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The book also corroborates the finding from other research that rural proprietary classes along with the state are important mediators in the rampant land acquisition by the industrial capitalist class in India. Whereas there is evidence of successful accumulation by the class of capitalist farmers and the newly emergent "gentleman farmers" with the aid of the state's resources, the crisis of peasant agriculture appears to be universal. A key finding of the book across all three states is that agrarian policies in the post-liberalization era have undergone a shift as the state has renewed its role. [Extracted from the article]

This paper studies reproductive behaviour (ideal jamily size, completed family size and family planning acceptance) in a rural Indian area which was rapidly industrialising. Two castes and eleven villages were sampled. It was found that family planning was quite common and that fertility differentials among couples were related to the couples' unique socioeconomic characteristics as well as to two group level variables (caste and village). The latter result was shown to be statistically significant, for all three measures of reproductive behaviour, even after many unique socioeconomic characteristics and attitudes of each couple were accounted for statistically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Koyna Dam in western India has the unfortunate distinction of being the site of the most famous example of reservoir-triggered seismicity. The lead microbiologists in the Koyna drilling project is Dr. Pinaki Sar of the Indian Institute of Technology. Sar's group first analysed core samples retrieved from boreholes that penetrated to 522-1490 m depth in the Deccan basalt and a short distance into the underlying Archean, 2.5 billion-year-old granite. Quantitative PCR of 16S rRNA genes indicated abundance of ~10 SP 5 sp cells/g of rock; qPCR of dsrB and mcrA genes indicated high numbers of sulfate reducers and methanogens, respectively, in the basalt. [Extracted from the article]

Reviews the book "Portrait of India," by Bradford Smith.

Central to the rich tradition of agrarian studies is the debate on the impact of capitalist transition on peasant farming. The authors have chosen the term "agrarian structural transformation" instead of "agrarian transition" and "family labour farming" instead of the broader concept of "peasant farming" or "family farming". Likewise, a vast section of India's small and marginal farms do not qualify as the ideal family farms (farms worked, managed or owned by families). The National Commission on Farmers (2004) also indicated a decline of farm income amongst small farmers and reported that a high proportion of 40% intended to quit farming. [Extracted from the article]

While Raj shows that there has been substantial - and remarkable - fightback, mostly from Adivasi and Dalit female plantation workers, these movements have not been endorsed by the compromised union bureaucracy. Despite bleak prospects for plantation workers' mobility, the author describes the ability to remain on the crisis-stricken plantations as a privilege for the workers - in part since, at least, the plantations provide the security of a home. Dalit workers, moreover, perceive that caste discrimination is less severe and overt (although not by any means absent) on the plantations than in the labour-receiving villages in Tamil Nadu. Footnotes 1 Scheduled Tribes is the term used by the Indian government to refer to indigenous people or Adivasis. [Extracted from the article]

For watchers of India's labor scene, the key question is: What role, if any, did labor policies and practices play in the post-reform period? It is clear from several chapters that unions and the laws that empower unions are unlikely champions for the 90% of workers who toil in informal employment arrangements. To make workers prosperous and to convert their consumer spending into an engine for economic growth, they would need to reduce informality, increase worker skills (a topic covered only slightly in the book), and trigger a shift to more value-added goods and services. [Extracted from the article]

The article reviews the book "Financing India's Imperial Railways, 1875-1914," by Stuart Sweeney.

The article reviews the book "ICTs and Indian Social Change: Diffusion, Poverty, Governance," edited by A. Saith, M. Vijayyabaskar, and V. Gayatri.

The article reviews the book "How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500-1850," edited by Giorgio Riello and Tirthankar Roy.

The article reviews the book "Degrees Without freedom? Education, Masculinities and Unemployment in North India," by Craig Jeffrey, Patricia Jeffery and Roger Jeffery.

The article reviews the book "Chronic Poverty and Development Policy in India," edited by Aasha Kapur Mehta and Andrew Shepherd.

McClish's analysis of the text explodes this idea as the result of a later redaction of an originally independent and secular text on politics that he provisionally calls the I Da aniti i (5). Nevertheless, I here record some regret that McClish did not take the opportunity to address political theory in sources before and after the I Artha'sastra i , with the exception of Dharma'sastra. The strength and clarity of McClish's argument derives from his focus on the text of the I Artha'sastra i . [Extracted from the article]

A review of the book "Pukka Indian: 100 Objects That Define India," by Jahnvi Lakhota Nandan and Shivani Gupta, is presented.

Majumder notices that the same people outraged by the sale of the land, and by the fact that this sale will be forced (and grossly undervalued in the state's books as farmers had underdeclared yields and/or land area to avoid the taxman) openly look down on the future they would have as owners of dwindling plot sizes. Through the case study of a car maker's attempt to set up a factory in eastern India, I People's Car i examines the local population's ambivalence towards land, landholding and farm employment, their yearnings for a certain kind of modernity and the ways in which governments, the company, activists and local protestors emphasise one or the other in different fora. Some of that literature, combined for example with the very recent anthropological work on ambivalence, or cynicism, both of which obviously interest the author, would have helped Majumder structure what are now narrative quirks as fully novel positions. [Extracted from the article]

Reviews the book 'The State in India, 1000-1700,' with an introduction by Hermann Kulke.

A description of a course on miniature art being offered at the Punjabi University in Patiala, India is provided.

The article reviews the book "Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology of the Interior Valleys and Coastal Tracts of Andhra Pradesh" by N.R. Ramesh.

Reviews the book "One Smart Indian," by Robert J. Seidman.

It is unclear as to how trade unions can be apolitical organisations when the "neoliberal" economic policies of the state are inherently political in nature and unions often mount intensive political campaigns against these neoliberal policies. It is often argued that with economic liberalisation, India has been witnessing a major change in its labour regulatory framework since 1991 but particularly so since 2014 when the right wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) won the parliamentary election and subsequently got re-elected with an increased majority in 2019 general elections. Chinese government uses repression, while Indian government relies on neoliberal policy approaches. [Extracted from the article]

The article reviews the book "Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India," by Neeti Nair.

The article reviews the book "Indian Media: Global Approaches," by Adrian Athique.

The article reviews the book "Cultures of Servitude: Modernity, Domesticity and Class in India," by Raka Ray and Seemin Qayum.

The article reviews the book "Hindi Action Cinema: Industries, Narratives, Bodies," by Valentina Vitali.

The article reviews the book "Schooling Passions: Nation, History, and Language in Contemporary Western India," by Véronique Benei.

The article reviews the book "Schooling Passions: Nation, History and Language in Contemporary Western India," by Veronique Benei.

The article reviews the book "L'art du livre dans l'Inde des sultanates," by Éloïse Brac de la Perrière.