This note pertains to Prabhat Patnaik’s review of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century, published in The Marxist, vol. 30, no. 2, April–June 2014. It seems to me that any critical assessment of Piketty’s book must, first of all,…
One minor sideshow to the live Modi starrer on Sunday, 21 June 2015, in the capital was the presence of a gesticulating Ramdev on the main stage. He was playing second fiddle to the star attraction, but he had a…
Ajit Singh, Emeritus Professor of Economics at University of Cambridge and a long-time associate of Indian academia, breathed his last in Cambridge on 23 June 2015, in his Newnham home in Cambridge. The news was received with immense sadness by…
Praful Bidwai, outstanding political analyst, brilliant journalist, erudite social science researcher and public-spirited activist, died on 23 June 2015 in Amsterdam where he was attending the annual Transnational Institute (TNI) meeting. He was a long-time Fellow of TNI. Bidwai had…
Satadru Sen, Disciplined Natives: Race, Freedom and Confinement in Colonial India, Primus, Delhi, 2011, 359 pages, Rs 995 Samiksha Sehrawat, Colonial Medical Care in North India: Gender, State, and Society, c. 1840–1920, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2013, 292 pages,…
We dedicate this special History issue of Social Scientist to the memory of Professor Amalendu Guha who was a member of our Advisory Editorial Board. Besides being a widely acclaimed historian, Professor Guha was consistent in his support to the…
In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine the importance of irrigation in the history of early Tamilakam. It could be mentioned at the outset that it is only in recent years that the gaze of scholars working…
Early Medieval Society Society during the early medieval period has largely been perceived within the feudal framework. R.S. Sharma sees society in terms of the proliferation of castes, the emergence of certain new groups, and incorporation of the tribes into…
The study of social and economic history of the early medieval period goes back to the writings of D.D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma in the mid-1950s and 1960s. The discussion of feudalism as a useful framework of analysis for the…
The Satsai written by Biharilal is a compilation of ‘seven hundred’ verses of independent but mutually complementary couplets that were collated in AD 1662. It groups short pithy verses to evoke mood, describe a hero or heroine, or exemplify a…