A Village Awaits Doomsday

A Village Awaits Doomsday
Author: Jaideep Hardikar
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2013-03-15
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 8184759371

Millions of people are displaced every year by development schemes such as the construction of dams, national parks, factories, SEZs, mines and thermal power plants. The conflict between those who are forced to part with their land and those who reap benefits from the projects is getting fiercer. In A Village Awaits Doomsday, Jaideep Hardikar brings us the personal stories of ordinary people from across the country displaced and made destitute by innumerable government and private initiatives. Apart from providing vivid accounts of individual experiences, he analyses the reasons why people protest, the laws that governments use to displace them, the existing rehabilitation and resettlement policies, and the latest debates over the land acquisition process. Hardikar’s writing is evocative, the stories haunting and his book timely and important.

The No-nonsense Guide to Degrowth and Sustainability

The No-nonsense Guide to Degrowth and Sustainability
Author: Wayne Ellwood
Publisher: New Internationalist
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1780261233

The world's addiction to economic growth continues with barely any recognition that this is a problem. Indeed, in a Western world currently dominated by austerity measures and ducking in and out of recession, growth is seen even by progressives as the only possible solution for our economic and social woes. This no-nonsense guide looks deeper into the idea of economic growth - to trace its history and understand why it has become so unchallengeable and powerful.

S.O.S. Alternatives to Capitalism

S.O.S. Alternatives to Capitalism
Author: Richard Swift
Publisher: New Internationalist
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2014-04-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1780261713

With capitalism vulnerable and out-of-step in the wake of financial crises this book investigates the alternatives that are on offer—including socialism, anarchism, and deep ecology. It picks its way through the pockets of resistant thinking and emerges with paths to changing the world that rest less on rigid ideology imposed from above than on practical transformation from below. Richard Swift is former editor of New Internationalist magazine and author of the No-Nonsense Guide to Democracy. In 2011, he won the Daniel Singer Millenium Prize for an original essay which helps further socialist ideas.

Radiant Infrastructures

Radiant Infrastructures
Author: Rahul Mukherjee
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2020-03-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1478009012

In Radiant Infrastructures Rahul Mukherjee explores how the media coverage of nuclear power plants and cellular phone antennas in India—what he calls radiant infrastructures—creates environmental publics: groups of activists, scientists, and policy makers who use media to influence public opinion. In documentaries, lifestyle television shows, newspapers, and Bollywood films, and through other forms of media (including radiation-sensing technologies), these publics articulate contesting views about the relationships between modernity, wireless signals, and nuclear power. From testimonies of cancer patients who live close to cell towers to power plant operators working to contain information about radiation leaks and health risks, discussions in the media show how radiant infrastructures are at once harbingers of optimism about India's development and emitters of potentially carcinogenic radiation. In tracing these dynamics, Mukherjee expands understandings of the relationship between media and infrastructure and how people make sense of their everyday encounters with technology and the environment.

The Land Question in India

The Land Question in India
Author: Anthony P. D'Costa
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2017
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0198792441

Examines the centrality of land in contemporary development discourse in India and the role of the state in the dispossession of land from peasants and tribal communities. It looks at land acquisition processes, their legal and ethical implications, and the regional diversity of acquisition experiences in India.

Postcolonial Studies Meets Media Studies

Postcolonial Studies Meets Media Studies
Author: Kai Merten
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2016-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3839432944

The book brings together experts from Media and Communication Studies with Postcolonial Studies scholars to illustrate how the two fields may challenge and enrich each other. Its essays introduce readers to selected topics including »Media Convergence«, »Transcultural Subjectivity«, »Hegemony«, »Piracy« and »Media History and Colonialism«. Drawing on examples from film, literature, music, TV and the internet, the contributors investigate the transnational dimensions in today's media, engage with local and global media politics and discuss media outlets as economic agents, thus illustrating mechanisms of power in postcolonial and neo-colonial mediascapes.

Pandemic Fissures

Pandemic Fissures
Author: Suddhabrata Deb Roy
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2024-08-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1040104266

This book analyses India’s response to COVID-19, using an intersectional framework that highlights the roles of the central government, regional governments, and community organisations, both formal and informal. The volume brings forward the immense potential embedded within collective communitarian formations by exploring themes such as disaster capitalism, municipal socialism, civic capitalism, apocalypse or disaster communism, and Marxist humanism in relation to the management strategies exhibited by the Indian government towards the COVID-19 pandemic. It underscores the necessity for imagining a scenario where egalitarian and socially just policies replace the dominance of capitalism. Part of the Academics, Politics and Society in the Post-COVID World series, the book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of sociology, political studies, cultural studies, social anthropology, South Asia studies, pandemic studies, and postcolonial studies.

Ramrao

Ramrao
Author: Jaideep Hardikar
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-08-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9354223095

One morning in 2014, Ramrao Panchleniwar, an ordinary cotton grower in Maharashtra's infamous Vidarbha region, consumed two bottles of pesticide in a bid to commit suicide. But he miraculously survived. In Ramrao, rural journalist Jaideep Hardikar attempts to put a face to India's unending farm crisis with his story. He takes the reader on a journey of the everyday life of an Indian farmer, his daily struggles, his desperation to come out of his situation, his inability and many failings, the quagmire of issues he faces, and how he comes to a pass where he chooses to put an end to it all. The result of years of committed reportage, this is an evocative read that rescues an ordinary life from obscurity and turns it into an essential biography for our times.

Red Lipstick: The Men in My Life (HB)

Red Lipstick: The Men in My Life (HB)
Author: Laxmi
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2016-08-16
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9386057697

The world keeps taunting him as girlish but the fact is that, biologically, he is a boy. And, he is always attracted to guys. Is Laxmi both a man and a woman? Or, perhaps, neither a man nor a woman? The first inklings and stirrings of lust that Laxmi remembers came from noticing big, strong arms, the hint of a guy's moustache over his lips, billboards that advertised men's underwear. Laxmi found this puzzling initially. Was there a woman inside him who couldn't really express herself because of some last-minute mix-up that god did at the time of his birth? Struggling with such existential questions, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, eminent transgender activist, awakens to her true self: She is Laxmi, a hijra. In this fascinating narrative Laxmi unravels her heart to tell the stories of the men-creators, preservers, lovers, benefactors, and abusers-in her life. Racy, unapologetic, dark and exceptionally honest, these stories open a window to a brave new world.