Indian Securities and Emperor Far Away

Handbook of Indian Securities by Gautam H. Parikh from Bloomsbury India.

This book takes an integrated and holistic approach to the subject. Law, economics and finance are interwoven, producing a rich analysis, rigorously fact-driven and structured. Written with clarity and grace, The Handbook of Indian Securities is highly readable.

Essential reading for business professionals in finance, investments and emerging markets, the subject is treated with elegance as the book explains how Indian securities are unique and places them in the context of India's legal framework.

The Handbook of Indian Securities is meant to be a useful and practical guide for portfolio managers, investment researchers, corporate CFOs, treasury managers, security analysts who follow Asian markets, chartered accountants and management consultants who advise clients on capital raising and corporate finance and also to investment bankers, who advise on M and A and corporate restructuring. The book is ideal for MBA and CFA students as well as students of financial and securities law.
Product Description.
In our Economics section, Rs. 799, in hardback, 332 pages, ISBN : 9789384052744


The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China by David Eimer from Bloomsbury India.

In 1949, Mao Zedong announced the birth of the People’s Republic of China, a proclamation to the world that, after centuries of war and social conflict, China had emerged as one nation. Since then, this idea has been propagated by broadcasts of marches and mass demonstrations of unity, designed for the benefit of the international community. For many living in the vast country, however, the old Chinese adage holds true: “the mountains are high and the emperor is far away.”

Bordered by fourteen countries, China could be thought of as more a continent than a country, and yet it is ruled as one and treated so by political and financial commentators, who refer to a traditionally “Chinese” way of life. Few Westerners make it far beyond the major cities, and the Chinese government has made it difficult to do so. David Eimer undertook a dangerous journey to China’s unexplored frontiers, to the outer reaches where Beijing's power has little influence. His chronicle shines new light on the world’s most populous country, showing clearly that China remains in many ways a divided state.

Traveling through the Islamic areas of Xinjiang province, into the forbidden zone of Tibet and across Route 219, which runs the rough boundary shared with India, the only disputed frontier in China, Eimer exposes the country’s inner conflict. All the tensions in China today—from its war against drugs and terrorism and the unstable relationships it maintains with Russia and Korea to its internal social issues—take on new meaning when seen from China’s most remote corners. The Emperor Far Away is a brilliant melding of journalism and history and essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary China.

In our History section, Rs. 699, in paperback, 336 pages, ISBN : 9781408850978

Urban/ Development

Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition: Theories and Case Studies by Ipsita Chatterjee from Sage India.

Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition provides a window into the global urban contradiction through the lens of a Third World city. It is not a book on urban India, or a book on Ahmedabad city, or even a book on the Sabarmati River Front Development (SRFD) project, but it is a book that uses all these lenses to conceptualize urban exploitation.

The author develops a dialectical praxis of theory transfer that takes us from the First World to the Third World and back again. In the process, the arrow of theory transfer is not reversed, because theory cannot be transferred by simply changing the direction of the arrow; instead, an attempt is made to (re)produce and (re)inform different conceptual worlds by juxtaposing it with the SRFD project in Ahmedabad city.

This book is, therefore, as much about the poor people of Ahmedabad as it is about global urban displacement and the politics of resettlement and resistance—theory and practice are always inflected, and the chapters demonstrate this inflection deeply and clearly. The point is to change the world, and to do so we must relentlessly struggle to better the concepts that we use to understand it with. This book is such a struggle.

In our Urban Studies section, Rs. 645, in hardback, 180 pages, ISBN : 9788132116608



Social and Community Development Practice by Manohar Pawar from Sage India.

Social and Community Development Practice makes a persuasive case for employing a social development approach to community development practice at local and village levels. Towards this end, the book offers a conceptual clarity of social and community development (SCD) by adding new dimensions. It also shows the significance of social policy education for social and community development workers and the need for expanding community development practice from local levels to international levels.

The author argues that the social work profession itself needs to quickly reorganize and strengthen. It needs to consider alternative modes of preparing social workers and community organizers who can reach out at local levels. The profession also needs to develop indigenous ethical standards for SCD practice. The author’s deep reflections reveal the dire need to refocus on SCD practice to address major issues such as poverty and inequality plaguing vast populations around the world.


In our Development Studies section, Rs. 995, in hardback, 320 pages, ISBN : 9788132118459

Tranquebar

Tranquebar: Whose History? Transnational Cultural Heritage in a Former Danish Trading Colony in South India by Helle Jorgensen from Orient Blackswan.

Tranquebar, a small fishing town on the coast of Tamil Nadu, was a Danish trading colony from 1620 to 1845. In recent years, the drive to develop it into a heritage destination has generated large-scale conservation and restoration efforts aimed at preserving the monuments of the town’s colonial past

Alongside the proliferation of surveys and development plans, manifold agents including local and state-level authorities, private entrepreneurs, researchers, NGOs, and tourists—Danish and Indian—congregate in the town. Yet the townscape also sets the scene for the everyday lives and concerns of the local inhabitants. Tranquebar—Whose History? explores the significances of cultural heritage in this small town, revealing the multiple attachments to, uses of, and negotiations around the townscape and its histories in daily life, tourism, research and heritage development.

The discussion moves from the differing motivations attending local and transnational constructions of Tranquebar as a remote location, and the sometimes contradictory expectations from development; the conflicting attitudes to modernity and notions of aesthetics among various stakeholders; to shifting constructions of history in which Tranquebar emerges as a postcolony, caught between colonial nostalgia, collective memory and contemporary narrations of anti-conquest.

This volume will be useful to those engaged in anthropology, history, postcolonial studies and cultural studies. It will also be of interest to students of heritage and tourism, heritage practitioners and to the general reader.


In our History section, Rs. 975, in hardback, 368 pages, ISBN : 9788125053453

Enlightenment and Violence

Enlightenment and Violence: Modernity and Nation-Making by Tadd Fernée from Sage India.

Enlightenment and Violence is a history of ideas that proposes a multi-centred and non-Eurocentric interpretation of the Enlightenment as a human heritage. This comparative study reconstructs how modernity was negotiated in different intellectual and political contexts as a national discourse within the broader heritage of Enlightenment.

The author has compared 16th and 20th century Indian history to the early modern histories of Persia, Turkey and Western Europe in order to ground analysis of their 20th century nation-making experiences within a common problematic.

The focus is upon an ethic of reconciliation over totalizing projects as a means to create non-violent conflict resolution in the modern context. It is suggested that an emergent ethic of reconciliation in nation-making—inspired by the Indian paradigm—harbours the potential to create more democratic and open societies, in rejection of the authoritarian patterns that too frequently shaped the experiences of the 20th century.

In our History section, Rs. 995, in hardback, 460 pages, ISBN: 9788132113195

99

99: Unforgettable Fiction, Non - Fiction, Poetry & Humour by Khushwant Singh from Aleph Book Company.

99 collects in a single volume the finest pieces Khushwant Singh published over the course of a long and prodigiously creative life. The essays, extracts, stories and poems (one for each year of his life) have been chosen for their excellence or because they represent an aspect of the author’s versatility and range. Some of the selections are well known. Others have never been published in book form.
The book is divided into fifteen sections and showcases his exceptional achievement as a writer. Family Matters contains extracts from his autobiography and some personal narratives; My Beloved Country has some extraordinary writing about India; The Sikhs comprises excerpts from his books A History of the Sikhs and Ranjit Singh, and essays on the community and translations of the Sikh hymns; The Uses and Abuses of Religion features his articles on the dangers of communalism, and a sublime meditation on religion; Khushwant Singh’s accounts of Pakistan and Pakistanis (including one of the most dazzling examples of journalism in our time.

The Hanging of Bhutto’) are included in Passage to Pakistan; he wrote interestingly about famous people all his life, and twelve of his profiles feature in Singular People; a self-taught naturalist, he was passionate about the world of nature—The Ferocity & Flamboyance of Nature has writings on this theme; All About Sex contains some entertaining ruminations on sex, one of the subjects that he was most associated with in the popular imagination. As with sex, so with humour—a few of his funniest jokes find a place in A Merry Heart. Enthusiasms, Rants & Soliloquies has a fair representation of his electrifying polemics on a variety of subjects.

A wise and honest man, his most insightful pieces on life, dealing with adversity, ageing and death find a place in How to Live, How to Die. As a novelist, he was superlative—selections from the six novels he published are to be found in The Novels; Portrait of a Lady and Other Stories features the eponymous story along with a few others; a great admirer of writers in Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi, he translated many of their works, some of which can be found in Exchange of Lunatics: Fiction in Translation and A Passion for Poetry. Published on the anniversary of Khushwant Singh’s birth, this is the definitive anthology of the work of one of our greatest and most entertaining writers—it will offer the reader page after page of thought-provoking pleasure.

In our Fiction section, Rs. 699, in hardback, 480 pages, ISBN: 9789383064755

Makers of Modern Asia

Makers of Modern Asia by Ramachandra Guha from Harvard Business School Publishing.

Hardly more than a decade old, the twenty-first century has already been dubbed the Asian Century in recognition of China and India’s increasing importance in world affairs. Yet discussions of Asia seem fixated on economic indicators—gross national product, per capita income, share of global trade. Makers of Modern Asia reorients our understanding of contemporary Asia by highlighting the political leaders, not billionaire businessmen, who helped launch the Asian Century.

The nationalists who crafted modern Asia were as much thinkers as activists, men and women who theorized and organized anticolonial movements, strategized and directed military campaigns, and designed and implemented political systems. The eleven thinker-politicians whose portraits are presented here were a mix of communists, capitalists, liberals, authoritarians, and proto-theocrats—a group as diverse as the countries they represent.

From China, the world’s most populous country, come four: Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Revolution; Zhou Enlai, his close confidant; Deng Xiaoping, purged by Mao but rehabilitated to play a critical role in Chinese politics in later years; and Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang party formed the basis of modern Taiwan. From India, the world’s largest democracy, come three: Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indira Gandhi, all of whom played crucial roles in guiding India toward independence and prosperity. Other exemplary nationalists include Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, Indonesia’s Sukarno, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, and Pakistan’s Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. With contributions from leading scholars, Makers of Modern Asia illuminates the intellectual and ideological foundations of Asia’s spectacular rise to global prominence.

In our Politics section, Rs. 895, in hardback, 400 pages, ISBN: 9780674365414

Patronage as Politics in South Asia

Patronage as Politics in South Asia by Anastasia Piliavsky from Cambridge University Press (India).

Western policymakers, political activists and academics alike see patronage as the chief enemy of open, democratic societies. Patronage, for them, is a corrupting force, a hallmark of failed and failing states, and the obverse of everything that good, modern governance ought to be. Healthy democracies stamp out patronage. South Asia poses a frontal challenge for this consensus. Here the world’s most populous, pluralist and animated democracy is also a hotbed of corruption with persistently startling levels of inequality.

Patronage as Politics in South Asia confronts this paradox with calm erudition: sixteen essays by anthropologists, historians and political scientists show, from a wide range of cultural and historical angles, that in South Asia patronage is no feudal residue or retrograde political pressure, but a political form vital in its own right.

This volume suggests that patronage is no foe to South Asia’s burgeoning democratic cultures, but may in fact be their main driving force. The landmark volume is essential reading for students of South Asia, political scientists, economists, policymakers and anyone interested in the politics of the Indian subcontinent and the wider world.

In our Anthropology section, Rs. 895, in hardback, 480 pages, ISBN: 9781107056084

The Mouse Charmers

The Mouse Charmers: Digital Pioneers of India by Anuradha Goyal from Random House.

The advent of Internet has been a significant gamechanger for our generation. Mouse Charmers are a new breed of entrepreneurs in emerging India powered bythe Internet and the opportunities that it offers to create new markets and to cater toold markets in new ways.

Some of them have already achieved success where theycan be called iconic and inspiring while others have powerful ideas that put themon the same path.Anuradha Goyal tells the stories of digital entrepreneurs like Flipkart, Zomato,ImagesBazaar, IndiBlogger; how they started out, the innovations and technologiesinvolved, their business models, and unique marketing strategies. Inspiring anduseful, The Mouse Charmers is an essential guide for aspiring entrepreneurs.
In our General section, Rs. 299, in hardback, 344 pages, ISBN: 9788184004922

Off the Record

Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary by Ajith Pillai from Hachette India.

In a journalist's career, the best stories can seldom be published. Veteran journalist Ajith Pillai's colourful career spanning nearly three decades has taken him from the murky underworld of Bombay to the icy heights of Kargil, yet, the stories he has written are only half the story. Now, for the first time, the 'off-the-record' stories that never found their way to print are presented in this witty and engaging memoir.

Beginning with a call from a furious Chota Shakeel, Dawood Ibrahim's right-hand man, asking him to retract a story on 'Bhai' or face the consequence, Ajith takes the reader on a journey that sees him guide V. S. Naipaul to meet 'boys' from the underworld, follow the sensuous Silk Smitha around the city on a New Year's eve, witness the first shots of operation Vijay during the Kargil war, track, along with a colleague, a brigadier accused of high treason across the country, come across embarrassed congressmen in Kamathipura,

Bombay's red-light district, discover who was pulling the strings during Vajpayee's tenure and finally, coordinate the coverage of the multi-million dollar scorpene submarine scam and the sensational Radio tapes. Written in his trademark wry style, with real stories more entertaining than fiction, off the record is a testament to a journalist's life, as well as a comment on the changing nature of the effervescent Indian media.

In our Biography section, Rs. 395, in paperback, 384 pages, ISBN: 9789350097847

New Published

The Ground Between: Anthropologists Engage Philosophy by Veena Das, Michael Jackson, Arthur Kleinman And Bhrigupati Singh from Orient Blackswan.

The guiding inspiration of this book is the attraction and distance that mark the relation between anthropology and philosophy. This theme is explored through encounters between individual anthropologists and particular regions of philosophy. Several of the most basic concepts of the discipline—including notions of ethics, politics, temporality, self and other, and the nature of human life—are products of a dialogue, both implicit and explicit, between anthropology and philosophy. These philosophical undercurrents in anthropology also speak to the question of what it is to experience our being in a world marked by radical difference and otherness.

In The Ground Between, twelve leading anthropologists offer intimate reflections on the influence of particular philosophers on their way of seeing the world, and on what ethnography has taught them about philosophy. Ethnographies of the mundane and the everyday raise fundamental issues that the contributors grapple with in both their lives and their thinking. With directness and honesty, they relate particular philosophers to matters such as how to respond to the suffering of the other, how concepts arise in the give and take of everyday life, and how to be attuned to the world through the senses.

Their essays challenge the idea that philosophy is solely the province of professional philosophers, and suggest that certain modalities of being in the world might be construed as ways of doing philosophy. This book will be of interest to social scientists, philosophers and literary scholars.

In our Philosophy section, Rs. 995, in hardback, 360 pages, ISBN: 9788125055006


The Problem of Caste by Satish Deshpande from Orient Blackswan.

Caste is one of the oldest concerns of the social sciences in India that continues to be relevant even today. This book tracks how scholars from different disciplines have responded to the caste question in independent India and highlights recent shifts in perspective. The general perception about caste is that it is an outdated concept that was slowly but inevitably dying out until it was revived by colonial policies and promoted by vested interests and electoral politics after independence.

However, this hegemonic perception changed irrevocably in the 1990s after the controversial reservations for the Other Backward Classes recommended by the Mandal Commission. Mandal triggered a new awakening by revealing that only a privileged upper caste minority believed in the declining significance of caste—for the vast majority of Indians caste continued to be a crucial determinant of life opportunities.

This volume collects significant writings spanning seven decades, three generations and several disciplines. The introduction contextualises established perspectives in relation to emergent concerns, and is followed by forty essays organised into six sections. The first section offers a sample of disciplinary responses ranging from sociology to law. The second explores the relationship between caste and class, while the third highlights the interplay between caste and politics.

The fourth section covers old and new challenges in law and policy. Emergent research areas are represented in section five and section six showcases post-Mandal innovations in caste studies. This transdisciplinary volume brings together sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, historians, economists and others. It will be essential reading for students and scholars across these disciplines

In our Sociology section, Rs. 750, in paperback, 783 pages, ISBN: 9788125055013


Revisiting 1956: B. R. Ambedkar and States Reorganisation by Sudha Pai And Avinash Kumar from Orient Blackswan.

In 1938, when he opposed the formation of Karnatak Province along linguistic lines, Ambedkar pointed out, ‘… we have been living together … only to emphasise the fact that those who want that this unity be sundered … must consider this matter in a much more serious way and not on grounds which are purely sentimental.’

When the Indian identity was in its embryo, he feared that fostering cultural identities would result in separate nationalities. By 1953, after the formation of Andhra State, he pointed at the lack of proper thinking that had gone into the merger. In 1956, when the States Reorganisation Commission submitted its report, he identified its flaws, and famously laid down his ‘One state, one language’ principle.

The speeches, tracts and articles that Ambedkar produced on these lines were soon forgotten. And now, as new states are being formed, Ambedkar’s works find renewed relevance. When he called the merger of Telangana and Telugu-speaking areas of Madras Presidency as ‘artificial’, Ambedkar showed remarkable vision that administrators can learn from. In laying criteria for reorganisation of states—viability, size, economic feasibility, equality, federal balance, and the divisive issue of language—he has already addressed concerns that the contemporary common man now asks.

Along with addressing students and scholars of political science, demography, public administration and Indian History, Revisiting 1956 resurrects the leader’s works from oblivion and presents relevant portions from them for the general, interested reader.

In our Politics section, Rs. 625, in hardback, 256 pages, ISBN: 9788125055143

Death and Dying

Death and Dying by Sudhir Kakar from Penguin Books India.

Billions have died in the thousands of years since human beings first developed language, but we do not have a single credible account of the subjective experience of dying and the afterlife. This is why death continues to be an immense mystery and a subject of eternal fascination.
In Death and Dying, scholars and intellectuals illumine the major issues raised by the inevitable ending to life.

The range is wide: from the dread that accompanies all notions of mortality to the objective evidence for the existence of an afterlife; from an exploration of the spiritual dimensions of mourning to analyses of how death was perceived and interpreted by geniuses like John Keats, Rabindranath Tagore and Carl Jung.

Utterly compelling, these essays prompt us to question our fears and notions of death while enabling us to perceive this phenomenon with greater understanding and intelligence.

In our Psychology section, Rs. 499, in hardback, 272 pages, ISBN: 9780670084647

Marxist Economic Theory, (Vol- I to II)

Marxist Economic Theory, (Vol- I to II) by Ernest Mandel from Aakar Books.

Introduction - Labour, Necessary product, Surplus Product - Exchange, Commodity, Value – Money, Capital, Surplus-value – The Development of Capital - The Contradictions of Capitalism - Trade – Credit – Money – Agriculture- Reproduction and the Growth of National Income - Periodical Crises - Monopoly Capitalism - Imperialism – The Epoch of Capitalist Decline – The Soviet Economy – The Economy of the Transition Period – Socialist Economy – Origin, Rise and Withering Away of Political Economy- Bibliography – Index

In our Economics section, Rs. 750, in paperback, 783 pages, ISBN: 9788189833466

Remembered Thoughts

Remembered Thoughts: A Journey over Forty-Five Years of Academics by Dr. Gopal K Kadekodi from Serials Publications.

A collection of 33 articles and short pieces previously published in newspapers, magazines and periodicals along with several unpublished keynote and inaugural addresses delivered by the author are put together in a thematic form in this book.
The chosen themes are:

All about ecology and environment
On resource management
Can the budgets deliver?
Acting for development

Delivering good governance The author provides several critical comments and views on the economic, social, ecological and environmental matters, situations and policy prescriptions set out from time to time. Comments on the budgets reflecting on their focus, missings and drives are highlighted. Remembering lead activities like Anna Hazare, or P R Mishra adds lots of good memories about their missions for the young and next generation of readers.

Some of the major economic and social issues addressed by the author are: need for raising savings rates in the country; need for natural resource valuation and accounting; scope for enhancing governance regulations and procedures; natural resource conservation strategies; energy management; and social planning.

Though the articles are drawn from the author’s writings over the last 45 years, they stand out as pieces of thoughts valid even today. Hence the title of the book: Remembered Thoughts The book is forwarded by Shri Jairam Ramesh, former Minister for Environment and Forests, and also Rural Development.

In our Ecology and Environment section, Rs. 280, in hardback, 320 pages, ISBN: 0978183876803

Dilip Kumar

Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow An Autobiography by Dilip Kumar from Hay House India.

A Long-awaited Autobiography. An authentic, heartfelt and compelling narrative - straight from the horses mouth - that reveals for the first time numerous unknown aspects of the life and times of one of the greatest legends of all time who stands out as a symbol of secular India. Dilip Kumar (born as Yousuf Khan), who began as a diffident novice in Hindi cinema in the early 1940s, went on to attain the pinnacle of stardom within a short time. He came up with spellbinding performances in one hit film after another - in his almost six-decade-long career - on the basis of his innovative capability, determination, hard work and never-say-die attitude.

In this unique volume, Dilip Kumar traces his journey right from his birth to the present. In the process, he candidly recounts his interactions and relationships with a wide variety of people not only from his family and the film fraternity but also from other walks of life, including politicians. While seeking to set the record straight, as he feels that a lot of what has been written about him so far is full of distortions and misinformation, he narrates, in graphic detail, how he got married to Saira Banu, which reads like a fairy tale! Dilip Kumar relates, matter-of-fact, the event that changed his life-his meeting with Devika Rani, the boss of Bombay Talkies, when she offered him an acting job. His first film was Jwar Bhata (1944).

He details how he had to learn everything from scratch and how he had to develop his own distinct histrionics and style, which would set him apart from his contemporaries. After that, he soon soared to great heights with movies such as Jugnu, Shaheed, Mela andaz, Deedar, Daag and Devdas. In these movies he played the tragedian with such intensity that his psyche was adversely affected. He consulted a British psychiatrist, who advised him to switch over to comedy. The result was spectacular performances in laugh riots such as Azaad and Kohinoor, apart from a scintillating portrayal as a gritty tonga driver in Naya Daur. After a five-year break he started his second innings with Kranti (1981), after which he appeared in a series of hits such as Vidhaata, Shakti, Mashaal, Karma, Saudagar and Qila.

In our Biography section, Rs. 699, in hardback, 450 pages, ISBN: 9789381398869

Political Philosophy of Ambedkar

Political Philosophy of Ambedkar: An Inquiry into the Theoretical Foundations of the Dalit Movement by P. Kesava Kumar from Kalpaz Publications.

Bharat Ratna Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was a prominent political thinker of our times. He negotiated with the grand political theories such as liberalism, conservatism, Marxism and communitarianism in his own authentic and indigenous way. His philosophy is ethical, rational, pragmatic and democratic in its spirit.

His political thought internalizes the principles of equality, liberty and fraternity. He philosophizes the Indian social reality from a victim’s perspective but provides insights to transform a victim into a human with courage of conviction and inalienable dignity.

This book presents an in-depth study of the political philosophy of Ambedkar. Theorising the Dalit movement, it critically analyses the problems and philosophical underpinnings of contemporary Dalit movement.

In our Philosophy section, Rs. 540, in hardback, 182 pages, ISBN: 9788178359847

Agitating the Frame/ The Song of the Shirt

Agitating the Frame: Five Essays on Economy, Ideology, Sexuality and Cinema by Slavoj Zizek from Navayana.

The world today, not in the least Europe, is facing an unprecedented crisis. There is more food to eat, more ideology, sexual permissiveness, exhaustive laws, regularization of banking and other financial institutions, and, Slavoj Žižek argues, more privacy. Yet, the level of disbelief and frustration with regard to hunger, sexuality, law and order, the economic situation, politics, and the notion of public space is palpable. Is this not just because we continue to be seduced by a patchwork of easy but wrong answers but because the allure of those answers leads us to asking the wrong questions?

Žižek illumines a dense path through the works of Daphne du Maurier, Jean Pierre Melville’s The Army of Shadows, the films of Lubitsch, the place of violence in the Buddhist system of moral conduct, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, the assertion that Gandhi was more violent than Hitler, pedophilia in the Church, the maternal aspect of North Korean leaders, the crisis in Cyprus and Greece, the larger economic meltdown and its denial by the very people who are responsible for it.

In the process, we are invited to question some of these answers, and to return to the questions. Žižek then goads us to develop tools that might help not only in reframing the questions but make us look at the very frame with skepticism.

In our Essays and Nonfiction section, Rs. 295, in paperback, 204 pages, ISBN: 9788189059651


The Song of the Shirt: Cheap Clothes Across Continents and Centuries by Jeremy Seabrook from Navayana.

Labour in Bangladesh flows like its rivers—in excess of what is required. Often, both take a huge toll. Labour that costs $1.66 an hour in China and 52 cents in India can be had for a song in Bangladesh—18 cents. It is mostly women and children working in fragile, flammable buildings who bring in 70 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange.

Bangladesh today does not clothe the nakedness of the world, but provides it with limitless cheap garments—through Primark, Walmart, Benetton, Gap. In elegiac prose, Jeremy Seabrook dwells upon the disproportionate sacrifices demanded by the manufacture of such throwaway items as baseball caps. He shows us how Bengal and Lancashire offer mirror images of impoverishment and affluence.

In the eighteenth century, the people of Bengal were dispossessed of ancient skills and the workers of Lancashire forced into labour settlements. In a ghostly replay of traffic in the other direction, the decline of the British textile industry coincided with Bangladesh becoming one of the world’s major clothing exporters. With capital becoming more protean than ever, it wouldn’t be long before the global imperium readies to shift its sites of exploitation in its nomadic cultivation of profit.

In our Art and Architecture section, Rs. 495, in hardback, 287 pages, ISBN: 9788189059644