Imagining and reimagining India: Diversity and Plurality - A survey of recent books

• Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia's Next Superpower McKinsey & Company Inc -- "Reimagining India brings together leading thinkers from around the world to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by one of the most important and least understood nations on earth. India’s abundance of life—vibrant, chaotic, and tumultuous—has long been its foremost asset."
• Reimagining China and India: The Economic Significance of the East Tarun Khanna
• Listen to the Heron's Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India Gloria Goodwin Raheja
• Re-Imagining India and Other Essays Institute of Social Sciences (Ed.)
• Yoga in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy Joseph S. Alter 
• Militant Publics in India: Physical Culture and Violence in the Making of a Modern Polity Arafaat A. Valiani
• Claiming Individuality: The Cultural Politics of Distinction (Anthropology, Culture and Society) Vered Amit
• Planet India Mira Kamdar
• Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation Nandan Nilekani
• Re - Imagining India and Other Essays Ashis Nandy
• Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures-and Yours Tarun Khanna
• Re-Imagining the Indus: Mapping Media Reportage in India and Pakistan Samir Saran 
• Princely India Re-imagined: A Historical Anthropology of Mysore from 1799 to the present (Routledge/Edinburgh South Asian Studies Series) Aya Ikegame
• Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives On and Beyond Asia (Politics in Asia)
  Amitav Acharya
• Worldviews of Aspiring Powers: Domestic Foreign Policy Debates in China, India, Iran, Japan, and Russia Henry R. Nau
• Safe Spaces: Human Rights Education in Diverse Contexts Cornelia Roux
• Political Economy of Communications in India: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Pradip Thomas
• Neo-Nationalism in Europe and Beyond: Perspectives from Social Anthropology Andre Gingrich
• Narrative Desire and Historical Reparations: A.S. Byatt, Ian McEwan, and Salman Rushdie (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory) Tim S. Gauthier 
• International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism and Investigations of Global Modernity (Interventions) Robbie Shilliam
• The Politics of Time and Youth in Brand India: Bargaining with Capital (Diversity and Plurality in South Asia) Jyotsna Kapur -- "A contemporary interpretation of neoliberalism’s effect on life in India, the politics of time and the preoccupation with youth, and relations between generations."
• [Generally About Books] The inimitable MJ Akbar: "Curiosity never killed any cat. If the cat died it was only because it jumped to conclusions." in Democracy is the karma of India.  Mayank Bhatt shared a link. 
•  [Generally About Books] Fareed Zakaria writes about India.. 
  

The Google Search "Reunion" commercial is a hit in India, Pakistan - with video

Emotional Google advert a hit in India, Pakistan - with video

• Sapa-AP | 15 November, -- The Google signage is seen at the company's headquarters in New York. File picture.
  Image by: ANDREW KELLY / REUTERS

• India, Pakistan agree: emotional Google ad a hit

LIS research in India dismal, says INFLIBNET's study

Info courtesy: G Mahesh @ musingsofmahesh.wordpress.com

Extract fom Mahesh's Blog:

A recently published study of the INFLIBNET Centre on Indian national research productivity in library and information science states that out of the top 29 institutions that have published four or more papers during 2000 to 2010, only 8 are library schools apart from DRTC and NISCAIR [although I found 10 in Table 2 of the study!]. This is particularly interesting because the rest of the institutions which contribute the majority of the LIS research output, include IITs, BARC, IIMs, CSIR labs (NISTADS, CLRI, CGCRI and NPL), MSSRF, NCSI, INFLIBNET Centre and a few more such institutions that are obviously not library schools.

...I did a random check and found that some of the articles published in Indian journals during the same period have received more citations than some of the authors’ articles that have made it to the top 25 list of the INFLIBNET study. So, publishing in Indian journals does not necessarily mean that it has “fewer representations at the international level” despite not being indexed by the citation databases.
Conclusion @ Feature Article: Indian National Research Productivity
in Library and Information Science, INFLIBNET:
The study reveals factual information on library and information science research in India. The availability of e-resources through UGC -Info net Digital Library Consortium have made deeper impact on research productivity of the country in library science domain. During the period 2000 to 2003, the research productivity was almost static with "no growth". The trial access of e-resources under the Consortium started during the year 2003. The influence and impact of the availability of e-resources through consortium is visible immediate atter 2004. The research productivity is risen sharply atter 2004. In the year 2010, the research productivity has just doubled from the year 2004. The impact is very impressive, but compared to developed countries, the library science research in India is stil at infancy stage. The library science schools of the country need to introspect themselves and devote their time and energy towards conducting qualitative research on contemporary topics in library and information science.

PS. Thanks again to Mahesh for a link to Indian Citation Index, a tool that promises to be true in its local coverage (rather than global, e.g., Scopus and Web of Science) i.e., by and for India's literary output.

Chennai now boasts South Asia’s largest library : The Anna Centenary Library (ACL)

M R Venkatesh, Chennai, Sep 15, DHNS: Deccan Herald

In a big boost to book lovers, the publishing industry and to the public library networking concept, the Anna Centenary Library (ACL), a magnificent eight-storey structure said to be South Asia’s largest and most elegantly designed state-of-the-art library, was unveiled here on Wednesday evening. continue reading

See also:

Free access to Anna Centenary Library initially

19th New Delhi World Book Fair 2010

RSVPs @ Linkedin

Detiled Information for participating in World Book Fair

For Indian Participants

             Information, Terms Condition and Application Form (in Hindi)
             Information, Terms Condition and Application Form (in English)

For Foreign Participants

             Information, Terms Condition and Application Form

For more details visit the conference site:

See also on the same shelf: information about

34th International Kolkata Book Fair 2010, 27 January to 7 February 2010

The librarian of Mysore -- The Acorn

Extract from The Acorn (The Indian National Interest) @ Star of Mysore:

"It’s been a hundred years since Rudrapatna Shamasastry published the English translation of Kautilya’s Arthashastra

The Star of Mysore has an article (link thanks JK) by A V Narasimha Murthy marking the centenary of the publication of the very first English translation of the Arthasastra:

 Around 1905 there was a librarian by name Rudrapatnam Shamasastry (1868-1944) who hailed from the celebrated village Rudrapatna on the banks of Kaveri, famous for Karnatak music. He belonged to the Sanketi Brahmin community and by 37 he had mastered veda, vedanga, classical Sanskrit, Prakrit, English, Kannada, German, French and other languages. He had also learnt the various ancient scripts of India. ..."

continue reading The Acorn

Private Circulating Libraries in India

Note: This post is about non-public, i.e., privately funded &/or sponsored &/or independently managed libraries in India. This post is also about fee-based, or subscription based libraries. The public libraries in India, free for all, are funded by the state governments; University, college, research and school libraries are managed by respective institutions.

"The history of circulating libraries (in India) finds its place before 1770s. This was John Andrews Circulating Library in Old Fort premises at Calcutta. It survived for a short while and by 1780s it closed. Not only did this library circulate books to subscribers it also allowed its members to take home its catalog for consultation. What more user-friendly librarians did the people need? Why did this library so nice and so kind, close down? Perhaps, people did not know the value of such a friendly situation. This was also a book selling store. During this period we have historical evidences of existence of other similar circulating libraries." (p.77) Subscription or fee-based) libraries include Calcutta Book Society (founded 1817) with its branches in Bombay and Madras, Calcutta Library Society (f. 1818), and British Council's first library in Bombay (f. 1953) and American Library in Caclutta (f. 1943). Librarianship and Library Science in India : An outline of historical perspectives. (Mohamed Taher and Donald Davis) New Delhi , Concept Publishing,1994 Amazon.com

• New age lending libraries for children
• EasyLib.com: The Biggest Online Library in Bangalore
• Eloor Libraries : For Love of Good Books!
• Librarywala™ The Knowledge Library
• Discussion @ Yahoo Answers: circulating libraries in India
• Circulating & Public Libraries in Mumbai
• User Expectations in Private-Public Libraries in India

See also:

• A look at Bangalore’s book world , Reshmi Chakraborty, 28 Jul 2009
• User Expectations in Private-Public Libraries in India by MC Vasanthi - 2002
• Ajay Shah's blog: Public libraries in India
• On-the-line to online Manoj Sharma
• British Council Library India :: Home
• American Information Resource Centers in India
• MEGA Website for Indian Public Libraries - Is there any?

PUNCHLINE: "I can’t maintain my literary habit if I’ve to buy the books I want to read. So the libraries and road side stalls come to my rescue. And it so happened that I visited the Book Fair." continue reading this note: The American Library (Chennai)

Nalanda Digital Library, NIT Calicut

Nalanda Digital Library, NIT Calicut is an integral constituent body of National Institute of Technology Calicut, Kerala and started functioning as the largest digital library of India since 1999. It renders its undistinguished services to about 3000 users from all walks of life including undergraduate, post graduate students and research scholars of different branches of Engineering and Faculty and Staff from various departments of the institute and Neighboring Institutions. Continue reading

Untouchables strive to get their hands on India's wealth

"Bottom of the caste system, the entrepreneurial drive of the Dalits used to be stifled. But slowly that's all changing, writes Richard Orange in Mumbai @ Independent.co.uk

Stepping on to the factory floor of Suryatech Solar Systems is a test of faith. A welded patchwork of rusting scrap has been used to make a second mezzanine floor in a crumbling warehouse on the outskirts of Pune, south-east of Mumbai. Every move is followed by an unnerving boom of wobbling, creaking metal.
"This is the production line," says Mukund Kamalakar, Suryatech's founder, beaming proudly. "I started it in the last year. Before, I used to purchase panels – now we are making 700 to 1,000 each year."
It is a humble set-up – just a series of worktables and a few machines to cut and shape metal into solar-powered water heaters. But in founding Suryatech, Kamalakar – a strapping six-footer – has broken new ground for his caste, the Dalits, who lie at the foot of the old Hindu caste system.
According to Forbes magazine, India has more dollar billionaires than any country except the US and China. Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and billionaire brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani are, respectively, the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-richest men in the world.
But all three of them, like 27 of the 39 Indians on the Forbes rich list, come from India's traditional merchant communities. India's untouchables, the "scheduled castes and tribes" who make up the bottom quarter of India's 1.2 billion population, are absent..." ... More @ The Independent

BlogAction Day 2008 ~~ Moment for Indian bloggers to reflect

Netizens, Bloggers, and the readers (from, of and in India): Do you have a moment to reflect on Economic Competitiveness & Comparative Liveability of India Today:



There is much more to think about than the headlines of the India that glitters. Think, Think and Think of India that is not so as the media tells you.

Background:

This modernising democracy of 1.1 billion people has reached rates of economic expansion of 9% in recent years, with growing software outsourcing and hi-tech manufacturing sectors. However, India’s inefficient agricultural sector is still sustained by government subsidies, energy and transport infrastructure is severely underdeveloped, and natural resources face significant strain. Moreover, the recent dynamic growth seems to have lifted the nascent middle class with fewer benefits for the 80% of Indians who still live on less than $1 a day. India also faces challenges from widespread corruption, and from occasional violence between its many ethnic and religious groups. continue browsing the The 2008 Legatum Prosperity Index

NB. Twittering before the BlogAction Day

PS. Info courtesy: Digg here ~~ BlogAction Day 2008 Poverty @ Success With Languages

Punchline: 15th October is also first ever Global Handwashing Day in India.
"Every day India loses around 1,000 children to diarrhoea due to poor hygiene and water borne infections. This means 41 children die every 60 minutes due to this highly preventable disease. Globally, every year, more than 3.5 million children do not live to celebrate their fifth birthday because of diarrhoea and pneumonia. " Global Handwashing Day in India.
Info courtesy: EMPSKHC

Pioneering library sparks volunteerism

Launched after a successful international pledge campaign in 2007, the Bakul children's library in Bhubaneshwar is slowly turning into a node for various kinds of volunteering. Professors, young artists, students, organisers and others have started chipping in. Sailen Routray has more. @ India Together: 25 January 2008


To view a slideshow @ flickr click here!

See also on the same shelf and aisle:

• Official Blog of Bakul Foundation


• Our Idea of the Library @ Bakul Foundation's Website
  
• Much more @ Google


• Yahoo Group for Bakul Foundation members
  
• [Ornet] Bakul Foundation - The library movement.
  

NB. There is a postal address
Bakul Foundation
16 Satyanagar
Bhubaneswar- 751007
Delhi Contact: Ayusman- 9810133010
contact@bakulfoundation.org

Stay in India for free via blogger Web site

Tony Tharakan , Reuters & CanWest News Service, 27 Sep 2007

Hotel rooms in India tend to be expensive and hard to find, but a new Web site is helping visitors find a bed, with a warm conversation thrown in, all for free.

While most hosts on http://www.extrabed.in/ offer a spare bed and an Internet connection, some offer sightseeing tours, endless cups of coffee or even a game of Scrabble to add that personal touch.

The Web site was born after its founder, Kiruba Shankar, randomly contacted bloggers in Mumbai to see if anyone would put him up. He found several. continue reading

see also:

ExtraBed on NDTV

RANGANATHAN REVISITED: FACETS FOR THE FUTURE

ISKO UK meeting: Connecting communities: Content, knowledge, information: Same Difference?

Event Details:
5th November 2007
14:00 - 18:00
Venue
University College London
Sir David Davies Lecture Theatre (G08), Ground Floor, Engineering Faculty
Roberts Building, Torrington Place, WC1E 7JE

Programme

14:00	Vanda Broughton	Facet analysis as a fundamental theory of knowledge organization
14:40	Claudio Gnoli	‘Classic’ vs. 'freely' faceted classification
15:20	Jan Wyllie Simon Eaton	Faceted classification as an intelligence analysis tool
16:00	Tea/coffee
16:30	Factiva	Faceted Categorisation for the corporate desktop Visualisation and interaction using metadata to enhance user experience
17:15	Aduna	AutoFocus: An Open-source Facet-Driven Enterprise Search Solution
18:00	Networking, wine & nibbles

Click here for more Info

Google goes desi, starts online Hindi software

Click here for this Google Hindi page

अब तो हिन्दी मैं लिखना असान हो गया है.
मगर सब को क्या मालूम के यह कैसे कम करता है?

Samiran Saha, Hindustan Times

New Delhi, August 20, 2007

The world’s hottest search engine has gone desi. Now you can type in English and get the script in Hindi on Google. You can also search for local content in Hindi and 13 other Indic languages. Engineers at Google have developed software that helps online usage of "Indic" language scripts.

The term "Indic" refers to the Indo-Aryan languages that form a sub-group of the Indo-Iranian languages.

"Indic" is used in the context of the Indo-European linguistics, and is not strictly a geographical term.

Hindi transliteration was launched on the blogger service earlier this year, and the latest service http://www.google.com/transliterate/indic/ is a standalone offering of the same technology.

By launching its search in Hindi Google is looking at the wide base of Indian Net users, a large section of which comprises of those proficient in Hindi.

Google’s new products come from its Bangalore based research and development centre and its other laboratories based in different parts of the world. The two products -- Google Local Search and Google Business Centre -- launched by Google on Monday are specifically designed for those proficient in Hindi.

The Local Search is a tool for Indian users looking for relevant information on the web. With the launch of these products users will now be able to search for information on local businesses like restaurants, shops and hotels by simply searching on http: //local.google.co.in and its Local Business Centre is available at www. google.co. in/local/add.

To switch to Hindi, the users will be aided by the Indic on-screen keyboard software which can be installed by users on their personalised iGoogle pages. Typically, when a user types in English and hits ‘enter’, the script appears in the Indic script through transliteration. Google's Indic transliteration allows the user to type in Hindi using phonetically equivalent English text entered through an English keyboard. Users can create Hindi content and use it in any of the applications including mails and documents.

See also

Google Trends: The Great Desi Survey May 23, 2006, Mayank Austen Soofi

Google News Goes Desi - Launches Hindi News Service
March 16, 2007, Aaman Lamba

Google unveils India Labs, local search
INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 2007 03:12:44 PM]

Rigveda Manuscript in Memory of the World Register

This post courtesy: Smart Indian

Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute of Pune has the honour of preserving some of the oldest Indian manuscripts. Among others, it has 28,000 manuscripts of Rigveda. Thirty of these Rigveda manuscripts have been added to the UNESCO's list of the International Cultural Heritage. Rigveda is considered the oldest compilation of the Indian philosophical thoughts which survived through the singing and listening in a special manner and thus called Shruti (heard). Later on [corrected - thanks to Yatra-Tatra] there was a need of writing it and the first manuscripts started emerging. The 30 honoured manuscripts are considered to be written from 1800 BC to 1500 BC. continue reading

See also related posts from my blog:

10th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2007)

The invisible Indian library - Thought for the Day

Rare manuscripts gathering dust

Chandamama gets a snazzier look

Islamic manuscripts section revamp on the cards

The invisible Indian library - Thought for the Day

"It would take a lot of dedication—and the revenues of more than a hundred villages today—to create proper public libraries, accessible to all, across India. But the difference it would make in our daily lives is incalculable. We’re very good at constructing malls; it seems that every city and small town now has its own shopping paradises. How hard would it be for a nation of mall-builders to construct a few good public libraries alongside?" SPEAKING VOLUMES, Nilanjana S Roy / New Delhi May 01, 2007, Business Standard

See also related resources:

The lost world of libraries

MEGA Website for Indian Public Libraries - Is there any?

Libraries to go online in Andhra Pradesh: Minister

Case Studies from India: Evidence-based Librarianship. Extracts from:

The lost world of libraries

posted by Blake on Sunday May 20, @12:23PM from the dusty-shelves dept.

The Business Standard - India has a look at some ooooollllddd libraries in India. But, however distinguished the provenance of these three, as also that of the Dayal Singh Public Library in Delhi and other public libraries elsewhere in the country, they are all rather sad places today. Only PhD students come here now to trawl the dusty shelves of uncared for books, rummage through the crumbling cards and brave the apathetic sloth of the staff for the early and rare editions of novels and journals. [Source: Librarian and Information Science News]

See also: Map of Libraries in New Delhi

Rare manuscripts gathering dust

6 May, 2007 l 0836 hrs ISTlTIMES NEWS NETWORK]

PATNA: More than 5,000 rare manuscripts in different languages are decaying in the Patna University (PU) Central Library for want of proper upkeep and preservation.

Even as the library was linked with the Information and Library Networking programme of the UGC several years back, these valuable manuscripts are yet to be transformed into digital and electronic forms.

The manuscript section of the library, once considered to be a repository of rich cultural heritage, has been lying locked for the last several years.

The section was being manned by two research assistants and a manuscript binder, but all the three employees retired and there is none to look after this valuable section today.

The AC machine installed in this section for protecting manuscripts from decay has not been in operation for the last 25 years.

The manuscripts include 1,530 in Persian, 440 in Urdu, 316 in Arabic and 2,547 in Sanskrit, Maithili and Hindi.

All these manuscripts were made available to the library during the last 80 years by different researchers and scholars.

In fact, the PU library itself is facing acute shortage of staff, with all the top posts of librarian and assistant librarians lying vacant. The library, which contains more than 2.50 lakh books and journals, has not appointed any trained staff in the last one decade.

Surprisingly, the libraries of most of the postgraduate departments of Patna University are non-functional in the absence of any trained library staff.

Last year, PU had interviewed hundreds of people for appointment as class three and four staff, including library staff, but no appointment has been made till date owing to reasons best known to the authorities alone.

Consequently, valuable books and journals purchased by the departments with the University Grants Commission (UGC) grants are gathering dust in the libraries. When contacted, Patna University history head Kameshwar Prasad told The Times Of India that the manuscript section of the Patna University library was not proving beneficial to the research scholars due to its poor upkeep.

He pleaded for modernisation of this valuable section so that the rare manuscripts in the possession of the library could be saved for their future use.

The Patna University registrar, Vibhas Kumar Yadav, said that the university would soon appoint a full-fledged librarian. After this appointment, the manuscripts would be digitised, he said.

Is this yet another Wiki in Library and Information Science

My guess: that this "Wiki" is not open to all and free for all to hack, whack and crack. And, I see that it is limited by registeration and subject.
But, my librarian buddy, Baby Boomer Librarian, i.e, Wilfred Drew questions its credibility:

I was going to blog about this but had forgotten about it. As Sarah points out in her post at LibrarianInBlack, it is a wiki or wiki wanna be that is supposed to look at librarianship with a global focus. Don't waste your time. It is not even clear as to who actually owns the wiki when you look at it. There is no ownership information at all. A WHOIS query gets this information: ... READ MORE

There are others who are looking to find more authentic, authoritative info about this new foundland:

Librariansworld.com was sent to me by Amol, who tells me that it is a popular site in India, Pakistan, and the Far East. It’s the only site that I know of (please let me know if I’m wrong) that offers a social networking tool for librarians. It’s not a pure SN site, but it’s not that bad either. A good start.
Is anyone working on something like this in the states? One would think with all of the discussion about social software in our profession, it would be in the works. Steve

Librarians World
"Librarian's World is a network of Librarians & Information Scientists . It is a democratically managed site without any editor. It offers Social bookmarking, Expertise Exchange, Discussion Forums, Librarians Webpages and many other facilities with an objective of better networking & knowledge sharing amongst Librarians."

What others say:

Here is an interesting website for Library Professionals, gokhalesharad012 20 Feb 2007

Lets join and share, Iam Saravanan, Information Manager

I have read many topics on digital libraries on www.librariansworld.com, go ahead and get benefit. Venusgoody1 10 Mar 2007

Hello All, I have come across a very Interesting website www.librariansworld.com hope it will intrest you too. Thanks & Regards, Pranaykumar Soft-AID

Useful info on document preservation on www.librariansworld.com, Venusgoody1 pdflib 2007-02-21

P.S. I just received another update about the IASLIC website:
New IASLIC WEBSITE : http://www.iaslic1955.org.
Send your uggestion for its improvement
Regards
Dr Pilusjkanti Panigrahi
Dr Pijushkanti Panigrahi, Reader, Dept of Lib and Inf Science, University of Calcutta, 87/1 College Street,Kolkata - 700 073, West Bengal, India, email : panigrahipk@yahoo.com, (M) : +91 94342 43522. Secretary, Education Division, IASLIC; Associate Editor, IASLIC Bulletin, IASLIC, Kolkata-700 054

My most recent posts:

Copyrights and Copywrongs - Responsibility of Media and Academia

Wikipedia and Academia Hit News Headlines Again

Health Information and Libraries Journal 24:1 (March 2007)

Reviewing a blog - benchmarks?

Chandamama gets a snazzier look

Mumbai: There is good news for those who enjoyed reading Vikram and Betal stories in the old Chandamama magazines – the children’s classic has been sold to a software company which is going to give it a facelift. Read More