India

In July 2021, Uttar Pradesh announced a population policy, the draft of the Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilisation and Welfare) Bill, 2021. While the contents of the bill are contentious, so is the timing of its tabling in the legislature. In terms of substantive population planning, the draft document is not only detrimental to long-term demographic transition, it has serious repercussions for welfare state mechanisms.

As the migrant labour exodus unfolded with unrelenting grimness through the summer of 2020, there was frequent mention of how the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed the “invisibility” of migrant labour to Indian planners and policymakers.

India’s Tribes: Unfolding Realities edited by Vinay Kumar Srivastava, New Delhi, California, London and Singapore: SAGE Publications, 2021; pp 294, ₹1,295 (hardcover).

The Indo–Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was signed in August 1971, 50 years ago. Significance of the treaty in its own time is explained along with the contemporary relevance of its underlying motives for a vision of a plural, multipolar world.

Burning the Dead: Hindu Nationhood and the Global Construction of Indian Tradition by David Arnold, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2021; pp 268, $70.