Drawn from the rich archival holdings of the Economic and Political Weekly, theessays in this volume capture the intense discussions in India that were debated as problems and questions over the environment, technology and development. As a collection, this volume proposes a fresh and new analytical coherence for these essays by resituating them with an engaging introduction under the broader themes of criticality and subversion. Consequently, these writings will speak not only to several contemporary academic and policy concerns but are also meant to provide a meaningful sense of how ideas on the environment, technology and development were interrelated and shaped in various types of political discourses in India, most notably from the 1970s onwards.
This volume is intended to address the needs of a rapidly growing interest in interdisciplinary programmes and will also carry appeal amongst development and policy practitioners and those who wish to pursue interdisciplinary research questions.
List of Tables, Figures and Maps Introduction Rohan D’Souza
Section I Stories for Our Time: Technology as the Anti-Hero 1. Safety First? Kaiga and Other Nuclear Stories M. V. Ramana and Ashwin Kumar 2. A Biotechnology Story Notes from India Shiv Visvanathan and Chandrika Parmar 3. Overfishing along Kerala Coast Causes and Consequences John Kurien and T. R. Thankappan Achari
Section II Development Solutions become Political Questions 4. Desalination in Chennai What About the Poor and the Environment? Gregor Meerganz von Medeazza 5. Eucalyptus Why? Mahasveta Devi 6. ‘Other Side’ of New Industrialisation G. Vijay
Section III Rewiring Technology to Debate Justice and Equity 7. Sustainable Transport Systems Linkages between Environmental Issues, Public Transport, Non-Motorised Transport and Safety Dinesh Mohan and Geetam Tiwari 8. The Global Warming Regime after 2012 Towards a New Focus Philippe Cullet 9. Political Architecture of India’s Technology System for Solar Energy Barbara Harriss-White, Sunali Rohra and Nigel Singh
Section IV Rethinking Agriculture as Ecological Relationships 10. Agricultural Development and Ecological Degradation An Analytical Framework C. H. Hanumantha Rao 11. Real Estate and Agricultural Wetlands in Kerala P. P. Nikhil Raj and P. A. Azeez 12. Peri-Urban Agriculture and Aquaculture Rahul Gupta and Sumita Gupta Gangopadhyay
Section V Livelihoods versus Lifestyles 13. Big Dams, Big Floods On Predatory Development Hiren Gohain 14. Amusement Parks versus People’s Livelihood Arundhuti Roy Choudhury 15. Technological Alternatives and the Indian Energy Crisis Amulya Kumar N. Reddy and K. Krishna Prasad
Section VI Space against Place: Eliminating Locality 16. Dwelling on Morichjhanpi When Tigers Became ‘Citizens’, Refugees ‘Tiger-Food’ Annu Jalais 17. Drinking Water Crisis in Kutch A Natural Phenomenon? Charul Bharwada and Vinay Mahajan 18. Emerging Cityscapes and Environmental Issues Sudha Srivastava and Dipti Mukherji 19. Mine Now, Mine Forever? Manshi Asher
Section VII Environment, Technology and Development: Towards the Big Questions 20. Political Economy of Ecology Movements Jayanta Bandyopadhyay and Vandana Shiva 21. Energy Policy for Rural India Arjun Makhijani 22. Poverty, Environment, Development A View from Gandhi’s Window L. C. Jain