Book: India: Development and participation Authors: Amartya Sen & Jean Dreze My favourite book on India’s development issues. Provides a comprehensive overview of many important development issues In my opinion this book is gold standard and is a must read for anyone intersted in development issues. Amartya Sen is distinguished for his ability to incorporate a wide variety of concerns including growth, inequalities, gender issues, power relations, etc. Dreze complements these abilities and also brings in significant field-level experience apart from rigorous research. India: Development and Participation combines a broad understanding of development with remarkable balance in dealing with various […]
General Interest
A growing collection of Ambedkar’s works are available online at Ambedkar.org Ambedkar is easily one of the finest Indian thinkers ever. Academically, he has a degree in law, a Masters in economics (from London School of Economics), and a doctorate in social sciences (from Columbia University). At Columbia he majored in sociology and economics for his M.A. with a smattering of anthropology, politics and philosophy as other subjects. He also had a stint at University of Bonn. His experience ranges from being a untouchable boy to the principal architect of India’s Constitution. He started and ran a political party and […]
Babasaheb Ambedkar’s works online: Books, articles, talks
This (in)famous minute on Indian education is a sample of early discourse on institutions and development Macaulay argued in 1835 that providing education based on Sanskrit and Arabic in India is of no use for India’s development, and argued instead for education based on English literature. He envisaged creating, “a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect”. The Minute is based on an idea that English education is not just superior in ‘science’, but would also inculcate superior morals, etc. that were responsible for making the English superior. […]
Macaulay’s “Minute on Indian Education”
When it comes to provision of basic amenities India performs badly by any account. Roads, electricity, water, schools, primary health, nutrition programmes, other amenities most basic to people today are poorly provided in most parts of India. Facilities that exist too are badly maintained and are often dysfunctional. While this is true by and large some states have performed exceptionally well. The famed example is Kerala whose education and health programmes have been remarkable. Another equally remarkable performer has been Tamil Nadu. The state has huge budgetary commitments for the social sector and most of these schemes also tend to […]
My dissertation question
An overview of institutional changes in Tamil Nadu over two centuries that explains the state’s relatively good governance Myron Weiner argued that India’s failure in providing universal education was due to the hierarchical mindset of the elite politicians and bureaucrats who did not consider it essential for children from the lower castes to be educated. Similarly in the Western world, there is evidence that evidence that relatively equal societies created provisions for universal primary education earlier. In other words, there is a strong relationship between social relations in a society and the role the government plays therein. I argue that […]
Overview of institutional change in Tamil Nadu & Governance
Horray, Google News is now available in Tamil I have been a great fan of Google News for a few years now. So much so that I read most news starting here rather than through news papers or their websites. . A big lacuna with it was that Tamil news was not covered in this channel. With Google Seithigal, Tamil newspapers will be indexed and covered. Basic details about this service are available in its help section. Here are a few additional tips. [ad#Medium rectangle] Searching Google Seithigal I do not understand why Google Seithigal does not have a facility […]
Google Seithigal: Google news in Tamil
By cheaply twisting facts, media makes headlines to bash the Left Parties After spectacularly winning 13 out of 17 Zilla Parishads, CPM and it’s partners woke up to see the following headline in the Indian Express, “Not just Singur and Nandigram, CPM gets battered across rural West Bengal”. Some sections of the media have kept up the tempo to manufacture a feel that the Left Front is loosing its grip in West Bengal. Referring to the same election two months later, Economic Times mentions, “Civic poll results are not at all encouraging for the Marxists in the wake of their […]
Communist bashing in Indian media
T R Vishwanathan was one of the founding members of the communist movement in South Arcot District I met TRV for an interview two weeks ago. Though he was unwell and very old, he insisted on speaking to me. “I may have a heart attack and pass away anyday”, he said, “if I talk to you, you may take my message to more people”. We went on to have a delightful 4-hour discussion on his legacy. I am sad to say that he has passed away last night and will be cremated today. This post offers a short snap shots […]
Obituary to a great soul: T R Vishwanathan (TRV)
A report by the Dy. Commissioner, and SP Palamu indicates that police in Palamu is not serious about pursuing Lalit Metha’s murderers One of our colleagues, Lalit Mehta, was brutally murdered in Palamu, Jharkahand recently. A sloppy report has prepared by the Deputy Commissioner and the SP, Palamu indicates that the Jharkhand police is either insincere in pursuing the murderers or actively protecting them. Lalit was in the process of organising a survey on NREGA along with Jean Dreze and a band of volunteers. Instead of pursuing the murders, the report casts aspersions on the survey team and even goes […]
Jharkhand police: Enquiry or cover-up in Lalit Mehta’s murder case?
Here’s a news item from the Real news network on India’s refusal to sign the cluster bomb treaty along with China, US (not surprisingly), Israel, Russia and Pakistan.What is shocking though is the paltry coverage it got in Indian media for an issue that is clearly important. ToI, NDTV, Zee News, Economic Times, and a few others carried an article straight from Associated Press or other services. Given that India had not signed this treaty, some home work could have been done here – but NOTHING was done. This is true of the highly celebrated Hindu as well. No interviews, […]
India refuses to sign cluster bomb treaty & we know ...
In one of the worst cases of attack on an NREGA activist, Lalit Kumar was murdered this week in Palamu Right from the word go combating corruption in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been a major agenda of activists of the Right to Food Campaign. Needless to say, it brings activists into conflict with the vested interests that are deeply rooted in India today. This week in Palamu, a young and committed activist – Lalit Kumar – was murdered, perhaps a result of his actions to secure the poorest of people their rights. I am reproducing an […]
Murder of Lalit Kumar, NREGA activist in Palamu, Jharkhand
A growing collection of Ambedkar’s works are available online at Ambedkar.org Ambedkar is easily one of the finest Indian thinkers ever. Academically, he has a degree in law, a Masters in economics (from London School of Economics), and a doctorate in social sciences (from Columbia University). At Columbia he majored in sociology and economics for his M.A. with a smattering of anthropology, politics and philosophy as other subjects. He also had a stint at University of Bonn. His experience ranges from being a untouchable boy to the principal architect of India’s Constitution. He started and ran a political party and […]
Babasaheb Ambedkar’s works online: Books, articles, talks
6 Creating neat bibliographies can be a pain, Word 2007 makes it easy Note: There is an easier way to cite in MS Word and it’s free. Check out my note on Zotero citation tool. There are hundreds of formats for citations like Chicago, APA, etc. The only thing in common between them is that each of them is a nightmare! I cannot imagine how people did extensive citations before the coming of automated help. I am a big fan of refworks, endnote and other bibliography managers. Unfortunately, these are costly and cannot be afforded by everyone. For those who did […]
Citations using Word 2007: Bibliographies made easy
O India produz mais filmes que todos outros país do mundo… …Muito mais. Tal vez tu sei que há muitas linguas na India. Muitos disso tem um grande indústria do cinema. O muito famoso é o indústria do Bombay chamo “Bollywood”. Muitos estrangeiros pensem que só Bollywood produz filmes na India; mas ha muitos outros centros do produção. O grande centro é Madras no sul do India. Também há Hyderabad, Calcutta, Kerala e outros centros. Tal vez, o filmes do Bengal são o mais famoso depois que o Bollywood. Begal é famoso para produzir os filmes artísticas e seu director […]
Introdução aos cinema Indiano
Thanks to a Historian, I now see the sublime where I merely saw superstitions The district gazetteers provide a good background to the important events of a district in a historical perspective. They were originally written by British civil servants and was then taken over by people appointed for the task with India’s independence. The British “manuals” (as they are often called) offer colourful details about the wars, positions taken by various parties, etc. The post independence gazettes (at least in the Madras Province) have a greater slant towards understanding development in a historical perspective. I was going through some […]
A Brahmin historian at work
A search engine to search India’s Union budgets and State budgets (available) in one click A wealth of materials is available online today about budgets in India. Unfortunately they are dispersed across dozens of websites that take time to find. This search engine will enable to to search official budget websites of Government of India and most state governments in one click. It is periodically updated. The results are not perfect, but it is the best that I was able to produce given the clutter and the constant changes in the budget websites of various states. Loading
India: Union & State budgets search engine
Search websites of Indian Parliament and most legislative assemblies in one go [inline] [script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en”][/script] [/inline] About the search engine This is a special search engine that searches websites of Indian Parliament, most state assemblies and other government sites that offer content on debates and other proceedings in legislative bodies. It also includes a few non-governmental sites. It enables us to check if something is going on relating to a specific issue (e.g. VAT) in various assemblies in one click. Google is not very useful in doing this since it would cover all websites that include “VAT” in its […]
India: Parliament & Legislative Assemblies search engine
School violence is just a petty issue in India so far…we should ensure that it should continue so Two children have been shot dead in schools by their peers within one month. Brutal school violence of this kind is new in India; it scares me. Until I went to the US, I did not imagine that schools could be such ghastly places. I had my first shock came when I learned of metal detectors at a school entrance. A police officer was stationed in front throughout the school day. I could not believe it at first. Children routinely get into […]
Will school shootings guntinue in India: Should media care?
This public intellectual makes his integrity history Just before the first phase of elections in Gujarat the current Chief Minister made a controversial remark referring to the “fake encounter” of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. His own government has gone on record stating that it’s a fake encounter – but Modi has justified it stating that Sohrabuddin has been involved in extortions and other criminal activities. The Supreme Court of India is examining this extra-judicial murder currently. With just days to go before the election he decided to invoke Sohrabuddin’s murder. In a rhetorical fashion he asked the crowd what could be done […]
Cho Ramaswamy’s disappointing editorial
As big budget movies with huge marketing costs become popular and movie halls change, will the big drive out the small? Diwali is a time for new movies in India. Two big budget movies this time decided to go for huge spending on marketing. OSO and Sawariya together spent over Rs. 10 crores on marketing, swamping the media. Money was clearly spent on public relations rather than overt advertisements. “King Khan” was all over the place: watching cricket, dancing with cricket stars, doing shows, and being in any place that attracts public attention. Even if OSO were not mentioned overtly […]