The caste system, its salient characteristics, and its subtle and more obvious
transformations, coupled with its persistence and pervasiveness, have been central to …

Since its hard-won independence from Pakistan, Bangladesh has been ravaged by
economic and environmental disasters. Only recently has the country begun to emerge as a …

Petty commodity production (PCP) is a key reality of contemporary capitalism. Deceptively
simple, it is shrouded in synonyms, debates and neglect. This essay covers its definitions …

While it may be possible to mitigate poverty through social transfers, it is not possible to
eradicate the processes that create poverty under capitalism. Eight such processes are …

Adrian Leftwich* sh arply expressed in wh at h ave com e to be called developm ental states.
I suggest th at only effective states and preferably developm ent ones (dem ocratic or not) …

In the decades following India's opening to foreign capital, the city of Bangalore emerged,
quite unexpectedly, as the outsourcing hub for the global technology industry and the …

One of many fracture zones in the right‐less workforce is between wage labour, disguised
wage labour (DWL) and petty commodity production (PCP)—between the formal and real …

Since the end of the Cold War, two central foreign policy goals have risen to the top of the
agenda of Western governments and development agencies. On the one hand, the …

Is the bicycle, like the loudspeaker, a medium of communication in India? Do Indian children
need trade unions as much as they need schools? What would you do with a mobile phone …

Abstract Akhil Gupta's book Red Tape is a significant study of bureaucratic practice in India,
and of its implications for poor people, based on fieldwork in the northern state of Uttar …