Stree-Samya Books
Stree-Samya Books, Kolkata
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Friday, March 13, 2015
Our author, Dr Rani Bang, wins the coveted
Times of India Social Impact Award 2015
PUTTING WOMEN
FIRST:
WOMEN AND HEALTH
IN A RURAL COMMUNITY
Rani Bang with Sunanda Khorgade and Rupa
Chinai
Foreword by Rahul Goswami
8.5”X5.5” hb, 312pp, ISBN 81-85604-96-1 £50
Trained in India and at Johns Hopkins
University where Dr Rani Bang and her husband, Dr Ajay Bang, studied public
health and research methodologies, the couple returned to India to set up a
health clinic in Maharashtra’s neglected Gadchiroli district, about 170 km from
Nagpur, where the Gonds are the dominant tribal group. Dr Rani Bang and her
husband started the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community
Health (SEARCH) and to practise medicine that explicitly catered to the tribal
and non-tribal poor people who live in the area. Rani Bang’s research found
that 92 per cent of women had no access to treatment for gynaecological
disorders in the absence of women doctors. In their own way, the Bangs have set
in motion a revolution that equips people, communities and administrators with
the tools to build an indigenous expression of development.
Rani Bang has run a health clinic in Gadchiroli
for over twenty years; Rupa Chinai writes on developmental journalism
with a focus on health; Sunanda Khorgade works with the women’s health
programme at SEARCH; Rahul Goswami is a policy analyst and writer, based
in Goa and Delhi.
TOI Social Impact
Awards 2015:
Thank goodness, these men &
women make a difference
Lifetime achievement: By taking neo-natal care to the doorstep of the poor,
the doctor-couple of Abhay and Rani Bang have managed to control infant
mortality in 39 villages of the Naxal affected district of Gadchiroli, where
they have worked for nearly 30 years. The Bangs’ model of home-based newborn
and child care is now being practised across India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan
and in African nations such as Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi.
A
doctor couple who have revolutionized the delivery of healthcare to tribals in
Naxal-hit Gadchiroli district, a civil hospital in Ahmedabad which defies
stereotypes about state-run institutions, a government programme to take
science to children who live in the forgotten interiors of the country, and a
corporate's effort to bring the girl child into the warm, nurturing embrace of
education were among the path-breaking initiatives and inspiring human
endeavours and that got the nod from the high-powered Jury that met to choose
the 2014-15 winners of the Times of India Social Impact Awards. In its third edition, the SIA has become
the gold standard for socially empowering work as evidenced by its 1,100
entries.
The Jury, chaired by Naresh Chandra, ex-Cabinet secretary, governor and ambassador to the US, had the unenviable task of choosing the most deserving from among the 40 finalists shortlisted for their consideration, after multiple rounds of elimination. The Jury rose to the occasion, spending the next three hours in intense discussions and even resorting to a vote a couple of times. The eight-member Jury, which bonded over a light vegetarian lunch before starting discussions, looked for impactful, scalable work, especially in remote corners of the country or aimed at vulnerable social groups like the girl child, manual scavengers and leprosy patients.The tone for the afternoon was set by Times Group CEO Raj Jain. Welcoming the distinguished Jury, he said, "We believe the Social Impact Awards is the most significant professional work we do at The Times of India."
The Jury, chaired by Naresh Chandra, ex-Cabinet secretary, governor and ambassador to the US, had the unenviable task of choosing the most deserving from among the 40 finalists shortlisted for their consideration, after multiple rounds of elimination. The Jury rose to the occasion, spending the next three hours in intense discussions and even resorting to a vote a couple of times. The eight-member Jury, which bonded over a light vegetarian lunch before starting discussions, looked for impactful, scalable work, especially in remote corners of the country or aimed at vulnerable social groups like the girl child, manual scavengers and leprosy patients.The tone for the afternoon was set by Times Group CEO Raj Jain. Welcoming the distinguished Jury, he said, "We believe the Social Impact Awards is the most significant professional work we do at The Times of India."
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Review of Bengal Marxism: Early Discourses and Debates
A review of our title, Bengal Marxism: Early
Discourse and Debates, by Anuradha Roy, in 'Pustak Parichay',
Anandabazar Patrika, 30 August, 2014, by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta.
"Historian Anuradha Roy's prime subject of investigation is the history of cultural practice and its philosophical discussion. Those who are familiar with her work will recognize from the very title that this is a new and expanded articulation of her own research. Even the readers who are not familiar with her work would unanimously acknowledge that while the importance of the subject under scrutiny is undeniable, the task of philosophically dissecting cultural practice is a genuinely complex one...It can be said, without a doubt, that the volume will be treasured by intelligent readers. It will reveal to enthusiastic researchers of the future the path ahead."
As Sobhanlal Datta Gupta rightly comments, "...Anuradha has written the book after painstaking effort and having consulted many documents...I eagerly await her next work."
"Historian Anuradha Roy's prime subject of investigation is the history of cultural practice and its philosophical discussion. Those who are familiar with her work will recognize from the very title that this is a new and expanded articulation of her own research. Even the readers who are not familiar with her work would unanimously acknowledge that while the importance of the subject under scrutiny is undeniable, the task of philosophically dissecting cultural practice is a genuinely complex one...It can be said, without a doubt, that the volume will be treasured by intelligent readers. It will reveal to enthusiastic researchers of the future the path ahead."
As Sobhanlal Datta Gupta rightly comments, "...Anuradha has written the book after painstaking effort and having consulted many documents...I eagerly await her next work."
Monday, July 28, 2014
Review: Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial Bengal
Review of Deboshruti Roychowdhury's Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial Bengal: Inter-caste Interventions of Ideal Womanhood by Sarmistha Dutta Gupta
Stree, 2014
ISBN 978-93-81345-05-4 demy octavo pb; 256 pp Rs 600 |
Focussing on certain everyday aspects of women’s lives, the book throws light on the way people with social agency amongst the low castes tried to socialize their women according to high-caste norms, thereby gaining status for their castes and at the same time helping preserve the caste hierarchy fundamentally through control of female sexuality. The tracts they wrote, the journals they produced and the caste associations these aspiring groups ran, also reveal how an almost homogenous ideal of womanhood was produced across caste and how such an ideal was instrumental in maintaining both caste and gender inequality....
Read full review in Kindle Magazine (July 2014 Issue) visit: http://kindlemag.in/gender-caste-hierarchy-colonial-bengal-inter-caste-interventions-ideal-womanhood/
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