Friday, February 4, 2022

Ecclesiastes - Book Information

 


https://www.biblestudytools.com/ecclesiastes/


https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/ECC+1.html

https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/ECC+10.html

http://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/ECC+12.html


https://bible.usccb.org/bible/ecclesiastes/0



http://preachedsermons.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-limitations-of-human-effort.html

Saturday, September 18, 2021

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion


DISMANTLING GLOBAL HINDUTVA CONFERENCE
10-12 September 2021







Friday, September 10
9:30 – 11:10 am EDT / 7:00 – 8:30 pm IST

What Is Global Hindutva

Opening Remarks: Gyan Prakash

Christophe Jaffrelot | Meena Kandasamy | Anand Patwardhan | Moderator: Thomas Blom Hansen

11:30 – 1:00 PM EDT / 9:00 – 10:30 pm IST

The Political Economy of Hindutva

Jens Lerche | Pritam Singh | Vamsi Vakulabharanam | Moderator: Smriti Rao

1:30 – 3:00 PM EDT / 11:00 – 12:30 am IST

Caste and Hindutva

Gajendran Ayyathurai | Meena Dhanda | Bhanwar Meghwanshi | Moderator: Rupa Viswanath

Saturday, September 11
9:30 – 11:00 am EDT / 7:00 – 8:30 pm IST

Gender and Sexual Politics of Hindutva

Leena Manimekalai | Akanksha Mehta | P. Sivakami | Moderator: Paola Bacchetta

11:30 – 1:00 PM EDT / 9:00 – 10:30 pm IST

Contours of the Nation

Mohamad Junaid | Arkotong Longkumer | Yasmin Saikia | Nandini Sundar | Moderator: Suchitra Vijayan

1:30 – 3:00 PM EDT / 11:00 – 12:30 am IST

Hindutva, Science, and Healthcare

Meera Nanda | Kavita Sivaramakrishnan | Banu Subramaniam | Moderator: Joseph Alter

Sunday, September 12
9:30 – 11:00 am EDT / 7:00 – 8:30 pm IST

Hindutva Propaganda and the Digital Ecosystem

Cyril Sam | FCHS* Member | Salil Tripathi | Moderator: Rohit Chopra

11:30 – 1:10 PM EDT / 9:00 – 10:40 pm IST

Hinduism and Hindutva

Opening Remarks: T. M. Krishna

Raja Bhattar | FCHS* Members | Brij Maharaj | Sunita Viswanath | Moderator: Balmurli Natrajan

1:30 – 3:00 PM EDT / 11:00 – 12:30 am IST: Islamophobia, White Supremacy, and Hindutva

Anjali Arondekar | Demetrius Eudell | Deepa Kumar | Moderator: Manan Ahmed

*FCHS = Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective

Ad-Hoc Organizing Committee


Sahar Aziz, Rutgers University

Ben C. Baer, Princeton University

Sruti Bala, University of Amsterdam

Laura Brueck, Northwestern University

Ananya Chakravarti, Georgetown University

Zahid R. Chaudhary, Princeton University

Rohit Chopra, Santa Clara University

Ashley Cohen, University of Southern California

Meena Dhanda, University of Wolverhampton

John Esposito, Georgetown University

Shubhra Gururani, York University

Jyotsna Kapur, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

David Ludden, New York University

Radhika Mongia, York University

Meera Nanda, IISER Pune (former Visiting Faculty)

Gyan Prakash, Princeton University

Sharmila Rudrappa, South Asia Institute, University of Texas-Austin

Lotika Singha, University of Wolverhampton

Suchitra Vijayan, Author and Barrister-at-Law

Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective


Tweet on 12 September 2021
Narayana Rao
@knoltweet·

If we are in discussion and if the issues are relevant we need to bring them into discussion. Hindutva is about the unity and integrity of Hindustan. How you can promote it,  is its thesis. It is based on region and not religion.  There can be other theses. 
@vishwa_samvad  #dgh



Research Anthology on Religious Impacts on Society

Management Association, Information Resources
IGI Global, 21-Jul-2020 - Social Science - 825 pages

Religion is considered by many to be something of the past, but it has a lasting hold in society and influences people across many cultures. This integration of spirituality causes numerous impacts across various aspects of modern life. The variety of religious institutions in modern society necessitates a focus on diversity and inclusiveness in the interactions between organizations of different religions, cultures, and viewpoints.

Research Anthology on Religious Impacts on Society examines the cultural, sociological, economic, and philosophical effects of religion on modern society and human behavior. Highlighting a range of topics such as religious values, social reforms, and spirituality, this publication is an ideal reference source for religious officials, church leaders, psychologists, sociologists, professionals, researchers, academicians, and students.



Volume 16 - Ralph L. Piedmont - 2005 - Book Information

Google Book Link
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=pCkGD_RcbEEC


Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion (RSSSR) publishes reports of innovative studies that pertain empirically or theoretically to the scientific study of religion, including spirituality, regardless of their academic discipline or professional orientation.

The articles included in this volume report studies on the role of religion and spirituality in relationship to many topics of current popular interest, among them well-being, self-esteem, emotional intelligence, substance abuse, social mobility, positive psychology, coping with medical decision making, and images of God.

Ralph L. Piedmont is Psychologist at the Department of Pastoral Counseling, Loyola College in Maryland, Columbia, USA. One of his publications is The Revised NEO Personality Inventory: Clinical and Research Applications (Plenum Press, 1998).

Table of contents

Christian Belief About the Bible and the Holy Spirit in Relation to Psychological Type.
Andrew Village

Monastic Spirituality Beyond the Cloister: A Preliminary Look at Lay Cistercians.
William L. Smith

Relationships Between Spiritual Transcendence and Emotional Intelligence Among Older Catholic Nuns.
Ann Billard, Joanne M. Greer, Mary Ellen Merrick, William Sneck, S.J., and N. J. Scheers

A Comparison of Religiosity Between European-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans.
George Yancey

God Images and Self-Esteem: A Study Among 11-18 Year-olds.
Leslie J. Francis

Charismatic Experience and Emotional Stability: A Study Among Adult Christians.
Leslie J. Francis and Susan H. Jones

Social Mobility and Religion: Evidence From Lebanon.
Marianne El Khoury and Ugo Panizza

Hope, Optimism, Pessimism, and Spirituality as Predictors of Well-Being Controlling for Personality
Joseph W. Ciarrocchi and Erin Deneke

Parental Rejection and Religiosity: Differential Predictors of Mood and Substance Use.
John J. Cecero and Adam L. Fried

Is a Consensus Definition of Spirituality Possible? Theory Construction in Spiritually-Oriented Psychotherapy.
Len Sperry

Religious Coping and Mental Health Outcomes in Family Members Making DNR Decisions.
Johanna R. Sood, Celia B. Fisher, and Daniel P. Sulmasy

Spirituality, Religious Commitment, and Psychological Well-being
Stephen A. Price and Lawrence G. Herringer

Spiritual Transcendence as an Unmediated Causal Predictor of Psychological Growth and Worldview Among Filipinos
Gabriel S. Dy-Liacco, M. Christine Kennedy, Donna J. Parker, and Ralph L. Piedmont

Spirituality as “Feeling Connected with the Transcendent:” Outline of a Transpersonal Psychology of Adult Development of Self.
Jan Sinnott

http://www.brill.com/research-social-scientific-study-religion-volume-16

Details of other volume are also there in the website and they have to be collected.





Ud 19.9.2021, 12.9.2021
Pub 29 August 2014

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Hindutva - An Exploration

Earlier Collection

Hindutva - A Collection of Articles and Ideas

http://guide-india.blogspot.com/2013/09/hindutva.html


Swami Dayananda Saraswati

"He was the first to give the call for Swarajya as "India for Indians" – in 1876. It was later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak."

Even Congress party acknowledges it. 

FaceBook Post by Indian National Congress
February   12,  2020  · 

"Dayananda Saraswati was an Indian philosopher, social leader and founder of the Arya Samaj, a reform movement of the Vedic Dharma. He was the first to give the call for Swaraj as "India for Indians" in 1876. We honour his contributions to our Nation today."
https://www.facebook.com/IndianNationalCongress/photos/dayananda-saraswati-was-an-indian-philosopher-social-leader-and-founder-of-the-a/2783080651804589/

"India for Indians"  - "Hindustan for Hindus" - Is there any difference?

Indostan and Hindustan both are same.   Indian and Hindu both are same.

1908

Hind Swaraj - Independence for India - M.K. Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi on Independence for India - 1908 Publication

https://guide-india.blogspot.com/2012/03/hind-swaraj-independence-for-india-mk.html


Ram Prasad Bismil - Hindustan  Republican Association

Desh par marr jayenge

Marte marte desh ko

zinda magar kar jayenge”


Ram Prasad Bismil was one of the most notable Indian revolutionaries who fought British colonialism with a desire for freedom and revolutionary spirit reverberating in every inch of his body and poetry. Bismil, who was born in 1897, was a respected member of the Hindustan Republican Association alongside Sukhdev. He was also a participant in the infamous Kakori train heist, for which the British government condemned him to death.

Born: 11 June 1897, Shahjahanpur

Died: 19 December 1927, Gorakhpur Jail, Gorakhpur

Cause of death: Execution by hanging

Organization: Hindustan  Republican Association


https://leverageedu.com/blog/indian-freedom-fighters/

Chandra Shekhar Azad

Chandra Shekhar Azad, born in 1906, was a close companion of Bhagat Singh in the independence movement. He was also a member of the Hindustan Republican Association. He was  the bravest and daring Indian freedom fighters against the British authorities. After murdering several opponents during a battle with British forces, he shot himself with his Colt pistol. He promised he’d never be caught alive by the British. He reorganized  the Hindustan Republican Association as  the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association


Born: 23 July 1906, Bhavra

Died: 27 February 1931, Chandrashekhar Azad Park

Full name: Chandrashekhar Tiwari

Education: Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1640655


1921-1922

Hindutva by V.D. Savarkar

http://library.bjp.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/284/3/essentials_of_hindutva.v001.pdf


Why Savarkar wrote this essay? To clarify the position of Hindu Mahasabha on whom it is representing?



https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095937609


Hindutva 101 by Sadhana.Org



Difficult, but important.

Talking about complex political, historical, and religious issues may seem intimidating, especially for those of us who have grown up outside India. Nevertheless, it is our responsibility to speak up. This guide is intended for Hindu-Americans who may want to talk to their parents, relatives, friends, or colleagues about Hindu nationalism but don’t know where to start. It will give an overview of Hindutva from a Hindu perspective and then provide some links we have collected that address the issue thoughtfully.



July 17th, 2018

“I don’t believe that Hindutva is Hinduism” – Dr Shashi Tharoor.

Dr Shashi Tharoor was recently in the UK to promote his new book  Why I am a Hindu.

Anishka Gheewala Lohiya had the opportunity to talk to Dr Tharoor at LSE about the relationship between politics and religion in India.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2018/07/17/i-dont-believe-that-hindutva-is-hinduism-dr-shashi-tharoor/


Hindutva

M. G. Chitkara

APH Publishing, 1997 - Hinduism - 303 pages

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=zqkBNr4U7cwC

The book is interesting to read.


Page 4: By middle of the 14th century, the work Hindu acquired prestige in the writings of various poets.  Padmanabha uses the word Hindu to glorify Chauhans of Jalore in his epic poem (1455 AD), Kanhadade Prabhandha.

Hindutva, Ideology, and Politics

A. A. Parvathy

Deep and Deep Publications, 2003

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=RpaEt8npT0sC



Uproot Hindutva: The Fiery Voice of the Liberation Panthers

Thirumaavalavan

Popular Prakashan, 2004 - Dalits - 248 pages

Thirumaavalavan analyses the various roles of Hindutva (ideology of the Hindu right] in sustaining the hegemony of the caste system. He speaks provocatively of the need to counter Hindutva with a Tamil identity that can reach beyond its region to other oppressed peoples. He speaks of Eelam -- the cause of the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka -- of the refusal to be Hindu and of the right to conversion, of women's rights, of the heritage of the dalits, of the need to follow the guidelines of the dalit reformer, Dr B R Ambedkar, among other issues. Always unflinchingly honest and hard-hitting, the collection reveals new currents in Dalit politics.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=HfNRO-LtsN4C


The Era of Hindutva, Right’s might and increasing fascism

Arshdeep

Jan 1, 2020


Year 2011

UPA is in power and India is fed up of the immensely corrupt people in power. And people who resonated with Anna Hazare decided to launch Anti-Corruption Movement.

This movement was one of the main reasons why UPA goverment and the mainstream LEFT-WING will fall on its knees by securing only 59 seats out of total 543 seats in next elections and it will indicate how desperate were the people for a change.

 BJS subsequently reorganised itself as the BJP under the leadership of Vajpayee, Lal Krishan Advani, and Murali Manohar Joshi. BJP advocated hindutva (“Hindu-ness”), an ideology that sought to define Indian culture in terms of Hindu values, and it was highly critical of the policies and practices that should be of a secular nation.

The term “Hindutva” was promoted by Indian freedom movement activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (also called Vir Savarkar). He wrote Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? (1923), coining the term Hindutva. Savarkar  wasn’t really setting out to create a Hindu nation. India was, he asserted, a nation,  based on hindu-ness in an organic sense.


“BJP governments at the state and federal level are altering Indian history textbooks to conform with Hindu nationalist doctrine.” (What is Hindu nationalist doctrine?)

For some time it has been made pretty clear by different BJP party members, Hindu Rashtra is what they demand and will go to any extent to achieve this dream of theirs.


Hindutva and Dalits: Perspectives for Understanding Communal Praxis

Anand Teltumbde

SAGE Publishing India, 31-Jan-2020 - Social Science - 384 pages

Despite the teachings of Babasaheb Ambedkar against Hinduism and its pernicious caste system, which he forsook to become a Buddhist, many Dalits have turned to Hindutva. The RSS under Balasaheb Deoras began to appropriate Ambedkar, engaging with Dalits and Adivasis, Hinduizing their beliefs, providing social welfare and binding them in a political alliance.


Hindutva and Dalits: Perspectives for Understanding Communal Praxis takes a comprehensive view of the birth and growth of the Hindutva movement and its specific impact on Dalits. Part I, Theoretical Perspectives, explores the attitude of Hindutva vis-à-vis Dalits in its various manifestations. Part II, Hindutva in Operation, covers empirical evidence of its impact on Dalits. The contributors, distinguished scholar-activists, offer a provocative analysis on why both Dalits and Adivasis are drawn to Hindutva.


As analysed by Tanika Sarkar in her incisive Foreword, Hindutva’s hegemonic agenda lets ‘subalterns develop a stake in their own subordination, ... not in resignation or despair but in eager self-identification with it’. The great strength of this collection is that it asks difficult questions that need to be asked and yet have no easy answers. The book, thus, makes an invaluable contribution to the debate and takes it forward.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=HhvHDwAAQBAJ



Hindutva as a variant of right-wing extremism

Eviane Leidig

Patterns of Prejudice 

Volume 54, 2020 - Issue 3, Pages 215-237 


Our one supreme goal is to bring to life the all-round glory and greatness of our Hindu Rashtra. [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, ‘Mission’]

Quoted in Thomas A. Howard, ‘Hindu nationalism against religious pluralism—or, the sacralization of religious identity and its discontents in present-day India’, in Kaye V. Cook (ed.), Faith in a Pluralist Age (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books 2018), 62–78 (67).


The only positive thing about the Hindu right wing is that they dominate the streets. They do not tolerate the current injustice and often riot and attack Muslims when things get out of control, usually after the Muslims disrespect and degrade Hinduism too much … India will continue to wither and die unless the Indian nationalists consolidate properly and strike to win. It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals are more or less identical. [Anders Behring Breivik, ‘2083: A European Declaration of Independence’]

Andrew Berwick [pseud., i.e. Anders Behring Breivik], ‘2083: A European declaration of independence’, 1475, available on the Public Intelligence website at https://info.publicintelligence.net/AndersBehringBreivikManifesto.pdf (viewed 28 May 2020).

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0031322X.2020.1759861

Neo-Hindutva: Evolving Forms, Spaces, and Expressions of Hindu Nationalism

Edward Anderson, Arkotong Longkumer

Routledge, 21-May-2020 - Social Science - 156 pages

Neo-Hindutva explores the recent proliferation and evolution of Hindu nationalism – the assertive majoritarian, right-wing ideology that is transforming contemporary India.


This volume develops and expands on the idea of ‘neo-Hindutva’ –– Hindu nationalist ideology which is evolving and shifting in new, surprising, and significant ways, requiring a reassessment and reframing of prevailing understandings. The contributors identify and explain the ways in which Hindu nationalism increasingly permeates into new spaces: organisational, territorial, conceptual, rhetorical. The scope of the chapters reflect the diversity of contemporary Hindutva – both in India and beyond – which appears simultaneously brazen but concealed, nebulous and mainstreamed, militant yet normalised. They cover a wide range of topics and places in which one can locate new forms of Hindu nationalism: courts of law, the Northeast, the diaspora, Adivasi (tribal) communities, a powerful yoga guru, and the Internet. The volume also includes an in-depth interview with Christophe Jaffrelot and a postscript by Deepa Reddy.


Helping readers to make sense of contemporary Hindutva, Neo-Hindutva is ideal for scholars of India, Hinduism, Nationalism, and Asian Studies more generally. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary South Asia.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=I2nnDwAAQBAJ


PUBLICATION -The politics of Hindutva in India - Routledge

November 2020

https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/2020/hindutva-politics-india



Cultural Entrenchment of Hindutva: Local Mediations and Forms of Convergence

Daniela Berti, Nicolas Jaoul, Pralay Kanungo

Taylor & Francis, 29-Nov-2020 - History - 358 pages


The book reflects on the discreet influence of Hindutva in situations/places outside or at the margins of its organisational and mobilisational arena, where people denying any commitment to the Sangh Parivar, incidentally, show affinities and parallelisms with its discourse and practice. This study looks at Hindutva’s entrenchment not so much as an orchestration from above but more as an outcome of a process that evolves in relation to specific social and cultural milieus.


The contributors analyse Hindutva’s entrenchment, emphasising on the ethnography of the forms of mediation and/or convergence produced in certain contexts. The 11 case studies highlight three different dynamics of Hindutva’s cultural entrenchment. The first section gathers cases where RSS-affiliated organisations have set up specific cultural or artistic programmes at the regional level, involving the meditation of local people whose interest in these programmes does not necessarily mean that they endorse the Hindutva agenda completely. The next deals with convergence and refers to cases where the followers gather around a charismatic personality, whose precepts and practice may bring them towards a closer affinity with the Hindutva programme. The last section deals with the contexts of resistance, where social milieus engaged in opposing Hindutva may, in fact, paradoxically, and even inadvertently, imbibe some of its ideas and practices in order to contest its claims.




The Eternal Hindu Rashtra

Dr Manmohan Vaidya
DR MANMOHAN VAIDYA
Sep 07, 2021

As per Hindu thought, ‘Rashtra’ means people. It also includes their mindset, attitude towards life, relationship with nature and the universe, approach towards history and tradition etc. In short, all things that form and impact the entire society. 

Is India a Nation? 
(Has any body questioned it earlier?)
[Winston Churchill once very famously remarked, “India is as much a nation as the equator is a place”. 
[IN A speech to London’s Constitutional Club in 1931, Winston Churchill poured scorn on the idea of India. “India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator,” he spat, a slur that invites such uniform disagreement from Indians as to disprove itself. Less well known, but more worthy of debate, is the previous line of Churchill’s speech: “India is no more a political personality than Europe,” he contended. Banyan
Is India a country or a continent? The Economist,   Feb 11th 2017 Asia edition, https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/02/09/is-india-a-country-or-a-continent]
[ The boundaries of ‘here’, the nation, are continually constructed and contested but they are somewhat stable at any given time. India is anomalous in this regard because our nation contains multitudes. Built on imperial foundations, our nationalist conceit was to break the European mould and forge a nation out of an empire unified not by blood and soil but by ideas of freedom, self-reliance, social justice, and mutual respect for different faiths and cultures.

The vastness and diversity of the British Indian Empire meant that any nation emerging from it could not possibly claim any cultural unity; facts dictated that if the entity called India were to be a nation, it had to be a civic one rather than an ethnic one. Notwithstanding the horrors of Partition, turning a multitudinous empire into India was a singular achievement.  Anush Kapadia in EMPIRE NATION PART 1: HOW INDIA’S INTERNAL DIVISION OF LABOUR IS COLONIAL AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT
APRIL 23, 2020TALKING POLICYEMPIRE, IMPERIALISM, ISI,  https://www.cps.iitb.ac.in/empire-nation-part-1/ ]



All the people living on this great land of Bharat, from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, despite having diverse languages, castes, deities, ways of worship, food habits, costumes, etc, have the same approach towards life, ideals, nature, society and entire humanity. For thousands of years this approach has been cultivated and practiced as a culture that binds the society together. This bonding makes it a ‘Rashtra’. The main reason for inherent unity expressed in diversity forms the spirituality-based integral and holistic worldview that is the hallmark of Bharat and Bharatiyta. 

Bharatiyas believe in "Ishavasyam Idam Sarvam", which means everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is the manifestation of the same Spirit (Chaitanya). 

Thus, the fundamental disconnect between the Western and Bharatiya thought is that while the former strives for ‘all are one’, the later organically believes in ‘all is one’.

'RSS Used Digital Tech to Adapt': Jaffrelot at Dismantling Global Hindutva Event

According to French Political Scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, the RSS used digital techniques to their advantage.


THE QUINT

Published: 11 Sep 2021, 9:05 AM IST

https://www.thequint.com/news/dismantling-global-hindutva-multidisciplinary-perspectives-dgh-a-three-day-global-scholarly-conference-begins#read-more

Anand Patwardhan: If Hindutva is Hinduism then the Ku Klux Klan is Christianity

The filmmaker’s speech at the Dismantling Global Hindutva conference being held from September 10-September 12.

12 Sep 2021

https://scroll.in/article/1005159/anand-patwardhan-if-hindutva-is-hinduism-then-the-ku-klux-klan-is-christianity













Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Democracy - Evolution and Challenges



2021

A comment by me on an Harvard Business School article.

I hope every body with the role of representative of the people in the political system think they are the representatives and make arrangements to collect public opinion on various issues and present them in various legislative bodies. Each representative has to present the current opinion of the people genuinely. He may be a party member and can communicate his wishes to the electorate on a continuous basis. But once he collects their opinion on any issue, he has to present it in the legislature as the opinion and wish of the people. If such a spirit is truly followed, democracies are likely to represent the majority opinion and hard positions can be easily reversed.

Prof. K.V.S.S. Narayana Rao
NITIE, Mumbai, India
21 January 2021



2020

25/DEC/2020
Abraham Lincoln defined democratic government as a government of, for and by the people. This definition was true to the spirit of the origin of democracy in the ancient Greek city states, where all males above 18 years were participating in the day to day affairs of the government.

The essence of democracy is the participation of the people in the day to day affairs of the state. 

Elections and Parliaments are not democracy if  participation of the people in the day to day affairs of the state is not allowed and not encouraged.


Democracy and pluralism are under assault.

WRITTEN BY
Sarah Repucci
Democracy and pluralism are under assault. Dictators are toiling to stamp out the last vestiges of domestic dissent and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world. At the same time, many freely elected leaders are dramatically narrowing their concerns to a blinkered interpretation of the national interest. In fact, such leaders—including the chief executives of the United States and India, the world’s two largest democracies—are increasingly willing to break down institutional safeguards and disregard the rights of critics and minorities as they pursue their populist agendas.

As a result of these and other trends, Freedom House found that 2019 was the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.




India falls to 51st position in EIU's Democracy Index


NEW DELHI: India slipped 10 places to 51st position in the 2019 Democracy Index's global ranking, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit, which cited "erosion of civil liberties" in the country as the primary cause for the downtrend.

Read more at:


2017

THE GLOBAL STATE OF DEMOCRACY

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) presented the first edition of The Global State of Democracy. The theme is ‘Exploring Democracy’s Resilience’.

The publication analyses global and regional democracy trends and challenges based on International IDEA’s newly developed Global State of Democracy (GSoD) indices, which capture global and regional democratic trends between 1975 and 2015.

https://www.idea.int/gsod/files/IDEA-GSOD-2017-REPORT-EN.pdf

https://www.idea.int/gsod/

International Idea
https://www.idea.int/

FaceBook Page
https://www.facebook.com/pg/InternationalIDEA/posts/


Google Books on Democracy

Democratic Stability in an Age of Crisis: Reassessing the Interwar period
By Agnes Cornell, Jørgen Møller, Svend-Erik Skaaning

Democracy in Europe: A Political Philosophy of the EU
By Daniel Innerarity


Change Elections to Change America: Democracy Matters: Student Organizers in Action
Jay R. Mandle, Joan D. Mandle
Easton Studio Press, LLC, 23-Sep-2014 - Political Science - 168 pages

A social movement is needed to reduce the excessive power of wealth to influence politics. Democracy Matters organizes students in the hope of building such a social movement. It seeks to achieve the enhanced political equality that could be secured with the public funding of election campaigns. Historically, young people have provided a moral compass for their elders, highlighting the need for social change.

Change Elections to Change America is a report on the ongoing experiences of Democracy Matters. It was founded in 2001 when the professional basketball player Adonal Foyle provided initial funding. It has grown and brought the issue of the distorting impact of private wealth to the attention of literally thousands of students on campuses all over the United States. But at the same time it has not yet succeeded in bringing to life the kind of a social movement needed for such a radical change.

Change Elections to Change America describes the activities of Democracy Matters on campuses. It concludes with a positive assessment of the prospects for building a social movement in the digital age. Social media are invaluable tools that facilitate organizing. But they are no substitute for face to face dialogue and persuasion. Success will require a scaling up of organizing efforts. This book is written with the hope that the Democracy Matters experience will inspire others to do the political work that democratizing politics in the United States requires.
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=IP08BAAAQBAJ


Leading For Democracy: A Case-Based Approach to Principal Preparation
By Patrick M. Jenlink, Lee Stewart, Sandra Stewart
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=c40iJMTCw4wC

The Conceptual Politics of Democracy Promotion
edited by Christopher Hobson, Milja Kurki

The Future of Representative Democracy

edited by Sonia Alonso, John Keane, Wolfgang Merkel


Democracy Distorted: Wealth, Influence and Democratic Politics
By Jacob Rowbottom
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=9H4I4TSoRAcC

The Truth of Democracy
By Jean-Luc Nancy
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=ZAubBGp3cC8C









Money in Politics - Problems and Issues
__________________


__________________

International Idea - YouTube Channel 


27 Jan 2021

24 Nov 2017

Friday, January 24, 2020

Max Weber's Theory - IAS Sociology Study Notes

Max Weber - Social action, ideal types, authority, bureaucracy, protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.

I recently read a book on Sociology Thinkers. I read one long back.


Video starts after 2 minutes.
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Empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) - IAS Philosophy



In Britain, philosophy was dominated by an alternative and more scientific view that knowledge is gained primarily or mainly through the five senses.  Direct experience is foundational for obtaining knowledge, and this position is known as empiricism.

During the first half of the 18th century, three great philosophers—Locke, Berkeley and Hume—argued for this approach, thus forming a philosophical movement known as British empiricism.


https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/110/8-empiricism.htm



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Hindi lecture - Anubhavvaad

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Buddhivaad - anubhavvaad

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Sociology as Science - Research Methods and Analysis - IAS Sociology Notes



UPSC Civil Services
Paper I - Topics 2 & 3

2. Sociology as Science:

Science, scientific method and critique.
Major theoretical strands of research methodology.
Positivism and its critique.
Fact value and objectivity.
Non- positivist methodologies.

3.  Research Methods and Analysis:

Research Methods and Analysis:
Qualitative and quantitative methods.
Techniques of data collection.
Variables, sampling, hypothesis, reliability and validity.


Notes

2. Sociology as Science:

Science, scientific method and critique.
Major theoretical strands of research methodology.
Positivism and its critique.
Fact value and objectivity.

Non- positivist methodologies.

Phenomenology - Explanation by Karin Klenke

3.  Research Methods and Analysis:

Research Methods and Analysis:
Qualitative and quantitative methods.
Techniques of data collection.
Variables, sampling, hypothesis, reliability and validity.



Sociology Research Methodology and Methods
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrny0sq2gWw

Channel cec  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA7OQkX9AEIVQ6j9i0OSQhA