27 Down: New Departures in Indian Railway Studies

Hitherto, the study of India’s railways has run along a few, increasingly well-travelled tracks. The central goal of 27 Down with its nine, new, railway-related studies—and much else thanks to its enclosed CD-ROM—is to explore some of the neglected dimensions of India’s colonial and postcolonial railways. The contributors, a stimulating mix of younger and older scholars, explore vastly different aspects of India’s railways, past and present. Railways and the nineteenth century capitalist development of South Asia, porters at a twenty-first-century Mumbai station, late nineteenth-century Hindi accounts of train travel, post-1947 films and writings that represent railways during the Partition of India, railway art on Bangladeshi rikshas, railway workshop labour, financing and managing the railways of North India, an exploration of why India’s railways did not contribute more positively to colonial India’s economic development, plus much more are found in the text and on the CD-ROM. Thus, social, political, cultural and economic dimensions of India’s railways are among the new departures in Indian railway studies found within this volume. 27 Down is a train with multiple destinations. Each exploratory trip is different but the contributors share an interest in the method of travel, India’s fascinating railways.

ISBN: 978-81-250-3063-8
Author: Ian J. Kerr (Ed.)
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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1857: Essays from Economic and Political Weekly

This volume marks the sesquicentennial of the events of 1857, in which multi-pronged, widespread and in many instances, organised resistance broke out against the British across north India. The contributions in this volume look at several aspects of 1857, and assess its events not merely in terms of their immediately, but in the repercussions that they had politically, socially, and militarily. The essays look at how historiography has accorded its own interpretation to 1857 and its effects, an interpretation that is changing even today. The collection has been grouped into five sections, each of which explores diverse aspects of 1857. The first section looks at historical perspectives and is titled "Then and Now"; the second, "Sepoys and Soldiers" looks at the military aspects; the third, "The Margins" is from the point of view of Dalits; the fourth, "Fictional Representations" studies how 1857 has been depicted in literature; and the fifth, "The Arts and 1857" looks at 1857 as it has inspired films, music, and fine art. Held together with a preface by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, the essays in this volume---that range in theme and subject from historiography and military engagements, to the dalit viranganas idealised in traditional songs and the "unconventional protagonists" in mutiny novels---converge on one common goal: to enrich the existing national debates on the 1857 Uprising.

ISBN: 978-0-00106-485-0
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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103 Trigonometry Problems

103 Trigonometry Problems contains carefully selected problems and solutions used in the training and testing of the USA International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) team. Though many problems may initially appear impenetrable to the novice, most can be solved using only elementary high school mathematics techniques. The key features of this book are Gradual progression in problem difficulty builds and strengthens mathematical skills and techniques. Basic topics include trigonometric formulas and identities, their applications in the geometry of the triangle, trigonometric equations and inequalities and substitutions involving trigonometric functions. Problem-solving tactics and strategies, along with practical test taking techniques, provide in-depth enrichment and preparation for possible participation in various mathematical competitions. Comprehensive introduction (first chapter) to trigonometric functions, their relations and functional properties and their applications in the Euclidean plane and solid geometry expose advanced students to college level material.

ISBN: 978-81-8128-339-9
Author: Titu Andreescu and Zuming Feng
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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100 Writing Remedies: Practical Exercises for Technical Writing

This book presents thought-provoking examples designed to challenge your ability to recognise grammatical errors or style problems and actually “debug” faulty sentences. Designed for those who aren’t professional writers but for whom writing is a necessary part of the job—technical professionals, scientists, engineers, and others.

ISBN: 978-81-7371-266-1
Author: Weiss, E.H.
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’Lini

Nalini is heartbroken when she learns that her parents have to go to America. She goes to live with her Ajji and aunt in Bangalore. How she spends the two long years making new friends, coping with school, and her adventures with Thimmi, Roly and Karpi forms the narrative.

ISBN: 978-81-250-1020-3
Author: CHANDRAN, H.N.
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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‘Of Many Heroes’: An Indian Essay in Literary Historiography

This books is a sequel to After Amnesia, Dr Devy’s Sahitya Akademi Award winning study. Of Many Heroes attempts to reconstruct the convention’s of literary history in India prior to India’s colonial encounter with the modern West. In some sections of the essay, the main focus is the mutual dependence of western literary history and cultural colonialism.

ISBN: 978-81-250-1309-9
Author: DEVY, G.N.
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‘GOOD WOMEN DO NOT INHERIT LAND’: Politics of Land and Gender in India

‘GOOD WOMEN should not claim a share in the inheritance, even if they have no brothers….’ Notions such as this have, in their own way and over time, given the women in the Santal Parganas the resolve to wrest what is rightfully theirs. This is a powerful book in the way in which it unfolds the lives and anxieties of Santal women in the two villages of Dumka district, Jharkhand. From the very beginning, adivasi women come alive through separate life histories. They span different situations and social patterns but all of them relate to rights in landed property, and their own troubled identities in the backdrop of harsh living conditions, social discrimination and lack of state support. Land for the Santal women is not a mere economic resource. It stands for security, social position and identity, and in this men have a distinct advantage. Soon after, writing in a personal vein, the author unfolds how these anxieties of the Santal women resonate her own. The author traces the relationship between Santals and their land from historic times to the modern era when they have access to both the modern legal system and their own customary laws. She also examines the role of external agencies in this struggle – government administrative bodies, non-governmental organizations and political leaders. As modern influences crowd out traditional mores the author asserts that development is not always a benign process of social advancement but a highly political struggle for re-negotiating power relations between men and women, and among social groups. The use of a ‘community’ identity as adivasis has also been responsible for denying women rights to land in the context of the movement for political autonomy of Jharkhand. Based on rich ethnographic material, this sensitive book lays bare the reality of being an adivasi and an adivasi woman, in all its nuances, in the modern globalized world.

ISBN: 978-81-87358-24-4
Author: Nitya Rao
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. . . And Pine for What is Not

Suneeta Deshpande’s bitter-sweet reminiscenes are of a life fully lived, from a student revolutionary, stage performer, writer, to being an educational administrator. Translated by Gauri Deshpande from the Marathi original (1990), it paints a vivid picture of a large repertoire of roles packed into one eventful existence. Her biography reveals varied facets of a high-principled and intensely private person—a woman who could bring an intensity of purpose not only to bomb-making and underground work, but also to poetry-reading and tribal education.

ISBN: 978-81-250-0477-6
Author: DESHPANDE, SUNEETA.
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire

Written around a set of sea voyages involving Curzon, Tagore, and Gandhi, as well as unknown merchants, labourers, soldiers, and pilgrims, this book asks us to completely rethink the nature of nationalism. It does so by arguing the importance of interregional arenas for extra-territorial and universalist anti-colonialism. This current of ideas, Bose powerfully demonstrates, coexisted and contended with territorial nationalism. He illuminates the interplay of nationalism and universalism in the thought and politics of a wide range of nationalists and patriots—both exalted and subaltern.This fascinating history of mobile peoples around the Indian Ocean also retrieves the nuances of patriotism in diasporic public spheres by focusing on the many fragments that trespassed the borders of colonies and would-be nations. The pilgrimage experience of Muslims from India, Malaya, and Java to Mecca and Medina; the overseas voyages of Tagore and Gandhi; and the diaries and epistolary records of ordinary travellers collectively reveal the reality of the Indian Ocean as a cultural ecumene, a distinguishable zone which inspired ideas and aspirations that challenged Europe’s hegemonies. This pioneering exploration of the oceanic dimension of anti-colonialism and religious universalism frees the study of nationalism from its landlocked state. By elucidating ideas that wafted across the Indian Ocean, Bose makes a rich and persuasive argument, namely that the intellectual history of the age of empire may best be studied in the framework of multiple and competing universalisms rather than mutually exclusive and conflicting cultural relativisms.

ISBN: 978-81-7824-280-4
Author: Sugata Bose
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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A General Introduction to Linguistics

A General Introduction to Linguistics takes the lay reader through the scientific study of language, linguistics. Moving away from a Euro-centric premise, the author begins with Panini’s description of Sanskrit grammar in his eight books, the Ashtadhayi and moves on to linguists who have contributed to the discipline like de Saussure, Bloomfield and Chomsky, whose theories it conveys simply and lucidly. It also deals with current linguistic theories and touches upon issues in socio-linguistics, linguistic human rights and language death.

ISBN: 978-81-250-3979-2
Author: Tariq Rahman
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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A Dictionary of Public Administration

A Dictionary of Public Administration is the first work of its kind in India as well as perhaps in the Third World. It covers the terms, concepts, theories and paradigms of public administration. Each term is defined and explained concisely but clearly. While a large number of entries are discussed in a few lines, many of them are very comprehensively treated, which is usually characteristic of an encyclopedia. The dictionary deals with the theory of public administration in all its sub-fields like administrative theory, personnell administration, financial administration, comparative public administration, administrative law and public policy. It goes beyond and includes the institutions and processes of Indian administration as well. All these features make this an indispensable volume for students and teachers of public administration as well as policy planners and analysts.

ISBN: 978-81-250-3779-8
Author: S.R. Maheshwari
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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A Concise History of Indian Literature in English

For anyone interested in the story of English in India, or in the finest English storytellers of India, this is the essential companion.This book is a history of two hundred years of Indian literature in English. It starts by looking at the introduction of English into India’s complex language scenario around 1800. It then takes up the canonical poets, novelists, and dramatists, as well as a few unjustly forgotten figures, who have made significant contributions to the evolution of Indian literature in English. The book comprises twenty-four chapters, written by some of India’s foremost scholars and critics. Each chapter is devoted either to a single author (Kipling, Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, R.K. Narayan), or to a group of authors (the Dutt family of nineteenth-century Calcutta; the Indian diasporic writers of the twentieth century), or to a genre (beginnings of the Indian novel; poetry since Independence).Though the contributors are all experts in their chosen areas, this is a book for the non-specialist general reader. Biographical information on major literary figures is provided, and in most cases their work is historically contextualized. The chapters can be read selectively (for example, to follow the development of a genre) or in the order in which they appear, which is chronological.William Jones and Thomas Macaulay, Henry Derozio and Toru Dutt, Bankim and Tagore, Kipling and Naipaul, G.V. Desani and Raja Rao, R.K. Narayan and Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Sarojini Naidu and Anita Desai, Gandhi and Nehru, Mulk Raj Anand and Aubrey Menen, Khushwant Singh and Ved Mehta, Verrier Elwin and Salim Ali, Jim Corbett and M. Krishnan, Nissim Ezekiel and A.K. Ramanujan, Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and I. Allan Sealy, Gieve Patel and Girish Karnad, social reformers and religious thinkers, conservationists and hunters, Presidency College and St Stephen’s College, drama and translation, this volume covers everything of literary significance that has happened in India.

ISBN: 978-81-7824-302-3
Author: Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (Ed.)
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel by the same name, which is believed to have renewed the Christmas spirit across the world. The story of the unfriendly miser who has a change of heart on the eve of Christmas, is one of the most widely read of Dickens’ works.Special Features: Carefully graded for children across all board patterns, witha rich introduction which gives a background to the play. a well-defined dramatis personae section to allow easy character identification. an on-page glossary that does not impede the joy of reading aloud or enactment. rich illustrations which guide the use of costumes and stage settings. some suggestions for on-stage adaptations. Plays for Schools is a series of playscripts meant to foster a love for reading and performing plays at school. The plays are chosen from among the well-loved stories of all times—from mythology and biography to modern fiction. Written in modern English with clear stage directions and useful notes, the playscripts lend themselves to reading aloud and enactment. They are graded, both in terms of theme and language, for children between five and fifteen years of age.

ISBN: 978-81-250-3839-9
Author: Una Nibuaidh
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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A Book of Plays

A Book of plays comprises five one-act plays and Act V of Othello. Published for University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, the book introduces to the reader, the one-act play as a genre. Notes on the author, glossary and exercises make the book easy for the reader to understand.

ISBN: 978-81-250-4012-5
Author: Board of Editors
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A Bird's Eye View : The Collected Essays and Shorter Writings of Salim Ali (Volume 1 and 2)

Sálim Ali, without question India’s greatest ornithologist, was a prolific writer. Apart from his many books (the best known being The Book of Indian Birds), he wrote a large number of scientific papers, essays, and popular articles for a variety of journals, and magazines. He also broadcast radio talks and gave public lectures as well as interviews. This body of Sálim Ali’s work has never before been gathered together into a book.This first-time collection of all these shorter writings, painstakingly ferreted out and put together by Sálim Ali’s former student Tara Gandhi (with the permission of the Bombay Natural History Society, Sálim Ali’s intellectual and spiritual home for many years), presents a fascinating array of topics as diverse as the Indian landscapes and birdlife that were his passion. Whether it is the colours of a bird's feathers or the ecology of the Himalaya mountains or an insightful conservation message, Salim Ali’s evocative writing style makes reading this volume enormously pleasurable. Of its intellectual and academic importance to the world’s ornithologists, to India’s scientists, and to all bird lovers, there can be no doubt.

ISBN: 978-81-7824-170-8
Author: Tara Gandhi (Editor)
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8 Preposterous Propositions: From the Genetics of Homosexuality to the Benefits of Global Warming

Placebo cures. Global warming. Extraterrestrial life. Psychokinesis. In a time when scientific claims can sound as strange as science fiction—and can have a profound effect on individual life or public policy—assessing the merits of a far-out, supposedly scientific idea can be as difficult as it is urgent. Into the breach between helpless gullibility and unyielding scepticism steps physicist Robert Ehrlich, with an indispensable guide to making sense of “scientific” claims. A series of case studies of some of the most controversial (and for the judging public, deeply vexing) topics in the natural and social sciences, Ehrlich’s book serves as a primer for evaluating the evidence for the sort of strange-sounding ideas that can shape our lives. A much-anticipated follow-up to his popular Nine Crazy Ideas in Science, this book takes up issues close to readers’ everyday reality—issues such as global warming, the dangers of cholesterol, and the effectiveness of placebos—as well as questions that resonate through (and beyond) civic life: Is intelligent design a scientific alternative to evolution? Is homosexuality primarily innate? Are people getting smarter or dumber? In each case, Ehrlich shows readers how to use the tools of science to judge the accuracy of strange ideas and the trustworthiness of ubiquitous “experts”. As entertaining as it is instructive, his book will make the work of living wisely a bit easier and more reliable for scientists and non-scientists alike.

ISBN: 978-81-7371-513-6
Author: Ehrlich, Robert
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50 Years of Space: A Global Perspective

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the world's first man-made satellite Sputnik-1, opening the doors to a new cosmic era. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of this momentous occasion 50 Years of Space: A Global Perspective gathers in a single volume, brief histories of all the major space agencies of the world written by people of impeccable credentials. In the past 50 years, many countries have found their own, unique paths to orbit. The objectives were multi-dimensional – an opportunity for investigating and understanding outer space; a means of showcasing technological superiority; a means to solve social problems. The essays assembled in this book illustrate the many different solutions that each country or organisation has developed. But today, the countries have realised that to move forward, international cooperation is necessary. This book affords us a means to look backward, learn from our failures, and surge forward in a direction which will benefit all humanity.

ISBN: 978-81-7371-600-3
Author: Manoranjan Rao, P.V. (Ed.)
Published by: Orient Blackswan Private Limited
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