Manohar Publishers and Distributors: 11/20/12

20 November, 2012

The Afghan War and Its Geopolitical Implications for India

By- Salman Haidar (ed)

Published in association with

Academy of Third World Studies, New Delhi

Few countries have been more affected by the US-led war against Afghanistan than India. There was initial hope that the war would stamp out the terrorism plaguing India but this was soon belied, and the Afghan situation remains highly unpredictable. By now, America’s interest has shifted elsewhere, yet the military presence it has established all around Afghanistan profoundly affects the geopolitical picture in the heart of Asia. The powerful lure of oil and gas has begun to open up a region once off limits to the West, and new commercial and political rivalries are taking shape.

The Academy of Third World Studies of Jamia Millia Islamia recently organized a seminar where a number of noted experts looked in depth at events in an around Afghanistan, its history, current situation and future prospects; also what it tells us about today’s unipolar world. The newly acquired significance of Central Asia is highlighted and the special situation of Iran analysed. There is also an account of how developments in Central Asia explain policy-making processes in the former hegemon Russia.

Collectively, these papers are an illuminating study of events whose full implications can only be guessed at but whose relevance to India’s future strategy cannot be bypassed.

Salman Haidar is a former diplomat who retired from the Indian Foreign Service in 1997 as Foreign Secretary. He is currently associated with the Academy of Third World Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, and also with the Centre for Research in Ruural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh.

ISBN 978-81-7304-558-5 2004 200p. Rs.425/Pounds 40

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

Text and Context in the History, Literature and Religion of Orissa

By- Angelika Malinar, Johannes Beltz and Heiko Frese (eds)

The last decades of the twentieth century have witnessed an enlarged understanding of the notion of ‘text’ as not only comprising written documents, but also rituals, artifacts and the like. Thereby, ‘texts’ were brought closer to the social religious or historical contexts that help to interpret texts. Scholars, traditionally divided in different disciplines that deal either more with texts (historians, philologists, etc.) or with contexts (sociologists anthropologists, etc.) became interested in the methods and perspectives of the other disciplines. This has resulted in a renewed interest in the theoretical issues implied in the notions of text and context. The essays in this volume reflect these debates and show how they influence and enrich research on South Asia.

Anthropologists, historians, literary critics, philologists and historians of religion deal with the mutli-layered interplay between texts and contexts in past and present Orissa. Orissa, renowned for the cults related to the Jagannatha Temple in Puri, is marked by a rich cultural diversity. In dealing with the interdependence between text and context the eassys provide fresh insights to the complexity and fluidity of cultural contexts that use text as stable points of reference. The traditions of Orissa are considered in their uniqueness as well as in their relationship to South Asian cultural contexts on a larger scale.

Angelika Malinar is Associate Professor at the Institute for Indian Languages. Literatures and Art History of Free University of Berlin. Her major publications are on the history and the modern religious movements of Hinduism, epics and Puranas, Indian philosophy and aesthetics, and modern Hindi literature.

Johannes Beltz is Research Fellow at the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg. He studied theology and Indian religions in Halle, Strasbourg, Lausanne and Paris, and received his Ph.D. in 1999. Currently, he is Assistant Curator at the Rietberg Museum, Zurich.

Heiko Fress, Ph.D., is Research Associate at the University of Kiel. He is presently working on a research project on historiography in seventeenth to twentieth century Orissa sponsored by the German Research Council.

ISBN 978-81-7304-566-0 2004 520p. Rs.1150/Pounds 95