republic South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Muneeb Yousuf
Mashal Saif, The ‘Ulama in Contemporary Pakistan: Contesting and Cultivating an Islamic Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), xii +320 pp.
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Gender Bargaining Within Matriliny in Kerala South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Lekha N.B.
This article presents ethnographic evidence to illustrate how Nayar women in Kerala from three different generations encounter the interplay of changed gender and property relations and seek to bal...
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Book Review: Sharat Sabharwal, India’s Pakistan Conundrum: Managing a Complex Relationship South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Mubashir Ahmad Shah
Sharat Sabharwal, India’s Pakistan Conundrum: Managing a Complex Relationship (New Delhi: Routledge, 2022) xi + 228 pp.
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Book Review: Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay, Paula Banerjee & Ranabir Samaddar (Eds), India’s Migrant Workers and the Pandemic South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Sharmila Narayana, Nia Susan Chaly
Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay, Paula Banerjee & Ranabir Samaddar (Eds), India’s Migrant Workers and the Pandemic (New York: Routledge, 2022), viii + 285 pp.
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Book Review: Megha Anwer and Anupama Arora (Eds), Bollywood’s New Woman: Liberalisation, Liberation, and Contested Bodies South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Priyam Sinha
Megha Anwer and Anupama Arora (Eds), Bollywood’s New Woman: Liberalisation, Liberation, and Contested Bodies (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press, 2021), vi + 213 pp.
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Book Review: Koichi Fujita and Tsukasa Mizushima (Eds), Sustainable Development in India: Groundwater Irrigation, Energy Use, and Food Production South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Rama Shankar Sahu
Koichi Fujita and Tsukasa Mizushima (Eds), Sustainable Development in India: Groundwater Irrigation, Energy Use, and Food Production (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), xvii + 248 pp.
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Book Review: Patrick Inglis, Narrow Fairways: Getting By & Falling Behind in the New India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Werner Menski
Patrick Inglis, Narrow Fairways: Getting By & Falling Behind in the New India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), xvi + 301 pp.
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Decolonising the Gateway of India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-01-07 Rajeev Kumaramkandath
This article interrogates how a colonial monument, the Gateway of India in Mumbai, former Bombay, continues to carry and be endowed with a title that is a misplaced embodiment of Indian social hist...
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Nautch, Thuggee and Criminality in Nineteenth-Century Colonial India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2023-01-07 Nibedita Kuiry, Akshaya K. Rath
Nineteenth-century colonial India witnessed the much-hyped anti-thuggee campaign, instrumental in creating an elaborate archive of frequent commentaries, opinions on banditry, prisoners and their t...
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Parsi Identity: Myth and Collective Memories South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-10-11 Snober Sataravala
This article discusses the politics of identity and narratives of the Parsi minority community in India, who are Indian Zoroastrians on the brink of extinction. The mapping of the mythical construc...
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Teaching Online During the Covid Pandemic in Rural Bhutan: Challenges and Coping Strategies South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-10-11 Thinley Wangdi, Amit Rai
The adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teachers and students has been discussed in different contexts of education, mostly focused on challenges of the imposed transition from physical to v...
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The Gurkha Knife in Polish Second World War Memoirs South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-10-11 Paulina Stanik
The Second World War created numerous opportunities for intercultural encounters, including contacts between soldiers of the 2nd Polish Corps and the Gurkhas of the British Indian Army. This articl...
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Book review: Madhushree Ghosh, Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory, and Family South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Namrata Chowdhury
Madhushree Ghosh, Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory, and Family (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2022), xiv + 194 pp.
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Book review: Indudharan Menon, Hereditary Physicians of Kerala: Traditional Medicine and Ayurveda in Modern India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Saurav Kumar Rai
Indudharan Menon, Hereditary Physicians of Kerala: Traditional Medicine and Ayurveda in Modern India (London and New York, Routledge: 2019), xiii + 237 pp.
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Book review: Bala Ramulu Chinnala, Marginalized Communities and Decentralized Institutions in India: An Exclusion and Inclusion Perspective South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 D. Ravinder
Bala Ramulu Chinnala, Marginalized Communities and Decentralized Institutions in India: An Exclusion and Inclusion Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2021), xviii + 141 pp.
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Book review: M.K. Raghavendra, Philosophical Issues in Indian Cinema: Approximate Terms and Concepts South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Devapriya Sanyal
M.K. Raghavendra, Philosophical Issues in Indian Cinema: Approximate Terms and Concepts (New Delhi: Routledge, 2020), 182 pp.
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Book review: Nasir Uddin, The Rohingya: An Ethnography of ‘Subhuman’ Life South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Md Niamot Ali
Nasir Uddin, The Rohingya: An Ethnography of ‘Subhuman’ Life (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020), xviii + 248 pp.
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Book review: Sreeram Chaulia, Crunch Time: Narendra Modi’s National Security Crises South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Tahir Rashid Bhat
Sreeram Chaulia, Crunch Time: Narendra Modi’s National Security Crises (New Delhi: Rupa Publications, 2022), lviii + 277 pp.
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Book review: Geetanjali Srikantan, Identifying and Regulating Religion in India: Law, History and the Place of Worship South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Ayushi Dube
Geetanjali Srikantan, Identifying and Regulating Religion in India: Law, History and the Place of Worship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), viii + 251 pp.
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Book review: Sreejith K., The Middle Class in Colonial Malabar: A Social History South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Sreejith Murali
Sreejith K., The Middle Class in Colonial Malabar: A Social History (New Delhi, Manohar Books, 2021), xiv + 191 pp.
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Book review: Usha Sanyal, Scholars of Faith: South Asian Muslim Women and the Embodiment of Religious Knowledge South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Saadia Sumbal
Usha Sanyal, Scholars of Faith: South Asian Muslim Women and the Embodiment of Religious Knowledge (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020), xiv + 410 pp.
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Book review: Aditya K. Mishra, Agriculture, Technology and Globalization: A Social Capital Perspective South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Rama Shankar Sahu
Aditya K. Mishra, Agriculture, Technology and Globalization: A Social Capital Perspective (New Delhi: Serials Publications, 2019), xxix + 265 pp.
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Book review: Velayutham Saravanan, Water and the Environment History of Modern India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Vikas Kumar
Velayutham Saravanan, Water and the Environment History of Modern India (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), xviii + 243 pp.
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Book review: Bridget Backhaus, Polyphony: Listening to the Listeners of Community Radio South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Chaitanya Shinkhede
Bridget Backhaus, Polyphony: Listening to the Listeners of Community Radio (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), ix + 176 pp.
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Book review: Shanta Gokhale, Shivaji Park: Dadar 28: History, Places, People South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Shivani Chunekar
Shanta Gokhale, Shivaji Park: Dadar 28: History, Places, People (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger Books, 2020), 169 pp.
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Book review: Amartya Sen, Home in the World: A Memoir South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Soni Wadhwa
Amartya Sen, Home in the World: A Memoir (London: Allen Lane, 2021), xv + 464 pp.
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History of Serampore as a Danish Trading Post, 1755–1845 South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-07-01 Arpita Bose
Serampore, a small town of West Bengal, today virtually a suburb of Kolkata, has an unusual history and heritage as a Danish trading post/colony between 1755 and 1845. Creating a bustling, well-organised town, the Danes introduced various reforms which prepared the nineteenth-century awakening in Bengal. While the history of this Danish involvement at Serampore awaits fuller archival research, this
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Changing Birth Practices in India: Oils, Oxytocin and Obstetrics South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-07-01 Sreeparna Chattopadhyay, Suraj Jacob
Institutional births increased in India from 39% to 79% between 2005 and 2015. Drawing from 17 months of fieldwork, this article traces the shift from home to hospital births across three generations in a hamlet in Assam in Northeast India. Here, too, one finds that most births have shifted from home to hospital in less than a decade, aided by multiple factors. These include ‘free’ birthing facilities
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Lingayat Assertions of Identity in Colonial Karnataka: Caste, Census and Politics of Representation South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-06-29 Vijayakumar M. Boratti
In the wider context of how census enumeration has been studied with varied academic interests in South Asian history, this article focuses on how the Lingayats of Karnataka, since the colonial period, received, negotiated and manipulated their hurtful description in the 1881 Census as a low-caste Hindu community, defending themselves against British and Brahmins’ misuse of taxonomic navigation.
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Changing Food Habits of Urban Middle-Class Youth in India: ‘Ordering In’ South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Rituparna Patgiri
The liberalisation of the Indian economy facilitated significant changes in the eating habits of urban middle-class Indians since the 1990s. While there have been studies on food and Indian society before liberalisation, on ‘street food’ and the impact of restaurants and practices of eating out after liberalisation in India, the rising phenomenon of ‘ordering in’ has remained relatively under-researched
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Book review: Rajesh S.N. Raj and Subash Sasidharan, Small Firm Ownership and Credit Constraints in India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Sarthak Basu
Rajesh S.N. Raj and Subash Sasidharan, Small Firm Ownership and Credit Constraints in India (New York and London: Routledge, 2020), 216 pp.
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Book review: Khalid Bashir Ahmad, Kashmir. Looking Back in Time: Politics, Culture, History South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Mukhtar Ahmad Bhat
Khalid Bashir Ahmad, Kashmir. Looking Back in Time: Politics, Culture, History (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2021), 428 pp.
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Book review: Abdul Basit, Hostility: A Diplomat’s Diary on Pakistan-India Relations South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Mukhtar Ahmad Bhat
Abdul Basit, Hostility: A Diplomat’s Diary on Pakistan-India Relations (Noida: HarperCollins, 2021), 331 pp.
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Book review: Farhat Basir Khan, The Game of Votes: Visual Media Politics and Elections in the Digital Era South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Tawseef Majeed
Farhat Basir Khan, The Game of Votes: Visual Media Politics and Elections in the Digital Era (New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2019), xix + 232 pp.
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Book review: Mélanie Vijayaratnam, Un Sari Rouge en Héritage South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Werner Menski
Mélanie Vijayaratnam, Un Sari Rouge en Héritage (Paris: Les Mondes de Parvati, 2021), 130 pp.
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Book review: Shah Mahmoud Hanifi (Ed.), Mountstuart Elphinstone in South Asia: Pioneer of British Colonial Rule South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Anubhav Pradhan
Shah Mahmoud Hanifi (Ed.), Mountstuart Elphinstone in South Asia: Pioneer of British Colonial Rule (London: Hurst & Company, 2019), xxxviii + 418 pp.
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Book review: Aparna Vaidik, Waiting for Swaraj: Inner Lives of Indian Revolutionaries South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Chinmaya Lal Thakur
Aparna Vaidik, Waiting for Swaraj: Inner Lives of Indian Revolutionaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 243 pp.
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Azad Kashmir Reflections in Vikram A. Chandra’s The Srinagar Conspiracy South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Goutam Karmakar
The contested identity of Kashmir and Kashmiris and their intrinsic pain of hoping for freedom [Azadi] have found expression through The Srinagar Conspiracy, a novel by Vikram A. Chandra (2000). The article highlights how, through the fractured friendship between a Muslim and a Kashmiri Pandit boy, Chandra traces the upsurge of militant insurgency in Kashmir in the late 1980s and 1990s. The article
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Sri Lankan Northern Tamils in Colombo: Broken Memories of Home South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-04-27 Diotima Chattoraj
The Sri Lankan conflict that officially ended in 2009 resulted not only in large numbers of Tamils leaving the country to join the vast global Tamil diaspora but also created many internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Sri Lanka’s Northern Tamil communities who settled in Colombo. This article examines the idea of home among such IDPs, showing how broken memories of an earlier home and different
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Indianness in Photography South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Maja Tabea Jerrentrup
This article explores the question whether there is a specifically Indian style of photography. A survey of photography students from various institutions revealed that though there is little clarity about the actual look of an Indian style of photography, students clearly define their own photographs as Indian. Intriguingly, the focus is less on certain visual characteristics, but more on the feelings
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MGNREGS Performance (2006–21): An Inter-State Analysis South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-04-10 Satyanarayana Turangi
With its several innovative features, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is considered to be a game changer for rural India. Assessing the first 15 years of its implementation, this article mainly presents collated key data on its performance in various Indian states and then seeks to explain why some indicators may look less successful in different states. Many
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Citizens’ Movement for Democracy and Peace: Mass Mobilisation in Nepal’s People’s Movement II South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-04-10 Chudamani Basnet
Based on interviews with journalists, political party leaders and civil society activists, this article examines and illustrates the strategic capacities of leadership in Nepalese efforts to bolster the movement for democracy. With the help of Bourdieu’s concepts of social, cultural and symbolic capitals, the article provides insights into the crucial role of key individuals as leaders and examines
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Labour Market for Young Urban Female Graduates in India South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-04-10 Deeksha Tayal, Sourabh Paul
This study examines long-term trends in the labour market outcomes of young urban female graduates in India. Using nationally representative employment data, we find that a rise in the adjusted labour force participation rate of young educated women (15–29 years) between 1999 and 2000 and 2011–12 was not accompanied by a corresponding improvement in their access to suitable employment opportunities
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Book review: Haoginlen Chongloi, History, Identity, and Polity of the Kukis: Narrating Colonial History and Historiography South Asia Research Pub Date : 2022-03-28 Ngamtinlun Touthang
Haoginlen Chongloi, History, Identity, and Polity of the Kukis: Narrating Colonial History and Historiography (Imphal: Hornbill Press, 2020), xvi + 202 pp.