What she said

Zubaan's new book edited by N Kamala brought to mind A K Ramanujam's wonderful translation (in The Interior Landscape, 1967) of a poem from the Kuruntokai,

What She Said

Bigger than earth, certainly,
higher than the sky,
more unfathomable than the waters
is this love for this man

            of the mountain slopes
            where bees make rich honey
            from the flowers of the kurinji
            that has such black stalks.
    

There are many dimensions to the craft of translation. In order to explore one very important aspect- gender- Kamala, a colleague in the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies at the JNU, has brought together some of the best translation scholars in India in Translating Women: Indian Interventions.

"While women's language, women's writings, and women's views about the world we live in have all been the focus of much debate and study, this book explores the translation of these experiences and these writings in the context of India, with its multifaceted, multilingual character. If women's language is different from the patriarchal language that forms the basis of communication in most language communities, what has been the impact of writings from the women's perspective and how have these writings been translated?

Indian women writers have been translated into English in the Indian context as well as into other western languages. What are the linguistic and cultural specificities of these literary productions? What is foregrounded and what is erased in these translations? What are the politics that inform the choices of the authors to be translated? What is the agency of the translators, and of the archivist, in these cultural productions? What is the role of women translators? These are some of the questions that this book explores.

The book contains an in-depth Introduction and an essay by the well-known writer Ambai on her experience of being translated."

In our Gender and Translation Studies sections, naturally. In hardcover, 300 pages, Rs 595, ISBN: 9788189884680

The Joy of Giving

The Scholars Cull Fest will happen next week, Friday 9 October.

At our Cull Fest, we give away books, free of charge*.

This year we have about 400 books to give, and it will be on offer at a location in the JNU, New Delhi. We'll keep you posted.

This does not occur in the Joy of Giving week being held in India from September 27 to October 3 for logistic reasons- the main one being that should you wish to contribute books to the Cull Fest, please let us know this week, and we will add your books to the books we intend to give away. Just give us a call at 99717 63322 or mail us at scholarswithoutborders@gmail.com, and we will come pick up the books...


* Although we do expect a contribution for the effort in bringing them to the giveaway site, something like Rs 10 per book.

American Mathematical Society titles

Universities Press, Hyderabad is a major publisher of science titles in the country. Their books are, for the most part, well produced, and given their long associations with many of the important educational establishments in the country, they are a fine substitute for the university press that most Indian universities lack.

They have recently tied up with the American Mathematical Society to reprint a number of titles that would be of interest to the mathematics community in the country. This is particularly important in the face of the forthcoming ICM, the International Congress of Mathematicians that will be held in Hyderabad next August.

• A Course in Algebra
  
• Cryptography: An Introduction
  
• Geometry of Differential Forms
  
• Global Calculus
  
• Number Theory
  
• Partial Differential Equations
  
• Principles of Functional Analysis
  
• Problems in Mathematical Analysis I: Real Numbers, Sequences and Series
  
• Problems in Mathematical Analysis II: Continuity and Differentiation
  
• Problems in Mathematical Analysis III: Integration
  
• Representations of Finite and Compact Groups by Barry Simon

These books are exceptional value, both in terms of content as well as of price, and Universities Press should be commended for bringing them to a wider audience.

Take the last title, for instance. Barry Simon is the IBM Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology and has written several other books, including such classics as Methods of Mathematical Physics (with M. Reed) and Functional Integration and Quantum Physics. This new book, based on courses given at Princeton, Caltech, ETH-Zurich, and other universities, is an introductory textbook on representation theory. According to the author, "Two facets distinguish my approach. First, this book is relatively elementary, and second, while the bulk of the books on the subject is written from the point of view of an algebraist or a geometer, this book is written with an analytical flavor".

The exposition in the book centers around the study of representation of certain concrete classes of groups, including permutation groups and compact semisimple Lie groups. It culminates in the complete proof of the Weyl character formula for representations of compact Lie groups and the Frobenius formula for characters of permutation groups. Extremely well tailored both for a one-year course in representation theory and for independent study, this book is an excellent introduction to the subject which, according to the author, is unique in having "so much innate beauty so close to the surface".

This set of AMS titles is listed in our Mathematics section. The books can only be sold in India; each of the titles is differently priced, but all are under Rs 999.

Women arising

Sirpa Tenhunen is a research fellow at the Academy of Finland and the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki who has worked extensively on India. The result of her study in Janta, a village in the Bankura District of West Bengal will be published shortly by Stree, Kolkata, titled Means of Awakening: Gender, Politics and Practice in Rural India.

Sirpa's ethnographically rich study of local politics and gender in rural India is based on her extensive fieldwork. Janta is a village near Bishnupur in Bankura, West Bengal, a state where the Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI(M), has been in power since 1977.

"She documents carefully how women are emerging in the forefront of political struggles and the rise of the opposition movements in rural West Bengal, a true marker of the momentous social and political change in India.

The book explores both women’s political participation and agency, including marriage, dowry and women’s role in the panchayats, local government in the villages. Her observations and interviews with both male and female political activists give a candid picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the CPI(M). She also observes how building of mobile networks has led to the intensification of rural networks.

Tenhunen argues that the gendered understanding of politics not only limits women’s political participation, but also enables and shapes women’s political action and critical discourses because the local concept of politics does not exclude home, kinship, and the women’s domain. She suggests that the notions of modernity and development are not applied in local disputes because of their universality or the supremacy of the Western model of modernization, but because these, through their local interpretations, offer concepts through which the taken-for-granted practices can be discussed and questioned, which in turn become means of awakening: of turning women’s personal experiences into questions of social change."

In our Gender and Anthropology sections, in paperback, 196 pages. Rs 345. ISBN: 978818604978

Perchance to dream

The South Asian Perspectives Network Association based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, has the very attractive acronym, SAPNA.

And they do dream, of better times for us all with perspectives that are grounded in extensive scholarship in development, in political thought, and in sociology.

The problems they address are old, legacies of the complex history of the region, and the solutions they propose, or the analysis they offer can be novel.

For instance, the viewpoint put forth in the Sage title Economic Democracy through pro-poor growth, edited by Ponna Wignaraja, Susil Sirivardana and Akmal Hussain that "addresses a central dilemma of our times from a perspective based on lessons from the ground—persistence of structural poverty after sixty years of independence amidst rapid economic growth, widening social anomie, political crisis and failing policy.

The collection presents an alternative school of thought which has been evolved by scholars and activists over decades, in which the poor are presented not as the problem but as an essential resource. Among this volume’s distinguishing ideas are: a new role for the poor, raising mass consciousness, a core methodology for transformation, restructuring the state, pro-poor partnerships for all social constituencies, insistence on holism and values, learning from the poor and new social movements, and eschewing a priori thinking. This perspective powerfully argues the validity and feasibility of sustainable and transformative societal change.

The compilation is rich in lucidly presented case studies and illustrative examples. The strategies advocated would catalyse the process of achieving political and economic democracy at the grassroots and facilitate sustainable development. They would also help in the democratization of the phase of transition and growth. This work is an excellent reference source for development economists and students, researchers and faculty studying governance, poverty and human rights, and issues of security and human rights."

In our Development Studies and Economics sections, in hardcover, 376 pages. Rs 695. ISBN 9788178298498

The book will be discussed at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library on the 30th September 2009, at 5 pm. Dr Karan Singh will lead the discussion, and some of the authors will be there...

Indian Ink

is a team of experienced and committed writers, editors, researchers, and publishing experts based in Jaipur, who are literary consultants, committed to enabling authors to publish Indian literature in all national and international languages.

Siyahi facilitate a broad spectrum of literary activities - from publishing opportunities for writers, to creating and planning literary events. Furthermore, they have their own initiative in the form of the Translating Bharat series of international conferences. One of these was Translating Bharat: Languages, Globalisation and the Right to be Read in January 2008, and another was the conference Mantles of Myth – The Narrative in Indian Textiles in December, 2008.

And now Voices from the North East which will be on 13 and 14 October 2009 at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. This will be a focused literary meet on the stories, tales and folk narratives of the North East India. These "seven sister" states have a distinct indigenous culture where myths, oral traditions, legends and folklore are commonplace and yet unique.

The event "will take into account the quantum of diversity in art and culture, which is evident from the multitude of languages, ethnic groups and their common collective memory. It will deal with the art of storytelling in context to the development of North Eastern culture and civilization [and] will bring authors, poets, storytellers and performers together to engage in a cultural dialogue and understand the North Eastern literature in all its myriad forms and dimensions."

A rare chance to hear the distinctive voices of Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Temsula Ao, Mamang Dai and Bijoya Sawian, among others.

Anatomy of a Pogrom

A book that remains relevant, regardless of the several years that have passed since it first appeared is Siddharth Varadarajan's Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy.

The Nanavati-Mehta judicial inquiry commission has based its conclusion that the Godhra train carnage was a “pre-planned conspiracy”. Siddharth Varadarajan's edited volume, published by Penguin in 2002, talks about the the circumstances leading up to Godhra and the violence in Ahmedabad, Baroda and rural Gujarat.

"This book is intended to be a permanent public archive of the tragedy that is Gujarat. Drawing upon eyewitness reports from the English, Hindi and regional media, citizens’ and official fact-finding commissions—and articles by leading public figures and intellectuals—it provides a chilling account of how and why the state was allowed to burn.

With an overview by the editor, the reader covers the circumstances leading up to Godhra and the violence in Ahmedabad, Baroda and rural Gujarat. Separate sections deal with the role of the police, bureaucracy, Sangh Parivar, media and the tribals, the economic and international implications of the violence, the problems of relief and rehabilitation of the victims, and, above all, their quest for justice. The picture that emerges is deeply disturbing, for Gujarat has exposed the ease with which the rights of citizens, and especially minorities, can be violated with official sanction. The lessons of the violence ought to be heeded and acted upon by the public. For, in the absence of this, can another Gujarat be prevented from happening elsewhere?"

In our History and Politics sections, 420 pages, priced at Rs. 295, ISBN 9780143029014

In Memoriam, Meenakshi Mukherjee

The news that Meenakshi Mukherjee is no more is quite a shock... A colleague who was the very definition of collegiality, a major intellect who came to define the JNU Center for English, a well-wisher, and friend...

She taught at a number of places in India- Patna, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, and at the Jawaharlal Nehru University- as well as at several universities outside India- UT Austin, Chicago, Berkeley, Macquarie, Canberra, and Flinders. And her scholarship was formidable- the number of books she wrote or edited bear testimony to that. She also played a major role in nurturing what has become known as Indian Writing in English, be it by encouraging authors and poets, or through her own writing, in a series of remarkable critical essays, many of which have been collected in different volumes.

She received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2003 for her book The Perishable Empire: Essays On Indian Writing In English. Her other books include

• The Twice Born Fiction (1971, reprinted in 2001)
• Realism and Reality: Novel and Society in India (1985, paperback 1992)
• Re-reading Jane Austen (1994)
• The Perishable Empire (2000, paperback 2002).
• Considerations: Twelve Studies of Indian Literature in English (1977),
• Midnight's Children: A Book of Readings (1999), and
• Early Novels in India (2002)
• Another India (jointly with Nissim Ezekiel, 1990).

Her most recent books include the edited volume, Nation in Imagination Essays on Nationalism, Sub-Nationalisms and Narration, of the papers presented at the 13th Triennial conference of the Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS), held in 2004 in Hyderabad, and Elusive Terrain: Culture and Literary Memory a collection of thirteen essays that examine the various strands that exist in the tangled texture of our plural existence—language, translation, religion, politics, gender, caste, community, films, migration, and nostalgia for a lost home.

And An Indian for all Seasons: The many Lives of R.C. Dutt, just published by Penguin, which, like all her work, is "meticulously researched and elegantly written".

A scholar who will be missed. For her intellectual enthusiasm, for her kindness, for her insight. But most, because she made that difference.

Goa, then.

Goa 1556, the alternative publishers based in Saligao have republished Medieval Goa, a book about the Goa that was. The author, Teotonio R de Souza, is currently head of the Department of History in the Universidade Lusofona de Humanidades e Tecnologias in Lisbon, and was the founder-director of the Xavier Centre of Historical Research at Porvorim. The book was first published here in 1979.

Medieval Goa " is an attempt to take a closer look at the common man's reality in rural and urban Goa during the early phase of Portuguese colonial rule here- the subaltern view, so to speak. This book, with Goa as its focus, looks at Portugal's rivals and neighbours in South Asia, the Goan rural heritage, agrarian organisation, and the urban "topography and demography" of Goa. It also looks at centuries old municipal organisation of the region and its urban economic life.

One unique addition of the book is a 22-page bibliographical essay. It lists and explains the worth of the primary sources -- both published and archival -- that is of relevance to anyone wanting to study the Goa of the yesteryears. These include official chronicles from Portuguese times, missionary reports, travelogues, and state papers.

Archival sources include treasures at the Historical Archives of Goa, records of farmed revenues, land and revenue registers, village community records, papers of the suppressed convents, municipal records and private records in Goa. The book also offers pointers to State archives abroad, and records from private collections abroad."

The Pune University historian A R Kulkarni called it a result of painstaking research efforts and makes a remarkable contribution to the existing literature on the socio-economic history of Medieval India.

In our History section, in hardcover, 284-pages. Rs 495. ISBN: 9788190568265

Tending one's flock

Purnendu Kavoori is at the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur, an institution concerned with issues critical to livelihood such as sustainable use of natural resources; improvements in irrigation and water management; pattern and pace of agricultural development; land use and livestock management; deterioration of common property resources and environment; illiteracy; poor social infrastructure; low access of poor to food and minimum social services; unemployment and poverty in rural and urban areas; levels of political consciousness; communalism; violence and atrocities on women; empowerment of women... A distinguishing feature of the Institute is to help design interventions for grassroot organisations that are concentratedly attempting to cope with the problems of deprivation in a specific area.

His Pastoralism In Expansion: The Transhuming Herders Of Western Rajasthan appeared some years ago. "In this study of pastoral shepherds" published by OUP "Kavoori works to dispel some of the myths surrounding pastoralism. His historically-informed analysis provides detailed ecological information from migratory routes to historical transformations on the pastoral communities of western Rajasthan. He examines transhumance and reveals the complex interdependence between processes of pastoral production and the broader social and economic context of agriculture and markets."

[For those, like me, who find the word transhumance unfamiliar Wikipedia explains that this is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock over relatively short distances. Herders maintain permanent homes and only the herds travel, along with the people necessary to tend them.]

In our Anthropology section in hardcover, 228 pages with maps. Rs 495. ISBN: 9780195645439

A tale of two cities

The story of New Delhi, and of Delhi. Or as many would prefer to think of it, the tale of the eighth of the cities of Delhi...

Roli's new book New Delhi, by Malavika Singh and Rudrangshu Mukherjee documents the creation of the city we live in.

"New Delhi was born at two o’clock on 12 December 1911, as King George V proclaimed it to be India’s new capital at his grand Coronation Darbar.

New Delhi: Making of a Capital pieces together the story of the eighth reincarnation of this historic city. Breaking new ground, this book showcases century-old telegrams, maps, plans, drawings, letters and scraps of paper; the Agreement that the chief architects – Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker – signed together; the sharp arguments the two had on key architectural issues; and a lot more. Numerous newspaper reports, articles and editorials about the extravagant city, including vigorous debates in the House of Lords have been featured here for the first time.

Exclusive pictures of the earliest stages of levelling the massive Raisina Hill are followed by the block-by-block construction of what are today the Rashtrapati Bhavan (initially known as Government House), the Parliament House (known as Council House) and North and South Block (or the Secretariat buildings). A range of aerial shots capture the growth of the new city from a barren landscape into a bustling metropolis. The entire city was built in Rs 13.07 crore.

This pathbreaking work is an amalgamation of fragments of history, recreating the era of struggle, disquiet and passion in which this great urban centre was built."

New in our History and in our Urban Studies sections, Rs 1975. Hardback, 10" x 10.75", 240 pages. ISBN 9788174365743

Transmogrification

The Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic Studies (IIRNS) is located near Anjaneri village on the Nashik-Tryambakeshwar road in the Nashik district of Maharashtra. Off the beaten track in more ways than one, this is the only institution in India devoted exclusively to numismatics, and was established with the prime objective of facilitating and promoting research in Indian Numismatics.

Among their various activities - training and research being prime- is a exclusive and valuable publication programme. Scholars has carried their titles for several years now...

Their latest title is not quite in the area of numismatics, being on Hariti, the cannibalistic child-eating ogress who was transformed by Sakyamuni Buddha into a goddess of fertility and family welfare, so to speak...

From Ogress to Goddess: Hariti, a Buddhist deity by Madhurika Maheshwari has been extensively researched and has a large number of photographs and drawings of the "goddess Hariti [who is] comparable to the brahmanical Sitala [and who] has a dramatic life story with many ups and downs. Born to a Yakhsa king, married into another important yaksha family, she turns into a child-eating ogress. Ultimately she is converted by Sakyamuni Buddha himself and attains arhatship. Riding on the Buddhist wave, she becomes a cult figure and travels to Central Asia, Nepal, Tibet, China, Java, and Japan."

In our Art section, and also in the IIRNS publication list, Rs 3000. Hardcover, 244 pages, ISBN: 9788186786277

Whichever way you look at it...

The increased number of fish in our pond heralds the start of Scholars without Borders' Access Equity Inititiative related activities, and our new blog on Wordpress, scholarswithoutborders.wordpress.com.

We hope you like the logo, but more importantly, what we hope to do through æ.

Which is, among other things,

• to develop and strengthen the infrastructure and facilities for alternative systems of disseminating and distributing books and related materials across India,
  

• to give access, voice, and visibility to marginalized sections of our society: women, dalits, tribals, the underclasses,

• to ensure equitable access to books and information all over the country, and

• to provide small and independent publishers a space through which they can present their books on the internet.
  

Our belief is that the need for this initiative is great, in particular in those parts of the country where there is severely limited access to libraries and bookstores. So Scholars works to provide the digital means of access to this rich material by operating an online website and bookstore for academic books and journals.

The idea behind SwB has always been, quite simply, to highlight the best of Indian academic writing, and make it possible to obtain this material online. We like to close the loop between the book and the reader, to make books available in places with poor access to bookstores but mobile and internet connectivity.

Our website (both the existing one, and one that should be up and running in the next few months) provides a dynamic platform for educational and academic material that is being produced here, and make this available and visible as much as possible.

We also hope, through SwB, to present the best of our scholarship all over the world - the scope and reach of the internet will, we hope, make it possible for people in the more remote parts of India and elsewhere to get our books easily.

We'd greatly appreciate feedback and suggestions! Write in at mail@scholarswithoutborders.in, or on the Access Equity pages on our new blog-

Marginalia

Thema is a small publishing house based in Kolkata who have recently published Sarmistha De's Marginal Europeans in Colonial India (1860–1920).

"This study focuses on the particular section of European settlers in India, referred to in contemporary official papers as the ‘low Europeans’ or ‘mean whites’; which loosely meant a white underclass comprising destitutes, vagrants, convicts, lunatics and prostitutes. Primarily a study of the European underworld and marginal classes in two Presidencies of colonial India, viz. Calcutta and Bombay, the condition of the marginal Europeans and white underworld in the mofussil and railway cantonment areas also comes under its purview."

As Arnab Bhattacharya says while reviewing Marginal Europeans in The Telegraph last year, "In the perception of colonized people, the Europeans represented a homogeneous class which was destined to rule. The Europeans themselves engendered this notion ... Obviously, this is an example of essentialism in its crudest form and is divorced from historical truth."

De's well-researched book focuses on the marginalised Europeans, "vagrants, prostitutes and convicts — for her study, because they were, as she explains in the Introduction, the real “offenders” in the eyes of colonial law. These marginalized sections caused administrative problems to colonial rulers and brought them moral embarrassment by challenging the widely circulated notion of their racial superiority that was solemnly upheld to justify their civilizing mission." (From Bhattacharya's review).

New in our History section, Rs 450. In hardcover, 316 pages. ISBN: 9788186017586

Found in translation

There are many, many things that will remain inexplicable about our country. Particularly why there is such a huge investment of effort, with correspondingly little effort for distribution... The proximate cause of this angst is a chance encounter I had yesterday with TDIL, an effort of the Department of Information Technology, India.

TDIL or Technology Development for Indian Languages, has the objective of developing Information Processing Tools and Techniques to facilitate human-machine interaction without a language barrier; creating and accessing multilingual knowledge resources; and integrating them to develop innovative user products and services.

And given the linguistic diversity of the country, this is both noble and necessary.

At their event yesterday, TDIL was giving away (yes, you read that right, GIVING AWAY) software tools in a number of Indian languages including Assamese, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, and Nepali.

Each CD comes with amazing software, and while the contents change from language to language, all of them include

• True type fonts with keyboard drivers
• Unicode compliant open type fonts
• Language versions of Bharatiya Open Office,
  
• Web browsers (Firefox),
  
• Email clients (Thunderbird),
  
• Messengers, Calendar applications,
  
• Scribus page layouts, and
  
• Content management software.

All the software works with Windows XP as well as with the Linux Fedora Core 9 operating systems. Simple to install, and opening up a whole new world of computing in your own language...


Like we said, the software is free, and should be available at your local Department of Information Technology outlet (wherever that is). Much of it can be downloaded from their website, but in case there are bandwidth problems, a CD is easier. A simpler way is just to write to us, and we'll help.

Most importantly, this information needs to get to people who may not be reading about it (or searching for it) in English, the dominant language of the Indian web. Please do try to get the information out where you think it could be used. Thanks.

A Mumbai wonderland

Yoda Press' new book is one on the architecture, both physical and social, of a locality in Mumbai, made memorable for me many years ago by that fact that K H Ara, the famous artist used to live there in a small tenement... But the neighborhood is a living relic of much more, as Kaiwan Mehta, currently pursuing a doctorate at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore, documents in his Alice in Bhuleshwar: Navigating a Mumbai Neighbourhood

Mehta "takes the reader for a walk through the streets and past the buildings of the ‘native town’ of colonial Bombay, reading their histories and excavating their memories, while continuing to negotiate their present context. This historic neighbourhood of Mumbai, fondly referred to as Bhuleshwar, has remained a residential and religious hub as before, while thriving as the city’s essential commercial marketplace today. It retains a complex history of migration and community, which is evident in the architectural form, motifs and designs of the area. The buildings are literally registers of history; they are maps of a time gone by, and yet they continue to find themselves relevant and alive in the contemporary context. Alice in Bhuleshwar is also a story of the people who have lived in these buildings: unsung icons like Premiji and Saroj Pathak, famed artistes like Jayashankar ‘Sundari’, and others who have inhabited these buildings which breathe in the salty air of Mumbai and speak to those who care to listen."

In our Urban Studies section, in paperback, 208 pages, Rs 295. ISBN: 9788190618632

Speaking of Yoda, the exciting news is the opening of YODAKIN, their store for alternative books, music and films by independent publishers, record labels/musicians and filmmakers respectively. The store will be in Delhi's Hauz Khas Village, and should open later this month. Anyone interested in a job there as store manager??

Call them at 91-11-26125373, email them at yoda@yodapress.com and check them out on www.yodapress.com

Young India

As part of the celebrations surrounding the centenary of the birth of Homi Bhabha, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai will host the Young India Scientists Colloquium from 7 to 10 September.

YISC2009 will feature talks by several invited young scientists from all over India covering various aspects of Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. A large number of college teachers, who have inspired several of the graduate students, have been invited to attend this event from all over the country.

On the other hand, if you happen to be in Delhi on those days, the good news is that the entire program will be webcast at two locations in the city, at the Delhi University South Campus and at the Inter University Accelerator Center on Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, Vasant Kunj.

The proceedings will be projected in large auditoriums (depending on the turnout) and refreshments will be available. Do drop by- this is a great chance to see the young scientists of India, especially those who have made a very special mark. And a great way to remember Bhabha, shown alongside with one of his heroes, Neils Bohr, and above with one of his special toys with which he studied cosmic rays, making very fundamental discoveries here, in India...

The program is up on the YISC page, and you can write to the YISC organisers at yisc @ tifr.res.in, or call them- their numbers are listed on the YISC contact page.

Overworked and Underfed

Discrimination of any sort has far reaching consequences on society... A fact that we are learning, but slowly. The unacceptably large percentage of our population that remains outside the pale, so to speak- with no real franchise, no real say, and for some, no real stakes in our social system- drags us all down.

Manoranjan Pal, Premananda Bharati, T. S. Vasulu and Bholanath Ghosh of the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata take a new look at the problem of discrimination against women in their recent book from OUP, Gender and Discrimination: Health, Nutritional Status, and Role of Women in India.

"Gender discrimination has far reaching consequences on society. the essays in this volume critically investigate the economic, social, religious, and psychological aspects of women in every sphere of life, and suggest how we can measure the inherent inequalities.

This volume shows that there exist pronounced inequalities between men and women with respect to wages, ownership of properties, opportunities in education, professional careers, job opportunities, and several other indicators. A study of wage disparity between men and women finds that the labour market is highly sex-segregated; while cultural reasons restrict women’s access to work, their freedom to participate in the formal economy is even more curtailed. At a micro-level analysis of intra-household discrimination, it is observed that differences in resource allocation between male and female members often lead to differences in health status.

Case studies from India and other South Asian countries emphasize dominant nutritional and health disorders among women and children. The volume concludes with the methodological aspects of gender discrimination and gender inequality measures that are significant especially in the context of rural areas."

The various essays address issues that include (En)gendering Poverty Policy in India, Women and Agriculture, Gender, Religion, and the Age at Marriage, Invisibility and Ordeal of Women, discrimination against Girl Children, the Role of Maternal literacy, Gender, Poverty, and HIV Transmission, Differences in Early Childhood Feeding, Health and Nutritional Status of School Age Children, Bias in Family Planning Programmes, Gender Bias in Mortality.

Issues that are of vital importance for us all. In our Public Health and Gender Sections, hardcover, 352 pages. ISBN: 9780198060291

Hot Stuff!

Indian cuisine owes a huge debt to Vasco da Gama who introduced us to chillies, and vice versa... However, like many things that come to the subcontinent, we have adapted and transformed the chilli in our own distinctive ways, so that it is really difficult to think of this spice as a relatively recent import, along with the tomato and the potato, or the chikoo...

Indian chillies come in several varieties, ranging from the Naga Jolokia to the Warangal Chappatta. The hotness of chillies is measured in Scoville units where the humble bell pepper is pegged at 0, and pure capsaicin clocks in at 16 million. The Naga Jolokia is the hottest known chilli, at 8.5 million Scovilles...

A new book by S N Mahindru (published by APH in Delhi) gives a wealth of details on Indian Chillies. "Chillies are the dried ripe fruits of the species of genus capsicum and also called red peppers. Capsicums constitute an important well-known commercial crop used as a condiment, culinary supplement or as a vegetable. Chillies are virtually an indispensable item in the kitchen.

India is the largest producer of chillies in the world accounting for over 45% of the total area under cultivation. Exports are around 200000 tonnes in recent years. Indian chillies have gained great importance not only from the commercial angle but also from the processing, analytical, techno-legal and other angles.

This comprehensive and authentic monograph is a valuable guide for those dealing in production and marketing of Indian chillies, within and outside India, as well as for those involved in the process quality control of Indian chillies."

In our Agricultural Sciences section, Rs 695, hardcover, 300 pages. ISBN: 9788131305744

Remembering Babasaheb

Bhagwan Das, now in his eighties, was a research associate with Ambedkar in the years 1955- 56 and between 1963 and 1980 he edited, compiled and produced Thus Spoke Ambedkar a four volume series on Ambedkar and his work.

Now Navayana have produced a documentary, Bhagwan Das: In Pursuit of Ambedkar, scripted and directed by S. Anand, photographed by Anshul Uniyal and edited by Shikha Sen. This hour-long film tells the life of Bhagwan Das who joined Ambedkar's Scheduled Caste Federation at the age of 16 and who spent a lifetime in pursuit of the ideals of Ambedkar who he met first in 1943 (in Shimla, when the latter was Labour Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council).

The life has been rich and varied- and the documentary covers it all. From Bhagwan Das' testimony on untouchability, in August 1983 to the UN Subcommission on Human Rights in Geneva, to his work with Ambedkar in the 1950's, to his "dalit perspectives" on Independence, when untouchables were afraid of the coming Hindu Raj, and his critique of Valmikisation of the sweeper community following large-scale conversions to Christianity in the 1870s and 1880s.

The photo above shows Das in discussion with Anand, the director of the film which is listed in our Navayana list, only for Institutional orders within India (Rs 1000), as well as overseas orders ($50). Here.

Individual purchase of the DVD should be made directly from Navayana. Here.