Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is one of the world’s best-known voices for the poor and the downtrodden, and an inspiration for the proponents of justice across the globe. He has contributed almost without peer to the study of economics, philosophy and politics, transforming social choice theory, development economics, ethics, political philosophy and Indian political economy, to list but a few.
This book offers a much-needed introduction to Amartya Sen’s extraordinary variety of ideas. Lawrence Hamilton provides an excellent, accessible guide to the full range of Sen’s writings, contextualizing his ideas and summarizing the associated debates. In elegant prose, Hamilton reconstructs Sen’s critiques of the major philosophies of his time, assesses his now famous concern for capabilities as an alternative for thinking about poverty, inequality, gender discrimination, development, democracy and justice, and unearths some overlooked gems. Throughout, these major theoretical and philosophical achievements are subjected to rigorous scrutiny.
How to Read Amartya Sen is a major work on one of the most influential economists and philosophers of the last few centuries. It will be illuminating for readers keen to understand the breadth of Sen’s vision, and an invaluable resource for scholars, policy makers and global activists.
Archives: Books
Amie And The Chawl Of Colour
A magical tale of bringing color back into the city.
All color has left Amie’s city, Doombay, making its usually friendly people think in black and white and come to fists over petty differences, and issues of caste and religion. Worse still, it makes Amie’s mother ill. The only way to save her is to bring color back. So Amie embarks on a quest to Hue Country, meeting along the way her allies Mitey the flea, Soma the ant, and the rat Dveeja. But the problem is greater than Amie has anticipated, for Hue Country, where colors are sieved, sifted, sang and danced into being, is besieged by the evil, egoistic Emperor of Gloom and his minions. A fascinating tale of imaginary landscapes and magical adventures, in the tradition of The Little Prince and Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Amie and the Chawl of color marks the debut of a promising new talent.
The Cowherd Prince
Govinda Shauri always has a plan.
Govinda, son of Nanda-one of the many cowherds in the verdant kingdom of Surasena, in Aryavarta-was content with his tough but wonderful life. That was until the king’s men came looking for him and his brother, Balabadra, spewing death and destruction in their wake.
Forced to leave behind those they love in order to save them, the brothers are now on the run-all the while being hunted by the tyrant king, Kans, and his bloodthirsty adviser, Chanuran, who will stop at nothing to kill them.
Even as their journey reveals Govinda’s true identity as a prince and the rightful heir to the Surasena crown, it pulls them deeper into the murky secrets surrounding the throne-and its bloody legacy.
What will it take for an ordinary cowherd boy to grow into a master strategist who will always have a plan?
Gods, Graves And Grandmother
The Hindu Young World
A treasure house of exciting and informative quiz questions.Do you know what a camelopard is? Can you name the postman in the Asterix comics? Can you say offhand which animal is measured in ‘hands’ rather than feet? Would you be able to reel off the name the first recipient of the Param Vir Chakra? Do you know how many runs Don Bradman scored in his last Test innings, how many moons Venus has, and what the opposite of gravity is? If a number of these questions have got you stumped, never fear. The Hindu Young World Quiz Book 1 is chock-full of information like this, and it has been designed specifically to give you and your friends a rollicking good times even as you learn about new things on every page.This first-ever official quiz book from The Hindu Young World draws on V.V. Ramanan’s immensely popular quiz column in Young World, the Saturday childern’s supplement to The Hindu. It is a companion volume to The Hindu Young World Quiz, currently India’s biggest live quiz show for high school students-in 2002 it was held in eleven cities, with 3000 teams from over 1200 schools participating.The 1200 questions that make up this first volume of The Hindu Young World Quiz Book are a heady mix of general knowledge, curious factoids, and trivia. Comprising questions divided into sets of ten, this book is ideal for quizzing with friends, and also for reading on one’s own, for information and sheer pleasure.
Life Tree
In this moving collection of poems, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam takes us into his world, full of simplicity and beauty, understanding and compassion. Kalam’s love for the country shines through as he inspires us and urges us to break the barriers of caste, religion and language. He wonders at God’s creation in his paeans to nature, while imparting a deeply personal touch to his observations of human relationships. The Life Tree is an intimate introduction to Kalam the man, his life and his inspirational thoughts.
A History Of Sri Lanka
An Open Window
In the early years of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung proposed that, more often than not, dreams represent those thoughts and memories which are unbearably painful and have been relegated to the realm of the unconscious. Unlocking the meanings in these dreams can help people free their mind and feelings from irrational desires, fears and insecurities.
This brief but profound book assails the conventional understanding of dreams and their interpretation, drawing attention to a much-neglected aspect of dreams as a source of guidance for the spiritual aspirant. It uses the insights of psychology, but transcends it, to confront the inescapable questions most people should be driven by: What is the purpose of life, and does it all end with death? Laying bare dreams of childhood anxiety, traumas and sexuality – ‘cleaning the windows’ to uncover the deeply buried material that blocks our efforts on the inner path – it then invites contention from ‘materialists’ in its discussion of subjects beyond psychology, such as precognitive dreams, reincarnation, out-of-the-body experiences, death dreams, and numinous or ‘big dreams’- ‘an open window’ through which deeper, non-physical levels of reality can shine.
Drawing on examples from real life, Sri Madhava Ashish teaches the ‘language of dreams, ensuring a better understanding and awareness of the unconscious self, guiding the reader on the path to mental and spiritual freedom.
Sarama And Her Children
The most recognized dog in Indian myth is the dog in the Mahabharata that accompanied the Pandavasnot actually a dog but Dharma in disguise. There are, however, several more references to dogs in the classical texts. Mentioned for the first time in the Rg Veda, the eponymous Sarama is the dog of the gods and the ancestor of all dogs. In Sarama and Her Children, the evolution of the Indian attitude towards dogs is traced through the vedas, epics, puranas, dharmashastras and niti shastras. The widespread assumption is that dogs have always been looked down upon in Hinduism and a legacy of that attitude persists even now. Tracing the Indian attitude towards dogs in a chronological fashion, beginning with the pre-Vedic Indus Valley civilization, Bibek Debroy discovers that the truth is more complicated. Dogs had a utilitarian role in pre-Vedic and Vedic times. There were herd dogs, watchdogs and hunting dogs, and dogs were used as beasts of burden. But by the time of the Mahabharata, negative associations had begun to creep in. Debroy argues convincingly that the change in the status of the dog in India has to do with the progressive decline of the traditional Vedic gods Indra, Yama and Rudra (who were associated with dogs), and the accompanying elevation of Vishnu, associated with an increase in brahmana influence. Debroy demonstrates that outside the mainstream caste Hindu influence, as reflected in doctrines associated with Shiva and in Buddhist jataka tales, dogs did not become outcasts or outcastes. Drawing references from high and low literature, folk tales and temple art, Sarama and Her Children dispels some myths and ensures that the Indian dog also has its day.
For Pepper and Christ
For a century the Portuguese had been scouring the seas, collecting maps and sending spies along the Red Sea to find out how the Arabs carried on their spice trade with India … the pursuit of a legend can be pretty thankless, but it catches human imagination by the forelock.’
In his first novel noted poet and short story writer Keki N. Daruwalla brings alive a world of tumultuous voyaging during the time of Vas co da Gama-an era when the quest for exotic spices triggered a passionate desire for exploration. Legends of a magnificent Christian dominion, nestled in the heart of the East and ruled by the fabled Prester John, also generated an intense curiosity about the lands bordering the Indian Ocean.
Traversing the ocean from the Mrican coastline to Calicut on the Malabar Coast, and zigzagging through the streets of Cairo, For Pepper and Christ takes the reader on a voyage of discovery with a singular cast of characters-Brother Figuero, the fervent missionary, constantly in a tussle between felt reality and envisioned ideal; Taufiq the eternal voyager, quick to board ship and even quicker to fall in love in a strange land; Ehtesham the artist who cannot stop painting even when his life is in danger; and the Muhtasib, the Zamorin and the Abbott, three men of power, but with vastly different ways of using that power. The flight of silver doves over a church spire causes riots in Egypt; the discord between Islam and Christendom intensifies; and the individual destinies of the characters collide and coalesce in this atlas of shifting geography and looming history to form an intriguing web of power and ambition, humility and sacrifice, greed and betrayal, love and redemption. Blending historical fact with richly imagined fiction, For Pepper and Christ is imbued with the creative brilliance of one ofIndia’s finest poets.