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Harvard South Asia Inst., Dec 2014
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The Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 1977
... This initial antagonism between the two Dewans grew. Travancore and Cochin shared rights and ... more ... This initial antagonism between the two Dewans grew. Travancore and Cochin shared rights and responsibilities in some temples, and dozens of their Nambudiri Brahmin citizens performed ceremonies in both states. When ...
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Asian Studies Association of Australia. Review, 1987
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Economic and Political Weekly, Feb 8, 1997
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South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2002
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Technology and Culture, 2015
Singh reviews The Great Indian Phone Book: How the Cheap Cell Phone Changes Business, Politics, a... more Singh reviews The Great Indian Phone Book: How the Cheap Cell Phone Changes Business, Politics, and Daily Life by Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey
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Harvard University Press eBooks, Apr 2, 2013
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Choice Reviews Online, Jul 1, 2013
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Harvard University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2018
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Harvard University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2018
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The cheap mobile phone is arguably the most significant personal communications device in history... more The cheap mobile phone is arguably the most significant personal communications device in history. In India, where caste hierarchy has reinforced power for generations, the disruptive potential of the mobile phone is even more striking than elsewhere. In 2001, India had 35 million telephones, only four million of them mobiles. Ten years later, it had more than 800 million phone subscribers; more than 95 per cent were mobile phones. In a decade, communications in India have been transformed by a device that can be shared by fisherfolk in Kerala, boatmen in Banaras, great capitalists in Mumbai and powerwielding politicians and bureaucrats in New Delhi. Village councils banned unmarried girls from having mobile phones. Families debated whether new brides should surrender them. Cheap mobile phones became photo albums, music machines and radios. Religious images and uplifting messages flooded tens of millions of phones each day. Pornographers and criminals found a tantalising new tool. In politics, organisations with cadres of truebelievers exploited a resource infinitely more effective than telegrams, postcards and the printing press for carrying messages to workers, followers and voters. Jeffrey and Doron focus on three groups - controllers: the bureaucrats, politicians and capitalists who wrestle over control of radio frequency spectrum; servants: the marketers, agents, technicians, tower-builders, repairers and second-hand dealers who carry mobile phones to the masses; and users: the politicians, activists, businesses and households that adapt the mobile phone to their needs. The book probes the whole universe of the mobile phone - from the contests of great capitalists and governments to control radio frequency spectrum to the ways ordinary people build the troublesome, addictive device into their daily lives.
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Hurst eBooks, 2013
The cheap mobile phone is arguably the most significant personal communications device in history... more The cheap mobile phone is arguably the most significant personal communications device in history. In India, where caste hierarchy has reinforced power for generations, the disruptive potential of the mobile phone is even more striking than elsewhere. In 2001, India had 35 million telephones, only four million of them mobiles. Ten years later, it had more than 800 million phone subscribers; more than 95 per cent were mobile phones. In a decade, communications in India have been transformed by a device that can be shared by fisherfolk in Kerala, boatmen in Banaras, great capitalists in Mumbai and power-wielding politicians and bureaucrats in New Delhi. Village councils banned unmarried girls from having mobile phones. Families debated whether new brides should surrender them. Cheap mobile phones became photo albums, music machines and radios. Religious images and uplifting messages flooded tens of millions of phones each day. Pornographers and criminals found a tantalising new tool. In politics, organisations with cadres of true believers exploited a resource infinitely more effective than telegrams, postcards and the printing press for carrying messages to workers, followers and voters. Jeffrey and Doron focus on three groups - controllers: the bureaucrats, politicians and capitalists who wrestle over control of radio frequency spectrum; servants: the marketers, agents, technicians, tower-builders, repairers and second-hand dealers who carry mobile phones to the masses; and users: the politicians, activists, businesses and households that adapt the mobile phone to their needs. The book probes the whole universe of the mobile phone - from the contests of great capitalists and governments to control radio frequency spectrum, to the ways ordinary people build the troublesome and addictive device into their daily lives.
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Economic and Political Weekly, 2014
This study identifies 11 issues that have inhibited the spread of a comprehensive sanitation prog... more This study identifies 11 issues that have inhibited the spread of a comprehensive sanitation programme. It emphasises the complexity of issues and helps avoid the facile targeting of the poor as deficient citizens, whose latrine practices are viewed as a "primitive" source of social disorder and disease. Recognition that many factors are involved and interrelated might also serve as a warning against patchwork policies that disregard local context in their haste to proclaim another district an "open defecation free zone".
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List of Tables and Maps - Abbreviations - Preface - Preface to the Second Edition - Glossary - Wh... more List of Tables and Maps - Abbreviations - Preface - Preface to the Second Edition - Glossary - What Happened to India, 1985-92? - Introduction to the Second Edition - Secularism: What Sort of a State? - Punjab: What Sort of Democracy? - Socialism: What Sort of Economy? - Non-Alignment: What Sort of a World? - The Poor and the Polity: What Sort of a Future? - PART 1 ETHNICITY - Ethnicity - Choice - The Anti-Sikh Riots, November 1984 - Elections, Communications, Ethnicity - The Case for Federalism - PART 2 PUNJAB - Some People's Statistics: The Most Prosperous State - Revolutions: Green - Revolutions: Red - Revolutions: Industrial? - Two-and-a-half Rivers - Partition - Images and Categories - PART 3 SIKHS - Jats - Sikhism: 'We are neither Hindus nor Mussulmans' - Sacrifice - The Misl - Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) - A Queer Position: The Sikhs and the British - The Akali Dal and the SGPC - Leadership and Partition - PART 4 INNOVATIONS - Underpinnings and Infrastructures - Education: The Cow is a Useful Animal - Reading the News and Making it - History-Making - Weapons: A Cottage Industry - Innovations and Values PART 5 POLITICS, 1947-77 - National Rules: Religion and Language - Nationalist Spirit: The Decline of the Fast - Sant Fateh Singh and the Rise of the Jats - Party and Faction - Emergency and Enforced Tranquility - PART 6 FACTION - Factions: Reliable Relatives - Punjab: Questions of Prestige - Resolutions from Anandpur Sahib - Bhindranwale: A University on the Move - SGPC: The Only Sure Stepping Stone - Politics: New-Style Sants, Old-Time Film Stars - Romantics Overseas: Are Sikhs a Nation? - PART 7 EXPLOSION - Foreign Hands - Indian Talks - Symbols and Violence - Slippery Slopes - Destroying an Institution: The Police - Who are the Extremists? - Storming the Golden Temple - PART 8 WHAT'S HAPPENING TO INDIA? THE TEST FOR FEDERALISM - Centralization: Pressures and Appearances - Centralization: The Needs of Party - President's Rule and the Constitution - The Decline of the Chief Minister - The Need for Federalism - New Rules? - Reasons for Hope - Notes - Select Bibliography - Index
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India had 35 million telephones in 2001, and only 4 million of them were mobiles. Ten years later, it had more than 800 million phone subscribers and more than 95 per cent were mobiles. In a decade, communications were transformed by a device that can be shared by fisherfolk in Kerala, boatmen in Banaras, great capitalists in Mumbai and power-wielding politicians and bureaucrats in New Delhi.
Village councils ban unmarried girls from having mobile phones. Families debate whether new brides should surrender them. Cheap mobile phones have become photo albums, music machines, data bases, radios and flashlights. Religious images and uplifting messages flood tens of millions of phones each day. Pornographers and criminals have found a tantalising new tool. In politics, organisations with cadres of true-believers exploit a resource infinitely more effective than telegrams, postcards and the printing press for carrying messages to workers, followers and voters.
The book probes the whole universe of the mobile phone — from the contests of great capitalists and governments to control radio frequency spectrum to the ways ordinary people build the troublesome, addictive device into their daily lives.