Environment, Development And Society In Contemporary India: An Introduction

Environment, Development and Society in Contemporary India: An Introduction provides basic readings in the current debate on environment and development and its impact on people and society. It can be used by teachers and students at, both the undergraduate and postgraduate level to get a basic understanding on issues of burning importance in the contemporary Indian context. The book will also be useful as a reference material to NGOs, research institutes and policy makers. The themes covered in this book are: • Environmental history (particularly concentrating on the modern period), water conflicts and policies, Green Revolution debate, forest, wildlife and people, pollution, industrial ecology, nuclear safety, environmental movements, sustainable development, climate change and ecological debt. • This is the first book, which offers a wide range of progressive perspectives on environment and development, and its impact on the society, for example privatisation of water and its impact on the water-dependent population. • The book focuses on the co-existence aspect of the wildlife conservation, which is relevant to students and policy makers today. • It deals with traffic management and sustainable transport system. • It deals with the health and the environmental impact of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. • This book provides the reader with basic reading materials on contemporary debates surrounding the environment and development debate. • It particularly concentrates on issues affecting resource dependent people and the interaction between social and political factors and environmental issues. • It offers a political economy perspective of environment history. The book is relevant to undergraduate courses on environmental studies, and all interdisciplinary courses on environment studies at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The book would also be useful for graduate students doing foundation courses or diploma courses on the subject. Archana Prasad is a Reader at the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia. Dr Prasad is also an Expert Member of the National Tiger Conservation Authority and an Executive Committe Member of the All India Peoples’ Science Network. Earlier, she was a Fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library from 2001-05. Some of her major publications include Environmentalism and the Left (2004), Against Ecological Romanticism: Verrier Elwin and the Making of an Anti-Modern Tribal Identity (2003) and Tribals and Globalisation: Exploring the Potential of Non-Timber Forest Produce in Central India (2005).