Manohar Publishers and Distributors: 08/07/12

07 August, 2012

Indian Health Landscapes under Globalization

Indian Health Landscapes under Globalization

By- Alain Vaguet (ed.)

This volume brings together a varied array of perspectives on contemporary health and health care in India. Since Independence, in spite of reduced budget, India has been able to achieve a notable improvement in the life expectancy of the population. After the recent liberalization of the economy. Whether the government can safeguard the autonomy of public health, promote efficiency and escape the invariable commodification of health services is the question this very timely volume raises.

French and Indian geographers, sociologists, economists, lawyers, make use of a global perspective to introduce the outcome of the process of globalization in the field of Indian health systems in this volume. This systematic examination of cost and benefits seems a good indicator of the level of integration of a rapidly developing country. The authors have clearly stated their preferences, but the comparative studies will enable the reader to obtain a balanced point of view.

Finally, working within the field of health, viewed as a key component of the state and society mutations under globalization processes, allowed the authors to demonstrate its risks, as well as its advantages through vital case studies. The major changes can only take place when the global and the national interact in the same direction, otherwise the indigenization of global process will get subsumed under societal flux.

Alain Vaguet is an Associate Professor of Geography at University of Upper Normandy, Rouen, France. He has specialized in the field of Health Geography of India and Europe and is presently advisory editor of Social Science and Medicine.

ISBN 978-81-7304-722-0 2009 386p. Rs.950/ Pounds 60

MANOHAR PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS
4753/23 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002
Phones: 23284848, 23289100
Fax: 23265162
E-mail: manbooks@vsnl.com
sales@manoharbooks.com

To order your copy at www.manoharbooks.com

Health Sector Reforms in India

By- Girish Kumar (ed.)

The health sector reforms initially touted as the World Bank’s prescription and hence roundly rejected by the concerned scholars, have slowly but gradually started gaining grounds in India. Indeed, some of the reform measures adopted in a few states had preceded 1991 economic reforms.

The objective of this book is to capture the various strands of reforms which had started unfolding since the late 1980s itself. Following the case study method, this volume also looks into the functioning of Rogi Kalyan Samities (RKS) and lady health volunteers, both adapted as critical components of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), a flagship programme of the UPA government which aims at injecting a new life to the public health care system by strengthening the health infrastructure and providing a functional link between the community and the hospitals.

Not only does this volume draw on experiences of some of the states but by offering empirical evidences on some of the successful initiatives it enriches our understanding of the impact of reform measures.

Girish Kumar is Senior Fellow, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi.

ISBN 978-81-7304-811-1 2009 270p. Rs.695/ Pounds 45

MANOHAR PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS
4753/23 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002
Phones: 23284848, 23289100
Fax: 23265162
E-mail: manbooks@vsnl.com
sales@manoharbooks.com

To order your copy at www.manoharbooks.com

Ganitasarakaumudi: The Moonlight of the Essence of Mathematics by Thakkura Pheru

Edited with Introduction, Translation and Mathematical Commentary by SaKHYa

The Ganitasarakaumudi was composed in the early fourteenth century at Delhi by the Jain polymath Thakkura Pheru who held a high position at the treasury of Ala al-Din Khalji, and contributed to the popularization of science by producing six treatises in Apabhramsa verse on diverse scientific subjects.

The Ganitasarakaumudi extends the range of mathematics far beyond the traditional framework. The first three chapters are structured like the earlier mathematical texts in Sanskrit and treat traditional topics like fundamental operations, fractions, series, proportion, plane and solid geometry and so on. The remaining two chapters contain supplementary material derived from diverse areas of contemporary life where numbers play a role such as mathematical riddles, conversion of dates from Vikrama era to Hijri era, magic squares, and most remarkably, average yield per bigha of several kinds of grains and pulses – topics that were not touched upon in any mathematical text before.

The present volume offers, besides an introduction, a critically emended text, an English translation, and a detailed mathematical commentary where efforts were made to interpret Pheru’s formulas and algorithms in modern notation. There are several appendices, including a comprehensive glossary-index.

Sreeamula Rajeswara Sarma, formerly Professor of Sanskrit at Aligarh Muslim University, published Thakkura Pheru’s Ratnapariksa with an English translation and commentary in 1984.

Takanori Kusuba, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Osaka University of Economics, published jointly with Professor David Pingree,

Takao Hayashi, Professor of History of Science at Doshisha University, Kyoto, wrote extensively on the history of Indian mathematics and translated Bhaskara’s Lilavati into Japanese.

Michio Yana, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Studies at the Kyoto Sango University and the chief editor of SCIAMVS.

ISBN 978-81-7304-809-8 2009 328p. Rs.995/ Pounds 80

MANOHAR PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS
4753/23 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002
Phones: 23284848, 23289100
Fax: 23265162
E-mail: manbooks@vsnl.com
sales@manoharbooks.com

To order your copy at www.manoharbooks.com

Feeding India : The Spatial Parameters of Food Grain Policy

By- Frederic Landy

With the support of numerous maps, this unique volume retells the spatial history of the Indian public food system: initially based on compulsory sales and imports, later graduating to agricultural support prices. From a restricted number of only urban beneficiaries in the beginning, to its spread to rural areas; from an import-dependent State to a self-sufficient cereal producing State. A system that played its part in the success of the Green Revolution by guaranteeing outlets for farmers, which showed the way to an improvement in the calorie intake of the population, but seldom that of the nutritional situation and had significant pernicious effects in terms of its ecological consequences. A system that also contained obvious geopolitical dimensions which made the integration of the four corners of the Indian Union possible within the same structure.

The author argues that, if successive governments did not reduce the PDS’ enormous spatial coverage, it was partly because of a concept of territorial integration and aggregation, developed in equal measure by Hindu nationalism and Nehruvian thought.

This book shall be of immense interest to scholars, students, decision makers and laymen readers interested in the history, geography and political economy of food policy and food issues.

Frederic Landy is Professor of Geography at the University of Paris Quest-Nanterre-La Defense (laboratory GECKO); a honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France and an associate member of the Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS), Paris.

ISBN 978-81-7304-796-1 2009 310p. Rs.775/ Pounds 50

MANOHAR PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS
4753/23 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002
Phones: 23284848, 23289100
Fax: 23265162
E-mail: manbooks@vsnl.com
sales@manoharbooks.com

To order your copy at www.manoharbooks.com

Expanding Portuguese Empire and the Tamil Economy: (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries)

By- S. Jeyaseela Stephen

This book examines the politics of trade in horses, elephants and the phenomenal growth of bulk goods in Asia besides export of saltpetre, pearls and diamonds to Portugal. Bullions were imported and it resulted in the monetization of economy and accumulation of capital on the Tamil coast. The Tamil coastal region is taken as a micro- historical unit which constituted the fulcrum of the entire maritime commercial system between South India and south-East Asia.

The aims and policies of the Portuguese and the economic effects, their success and failure and how their significant role changed the then existing commercial topography and the traditional pattern of trade are brought out clearly in this volume. The author convincingly argues on the basis of the Portuguese sources that the years of Portuguese presence in the Tamil coast was a period of great economic revival and prosperity, a period of extensive contacts which signalled the growth of a vibrant regional economy that was integrated with the then emerging global economic system.

Jayaseela Stephen is Professor of Maritime History at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal.

ISBN 978-81-7304-802-9 2009 360p. Rs.895/ Pounds 55

MANOHAR PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS
4753/23 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002
Phones: 23284848, 23289100
Fax: 23265162
E-mail: manbooks@vsnl.com
sales@manoharbooks.com

To order your copy at www.manoharbooks.com

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy: Elements of Buddhist Iconography

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy: Elements of Buddhist Iconography New Edition Revised & Enlarged in accordance with Author’s Notes By- Krishna Deva (ed.) Sixteenth in the Series of Collected Works of Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy in the IGNCA’s publication programme. Elements of Buddhist Iconography was first published by the Harvard University Press in 1935. this new edition, ably edited and revised by Shri Krishna Deva, has been enriched by incorporating the addition made by Coomaraswamy in his own hand in his personal copy. This volume is a sustained demonstration of Coomaraswamy’s knowledge of the external features of iconography, his knowledge of the entire metaphysical tradition underlying the iconography, as well as the corresponding traditions in Islam and Christianity. It is a demonstration of the characteristics of a universe of discourse based on detailed textual, iconographic, and comparative studies that include the metaphysics, phraseologies, and iconographics of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. Buddhist art in India begins about the second century BC, with a well developed set of symbols in its iconography. But it does not seem possible to completely separate Buddhism as religion and art from the main current of Indian religion and art, or to think these symbols suddenly developed as a new creation. Coomaraswamy believes that the source of early iconography of the Buddhist art is in still earlier Vedic and Upanisadic conceptions. In addition, he noticed many surprising similarities between passages in the Vedic literature and in the mediaeval Christian theologians and mystics. The illuminating parallels found in the non-Indian traditions convinced him that mystical theology the world over is the same. The present study deals with the basic symbols of Buddhist art, viz., the Tree of Life, the Earth-Lotus, the Word-Wheel, the Lotus-Throne, and the Fiery Pillar, and shows that these symbols can be traced back beyond their first representation in Buddhist Iconography through the anicomic period of the Brahmanical Vedas, even into the Rig Vedic period itself, and that they represent a universal Indian symbolism and set of theological concepts.

Krishna Deva was an eminent scholar of Indian Art, Architecture, and Archaeology. He retired as Director, Archaeological Survey of India. He had the distinction of assisting the famous explorer Sir Aurel Stein in his archaeological explorations in Rajasthan, Bahawalpur and Baluchistan during 1940-1. He was also actively associated with Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s excavations in India between 1944 and 1947. In addition, he conducted excavations at Rajaghat (Varanasi), Nagar near Jaipur, Vaisali and Kumrahar (Pataliputra). He had classified and reported on the pottery from Taxila, Arikamedu and Harappa. In addition to organizing the Temple Survey Project (North Region) of the Archaeological Survey of India, he was also deputed by the Government of India to make an Iconographical and Sculptural Survey of the images in Nepal.

ISBN 81-7304-432-5 2009 146p. Rs.950/ Pounds 50
MANOHAR PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS

4753/23 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002
Phones: 23284848, 23289100
Fax: 23265162
E-mail: manbooks@vsnl.com
sales@manoharbooks.com

To order your copy at www.manoharbooks.com

Colonialism and Urbanization in India: The Punjab Region

Colonialism and Urbanization in India: The Punjab Region

By- Reeta Grewal

This book highlights the relationship between the processes of modernization and social change in the colonial situation in north-western India. Though interdisciplinary in orientation, this study remains embedded in the discipline of history. The pre-colonial background and the colonial context provide the setting for studying the new pattern of urbanization and new urban forms that emerged in the British Punjab. Demographic change due to urbanization, and reorientations in economic, cultural and administrative functions as well as political role of urban centres are brought into sharp focus.

The significance and the limitations of ‘self-government’, with their socio-political ramifications are discussed as a framework for urban government. The close linkages of colonialism with urbanization are underscored in relation to the pan-Indian developments, which make this study relevant for the subcontinent as a whole, that is both India and Pakistan. Illustrated with maps and diagrams, and supported by statistical tables and appendices, this book would be of interest as much to historians and geographers as to the scholars in other social science disciplines. The civic administrators and planners would find this work equally useful.

Reeta Grewal is a Senior Reader in the Department of History at the Panjab University, Chandigarh, and an office-bearer of the Urban History Association of India.

ISBN 978-81-7304-619-0 2009 256p. Rs.645/ Pounds 45

MANOHAR PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS
4753/23 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002
Phones: 23284848, 23289100
Fax: 23265162
E-mail: manbooks@vsnl.com
sales@manoharbooks.com

To order your copy at www.manoharbooks.com