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This book explores the different concepts of 'a university' and the way they shape practice in Muslim contexts, with a particular focus on the Islamic republic of Pakistan. Higher education in Muslim contexts is often criticised for being incapable either of contributing to the socio-cultural and civilisational developments of society or of doing research and producing knowledge of a high standard. While the international organisations accuse universities of not helping the societies to become knowledge based and to compete at the global level, some Muslim scholars call for the creation of 'authentic Islamic' educational structures that would, as they think, solve the problems of higher education.
This book analyses the push to Islamize Pakistan and its financial system by Islamic revivalists. It offers extensive interviews with Pakistani Islamic bankers on the state of their industry and how they see it developing, and provides analysis on how the Islamic banks’ customers differ from those of conventional ones. This book will be of interest to specialists on Islam, South Asia and International Economics.
Religion, violence, and ethnicity are all intertwined in the history of Pakistan. The entrenchment of landed interests, operationalized through violence, ethnic identity, and power through successive regimes has created a system of ‘authoritarian clientalism.’ This book offers comparative, historicist, and multidisciplinary views on the role of identity politics in the development of Pakistan. Bringing together perspectives on the dynamics of state-building, the book provides insights into contemporary processes of national contestation which are crucially affected by their treatment in the world media, and by the reactions they elicit within an increasingly globalised polity. It investi...
Recently, mass arsenic poisoning of groundwater has emerged as a disastrous public health concern in Bangladesh. Apart from hundreds of deaths that have already been reported, 85 million people are estimated to be at high risk of developing deadly arsenicosis symptoms. The severity and extent of arsenicosis have obliged the government of Bangladesh to declare it the "worst national disaster" the country has ever faced, and further to be deemed a "state of emergency." To fight this pervasive public health disaster, the Bangladesh government has collaborated with the international and national NGOs to implement development projects to provide arsenic-free water to rural villagers. Drawing upon...
This book provides a micro-historical analysis of the emergence and contemporary dynamics of recent ethnic sub-nationalist insurgencies in South Asia. Using comparative case studies, it discusses the causes of each insurgency, analyses the trajectory and dynamics of each including attempts at resolution, and highlights the wider theories of ethno-nationalist insurgency and mobilization. Bringing together an international group of contributors, the book covers insurgencies in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. It questions why ethnic sub-nationalist insurgencies occurred at particular points in time and not at others, and explores the comparative trajectories of these movement...
In 1962, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act hastened the process of South Asian migration to postcolonial Britain. Half a decade later, now is an opportune moment to revisit the accumulated writing about the diasporas formed through subsequent settlement, and to probe the ways in which the South Asian diaspora can be re-conceptualised. Writing the City in British Asian Diasporas takes a fresh look at such matters and will have multi-disciplinary resonance worldwide. The meaning and importance of local, multi-local and trans-local dynamics is explored through a devolved and regionally-accented comparison of five British Asian cities: Bradford, the East End of London, Manchester, Leicester and Bi...
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has not only become an important concept for corporate organizations but also civil society, community, state and the multilateral and bilateral development agencies. It has acquired great significance in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, not only in the advanced economies, but also in emerging and developing countries. In contemporary Pakistan problems of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and human rights violations are frequent. These problems cannot be dealt with by the state and civil society alone and call for corporate involvement. Backed by rich empirical data, based on extensive fieldwork and complemented with the official da...
In the Global South, indigenous people have been continuously subjected to top-down, and often violent, processes of post-colonial state and nation building. This book examines the development dilemmas of the indigenous people (adivasis) of the Indian state of Kerala. It explores the different facets of change in their lives and livelihoods in the context of modernisation under different political regimes. As part of the Indian Union, Kerala followed a development approach in tune with the Government of India with regard to indigenous communities. However, within the framework of India’s quasi-federal polity, the state of Kerala has been tracing a development path of its own, which has com...
Since the early 1990s, the achievement of ‘good governance’ has been a dominant discourse in the pursuit of social and economic development. This book presents a critical challenge to the contemporary development paradigm of good governance. Based on original ethnographic fieldwork on urban water governance reforms in south India (Karnataka), the book examines the two propositions that underlie the current good governance debate. The first refers to a claim that good governance is both democratic and pro-market. The second to the claim that commercially-oriented water services, whether private or public, are good for poor and marginalised citizens. The book analyses these propositions as...
Recognising the different ways that capitalism is theorised, this book explores various aspects of contemporary capitalism in India. Using field research at a local level to engage with larger issues, it raises questions about the varieties and processes of capitalism, and about the different roles played by the state. With its focus on India, the book demonstrates the continuing relevance of the comparative political economy of development for the analysis of contemporary capitalism. Beginning with an exploration of capitalism in agriculture and rural development, it goes on to discuss rural labour, small town entrepreneurs, and technical change and competition in rural and urban manufactur...