Reviews

Cinema plays a powerful role in implicating the way in which an audience begins to think about the 'reality' that each film supposedly depicts. Ananda Mitra investigates the representation of Indians in Western films and locates this analysis within the context of the larger issue of the manner in which Indian immigrants are viewed in the West today. Mitra covers a large spectrum of films made over several decades and critiques the issue by identifying and analysing how those narrative and...

After 30 years of reporting on France for Reuters and The Economist and marriage to a Frenchwoman, Jonathan Fenby comes out with an informative, insightful and critical study of France, his "home, away from home". Fenby, now the editor of South China Morning Post, weaves reportage, anecdotes and analyses into a fascinating presentation of contemporary France. He is thorough with French politics, society and history and sees today's state of affairs from the backdrop of the French Revolution, the...

An autobiographical sojourn of a philosopher to explain his moorings in philosophy is fraught with its intrinsic perils - that of becoming a self-indulgent, subjective rambling of personal notions and prejudices. For those brought up on Bertrand Russel's "History of Philosophy" or Will Durant's "The Story of "Philosophy" or, for that matter, T.Z. Lavine's "From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest", this volume is sure to come as a let-down.But then, Bryan Magee does not make such...

Till taught by pain, man knows not water's worth.- Byron If you say "water" to an engineer, he thinks drainage, pipes, money, energy - but not life. - Hermann KnoflacherIn modern societies, water is taken for granted because it comes out when one turns on the tap and is drained away after use.. It is only when a water crisis hits one that people become aware of the maxim that "water is life." Human beings are becoming thirstier by the day, consuming five times the amount of water today than 40...

Few terms, these days, evoke so much disagreement and rancour as does the word "development." Every economist, environmentalist, sociologist, anthropologist and you-say-who differs in his or her interpretation of what "development" means. Delve a little deeper, and the debate becomes one of what "development" should entail. Arguments continue, differences persist. How sustainable is development too transforms into another contention about my theory of development being more sustainable than...

At an age when children bubble with sheer joy of being alive, millions of small girls struggle to survive the burden of poverty, overwork and ill-health in India. Girls who are forced to labour, endure an entire childhood of extremely poor health with their physical and emotional well-being at a constant three-fold risk due to their living conditions, the work they must do and the fact that they are female. These not-so-unknown, yet always ever-so-shocking facts, are highlighted in this book...

Spreading water shortages are threatening to reduce the global food supply by more than 10 per cent. Left unaddressed, these shortages could lead to hunger, civil unrest, and even wars over water. Irrigation accounts for two-thirds of global water use, but less than half that water reaches the roots of plants. "Without increasing water productivity in irrigation, major food-producing regions will not have enough water to sustain crop production," says Sandra Postel, the author. Some 40 per cent...

The man never ends to fascinate. Filmmaker, composer, writer, artist - you name one creative-artistic aspect of life, and he would revel in it. If there has been any man in India who has been a one-man institution after Rabindranath Tagore, it has been Satyajit Ray. What went into the making of this genius? Most of what used to be known about India's greatest filmmaker's days prior to the making of his 1955 classic debut venture ( Pather Panchali) particularly about his days as a youngster is...

When the Assamese militant outfit, United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), abducted social-environmental activist, Sanjoy Ghose, in July 1997, they did not what they were dealing with. There was an uproar. Protests, appeals and condemnations poured in from the world over. The ULFA panicked. It kept issuing contradictory statements - that he was safe and sound, and that he had died. Finally, the Indian Army intercepted an ULFA message indicating that he had died in the neighbouring mountainous...

The household environment of the poor, especially women and children in developing countries carries the biggest threat to health. These risks are said to be "traditional" in nature. In other words, they are associated with a lack of development. Household environmental problems typically include overcrowding, lack of sanitation and garbage disposal, indoor air pollution and vector-breeding grounds. Estimates are that around 30 per cent of the global burden of disease can be averted by...