Archives: Books

Conversations on intellectual property have been heavily influenced by the differing conception of these rights in the global north and south, with India often positioned as a leading voice for access and balance. But these conversations, important as they are in trade and policy settings, face severe limitations when explaining the conceptual framing of these rights, important doctrinal trends, or the structure and scope of the legal entitlements at work. In courts, policy implications of verdicts may carry more heft than before but on final analysis, it is the language of rights and remedies that explain and determine real outcomes. Advancing this understanding of Indian IP, the present work examines the scope and nature of rights under the rubric of trade marks, copyright, patents, and other IPRs, the defining situations when they are considered as being infringed upon, and the evolving remedies crafted by courts to redress such infringements.

In an attempt to respond to the needs of the country’s poor, the Indian government launched an ambitious workfare scheme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005, which guaranteed hundred days of employment in unskilled manual labour at a minimum wage to every rural household each year.

The book assesses the effectiveness of formal and informal mechanisms-political representation, community social audits, access to information, membership in networks, political competition-in reducing corrupt practices and enabling NREGA to reach its intended beneficiaries in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. The book tests several intuitions and finds that, among other things, political representation for scheduled castes and tribes, and women has produced dividends in the form of higher participation and higher earnings in the scheme by these groups. Low access to information, on the other hand, has hindered the effective functioning of these mechanisms. Written in non-technical language, it is one of the few studies of its kind that blends econometric and ethnographic analyses towards a better understanding of the effective implementation of the scheme.

The 1990s and 2000s have witnessed a spurt of energetic institution-building in the developing world, as regulatory agencies emerge to take over the role of the executive in key sectors. This rise of the regulatory state of the south is barely noticed both by scholars of regulation and of development, let alone adequately documented and theorized. Yet the consequences for the role of the state and modalities of governance in the south are substantial, as politically charged decisions are handed over to formally technocratic agencies, creating new arenas and forms of contestation over the gains and losses from development decisions. Moreover, this shift in the developing world comes at a time when the regulatory state in the north is under considerable stress from the global financial crisis. Understanding the regulatory state of the south, and particularly forms of accommodation to political pressures, could stimulate a broader conversation around the role of the regulatory state in both north and south.

This volume seeks to provoke such a discussion by empirically exploring the emergence of regulatory agencies of a range of developing countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The cases focus on telecommunications, electricity, and water: sectors that have often been at the frontlines of this transition.

The central question for the volume is: Are there distinctive features of the regulatory state of the South, shaped by the political-economic context of the global south in the last two decades? To assist in exploring this question, the volume includes brief commentaries on the case studies from a range of disciplines: development economics, law and regulation, development sociology, and comparative politics. Collectively, the volume seeks to shape the contours of a productive inter-disciplinary conversation on the emergence of a significant empirical phenomenon – the rise of regulatory agencies in the developing world – with implications both for the study of regulation and the study of development.

This pioneering and authoritative study considers the profound impact of the growing worldwide water stress on international peace and security, as well as possible ways to mitigate the crisis. Although water is essential to sustaining life and livelihoods, geostrategist Brahma Chellaney argues that it remains the globe’s most underappreciated and undervalued resource. One sobering fact is that the retail price of bottled water is already higher than the international spot price of crude oil. But unlike oil, water has no substitute, raising the specter of water becoming the next flashpoint for conflict.

Water war as a concept may not mesh with the conventional construct of warfare, especially for those who plan with tanks, combat planes, and attack submarines as weapons. Yet armies don’t necessarily have to march to battle to seize or defend water resources. Water wars–in a political, diplomatic, or economic sense–are already being waged between riparian neighbors in many parts of the world, fueling cycles of bitter recrimination, exacerbating water challenges, and fostering mistrust that impedes broader regional cooperation and integration. The danger is that these water wars could escalate to armed conflict or further limit already stretched food and energy production.

Water has emerged as a key issue that will determine if Asia heads toward greater cooperation or greater competition. Asia is the world’s driest continent, with availability of freshwater less than half the global annual average of 6,380 cubic meters per inhabitant. Water stress is set to become Asia’s defining crisis of the twenty-first century, creating obstacles to continued rapid economic growth, stoking interstate tensions over shared resources, exacerbating long-time territorial disputes, and imposing further hardships on the poor.

Water: Asia’s New Battleground is a pioneering study of Asia’s murky water politics and the relationships between freshwater, peace, and security. In this unique and highly readable book, Brahma Chellaney expertly paints a larger picture of water across Asia, highlights the security implications of resource-linked territorial disputes, and proposes real strategies to avoid conflict and more equitably share Asia’s water resources.

A classical epic chronicling the love of Shakuntala and Dushyanta; the silent crusade of the Mahatma who, when encountered by French custom officials, had little of value to declare including his “reputation”; the defiance of Bal Gangadhar Tilak who brought the Ganapati Puja out onto the streets; and a man called J R D Tata who flew a single engine de Havilland Puss Moth from Karachi to Bombay with regular load of mail ….. This and several other facts make up this book which showcases the wonder that is India or Bhara…. Written by one of India’s foremost journalists, B G Verghese, this book takes a hitherto unknown look at India’s ancient heritage, its diverse people and faiths, wandering minstrels, travellers and philosophers. In addition to unfolding the country’s glorious history, this book also focuses on what is integral to modern and post-Independent India —the framing of the Constitution, the building of institutions, formulation of policies – and forewarns us of all the ills that ail an overburdened nation. Juxtaposing each landmark event, are rare postage stamps, colourful, unique and beautiful, which not only served as messengers – connecting the remotest places and people in the glorious tradition of Indian Postal service—but also as markers of its history. Post Haste: Quintessential India is a definitive account of India which is uniquely retold here as a reminder of its greatness.

In 2004 Sanjaya Baru left a successful career as chief editor of the Financial Express to join Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as his media adviser in UPA 1. Singh offered him the job with the words, ‘Sitting here, I know I will be isolated from the outside world. I want you to be my eyes and ears. Tell me what you think I should know, without fear or favor.

The Accidental Prime Minister is Baru’s account of what it was like to ‘manage’ public opinion for Singh while giving us a riveting look at Indian politics as it happened behind the scenes. As Singh’s spin doctor and trusted aide for four years, Baru observed up close Singh’s often troubled relations with his ministers, his cautious equation with Sonia Gandhi and how he handled the big crises from managing the Left to pushing through the nuclear deal. In this book he tells all and draws for the first time a revelatory picture of what it was like for Singh to work in a government that had two centers of power.

Insightful, acute and packed with political gossip, The Accidental Prime Minister is one of the great insider accounts of Indian political life and a superb portrait of the Manmohan Singh era.

India’s attempt to spur growth, boost exports, and create jobs by establishing Special Economic Zones (SEZs) is a paradox: the policy represents an intensification of the country’s increasingly market-oriented development paradigm, but implementation has required active government involvement. More than a decade after importing the SEZ concept from China, India has hundreds of these walled-off, deregulated, low-tax enclaves. But an industrialization strategy pioneered in authoritarian China has faced huge political resistance in democratic India. Protest movements arose in many localities where SEZs were proposed. Resistance varied in terms of the intensity and sustainability of opposition, the grievances articulated, and the tactics employed. A central issue has been the alienation of privately owned land by business interests, abetted by the state. To date, no systematic study of the politics of India’s SEZ experiment has been undertaken. This book remedies this gap, examining variations within and between eleven states. Detailed case studies investigate differences in the nature and extent of SEZ-related political mobilization and the means employed by governments to manage dissent. By covering a broad range of regional contexts, industrial sectors, and political conditions, this volume furnishes a comprehensive picture of the politics surrounding one of India’s most controversial reform measures.