Manohar Publishers and Distributors: 10/19/12

19 October, 2012

Managing Water Scarcity: Experiences and Prospects

By- A. Vaidyanathan and H.M. Oudshoom (eds)

The essays in this collection discuss the sources and nature of water scarcity and conflicts in specific cases under diverse situations in India, Europe and the USA, the manner in which they have been handled, the mechanisms used and their effectiveness. The contributors, all experts from different disciplines and backgrounds, are knowledgeable and experienced in water and water management. Their papers were presented and discussed at a conference held under the joint auspices of the ICSSR and IDPAD. The participants included, besides the contributors, a wider group of engineers, economists, social scientists, environmentalists, lawyers and senior administrators. Many of them happened to combine social activism in water issues with their professional work. Though the publication comes six years after the seminar, events in the intervening period do not make a significant difference to the substantial issues raised or conclusions reached.

Scarcity and conflict over water, being an important issue in many parts of the world, provided a well-defined, concrete theme for a meaningful transdisciplinary dialogue. Exchange of experiences and views from different perspectives and in diverse situations helped participants see the issues in a broader perspective.

The editors’ introduction highlights the nature of issues involved, commonalities and differences across diverse situations, and different approaches to coping with scarcity and resolving conflicts. It also underscores the importance of coherent, multi-pronged action on several interrelated fronts (technological, legal, institutional and economic). A number of concrete and valuable practical suggestions for action and areas in which our knowledge needs strengthening through research emerges from the essays in this volume.

A. Vaidyanathan currently Emeritus Professor in the Madras Institute of Development Studies, has worked in the Indian Planning Commission, non-governmental research institutions, and also international organizations.

H.M. Qudshoom is a member of the UN Committee on Natural Resources, which advises Economical and Social Council (ECOSOC) on water related issues. Currently he is Emeritus Professor of the Delft University of Technology.

ISBN 81-7304-553-4 2004 434p. Rs.875/Pounds 60

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Land System and Rural Society in Early India

Land System and Rural Society in Early India

By- Bhairabi Prasad Sahu (ed)

Land System and Rural Society in Early India highlights the growth and changing contours of historiography with regard to the agrarian history early India. As such it incorporates some significant early writings as well as contributions which represent research still very much is progress. The patterns of regional socio-economic transformation in the context of wider historical developments come through in many of these essays.

The introduction analyses historiographical trends and focuses on problems and issues, and flowing from it the areas and nature of controversies as well as on related themes.

The articles included here deal with aspects of rural settlements, the concept of village community, the problem of the ownership of land, agrarian change, the structure of rural society and rural unrest.

The other volumes in the series Readings in Early Indian History relate to trade, traders and networks of trade, urbanization, religion, technology and society, and women and the state in early India.

B.D. Chattopadhyaya is currently Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Bhairabi Prasad Shahu is Reader in the Department of History, University of Delhi.

ISBN 978-81-7304-295-9 2004 394p. Rs.250/Pounds 17.99

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

Indo-Central Asian Relations

Mansura Haidar

Due to geographical proximity and close cultural affinity and for reasons of a long history of exchange of ideas, men and commodities between India and Central Asia, a concealed chain of common currents of culture and fascinating flickers of similarities of ethos are noticed in numerous forms.

At a time, when Central Asia is passing through a phase of reconnaissance and is constantly looking back and earnestly trying to search for its identity, it is interesting to note that every Central Asian State looks back to India for spinning the fabric of its historical and cultural splendour. It is here in India that most of men of different brands but of Central Asian origin showed their brilliance, acquired greatness, rose to prominence in India and some of them were even buried on its soil—be it Amir Khusrau, Mir Khwand, Haidar Dughlat, Bairam Khan, Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, Mansur, Nadir and a horde of others. Nothing can better testify to the age old ties existing between India and Central Asia than the latter’s search for its cultural roots, its identity and discovery of the traces of its past glory on Indian soil.

A search into the inner recesses of Indian and Central Asian civilizations with all their distinct deposits of new and varied dynasties and their subsequent transformation along with their own shades of origin and fusion had been long over due and could indeed be a purposive venture. This book attempts to address some of the aspects of these longstanding close friendly and diplomatic relations.

Mansura Haidar, Chairpersons and Coordinator, Centre of Advanced Study, Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, possesses a brilliant academic record. She is a distinguished and widely acknowledged scholar and has authored several books and numerous articles on Central Asian and Indian history. Having spent several years in Central Asia and with proficiency in various languages of the region, she could use the medieval historical material in its original form. Her well-documented researches therefore, carry an aura of authenticity and academic excellence.

ISBN 978-81-7304-508-0 2004 426p. Rs.875/Pounds 60

India’s Colonial Encounter: Essays in Memory of Eric Stokes

(2nd Revd. and Enlarged Edn.)

By- Mushirul Hasan and Narayani Gupta (eds)

The late Professor Eric Stokes conducted pioneering researches in certain areas of nineteenth-century South Asian history and established a lively scholarly tradition at Cambridge. The English Utilitarians in India (1959); The Peasant and the Raj (1968); and The Pesant Armed: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 (1978) represent major works of historical scholarship. In all his writings, as Chris Bayly tells us, the discovery of complexity and paradox had the wider purpose of warning against the danger of monolithic or dogmatic constructions of the past.

This volume reflects on certain themes which formed the bedrock of Eric Stokes’ historical
writings—History of Ideas, the 1857 upheaval, agrarian structure and peasant struggles. It is a major contribution to the existing historical literature on South Asia.

As one of the reviewers pointed out, ‘what the book has done, is to bring together a significant number of well-researched, empirically and analytically-sound papers. No mean achievement, perhaps, at a time when rigorous, professionally-competent historical scholarship is all too often dismissed as tainted by ‘positivism’ and insufficiently ‘theoretical’.

This revised and enlarged edition includes two essays by C.A. Bayly and Walter Hauser.

Mushirul Hasan (b. 1949), is Professor of History and Director of the Academy of Third World Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Having lectured widely across the US, Europe, Australia, as well as the subcontinent, Professor Hasan has help professorial fellowships at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi; the Institute of Advanced Studies, Berlin; the Centre of Oriental Studies, Rome; the Centre of Indian Studies at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris.

Narayani Gupta teaches History at Jamia Millia Islamia.

ISBN 978-81-7304-536-3 2004 500p. Rs.795/Pounds 70

India in the Mirror of Foreign Diplomatic Archives

By- Max-Jean Zins and Gilles Boquerat (eds)

This book proceeds from the co-existence of Indian secrecy over its diplomatic records that stifles academic inquiry and the release of significant materials from foreign archives which offers the fascinating possibility of understanding India’s external policy through the primary sources of others. Words written by the American, British, French and Soviet diplomats does not just chronicle a quarter century of international politics; it helps to understand the driving themes of the bilateral relations, the respective expectations and the way India tried to pursue its national interest during the Cold War.

Max-Jean Zins is a senior researcher at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). He is presently attached to the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Paris, and is also a member of the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, Paris.

Gilles Boquerat is currently the head of the Department of International Relations at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi. He is also a member of the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, Paris.

ISBN 978-81-7304-535-6 2004 138p. Rs.295/Pounds 35