Gupta makes very interesting remarks about the role of paper in the everyday workings of the state and society in contemporary South Asia. Chapter 5 highlights writing as not just a recording of bureaucratic actions, but constitutive of state practice itself. It also critiques the use of writing to exhibit exclusionary politics towards the poor….

Indian journalist Snigdha Poonam’s book, Dreamers, examines the lives of young people in India who are trying to make a better life for themselves in an unforgiving economy and rigged system. One of these dreamers is Mohammad Azhar, described as “The Star” by Poonam. Mohammad Azhar is a young man from a Mulsim ghetto in…

  Chapter 2 of Lamia Karim’s book, Microfinance in Bangladesh, provides an insightful overview of the research process and key concepts that guided her 18-month-long ethnographic study on microfinance NGOs, gender dynamics, and rural indebtedness in Bangladesh. While in the rural area of Pirpur Thana, Karim collaborated with a research assistant (Rina) who helped her…

The readings assigned to my group were from Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen’s “An Uncertain Glory” where they highlight how deeply entrenched inequalities are in India and the failure of democracy to address them. Inequalities of various kinds exist all over the world, but India has extreme inequalities of many types including economic, health, education,…