Disenchanted India and Beyond: Musings on the Lockdown Alternatives engages with the lineages of the present disenchantment and everyday issues of people in India and beyond. It depicts local, regional, national and global transitions in politics, economy and society. It rejects the ideals that promotes ‘there is no alternative’ narratives. It unravels the way reactionary and right-wing forces weaponize pessimism that helps capitalist forces and undermines working classes. The book examines existing and available alternatives for a prosperous and peaceful society. The book argues for pluriversal political and philosophical praxis to consolidate and defend the progressive achievements of the working-class struggles.

This book analyses how growing managerialism and the marketisation of higher education has undermined educational standards and pedagogical integrity. Specifically, it provides a thorough critique of how the pandemic, and the move to online learning and MOOCs, has reinforced these developments. The book outlines the limits of new managerialism, which is replacing critical mass with a culture of compliance in higher education. Employing an ethnographic approach, the book explores the impact of the sudden shift in teaching delivery from in-person to online for example, the changing role of the PhD supervisor during the pandemic, and the impact on students’ willingness to engage and their (in)visibility in the classroom, and further considers how these impact class interactions, social relationships and learning. Ultimately, this book argues that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the limits of marketisation of education and revealed the distorted managerial response to a crisis.

This book provides an in-depth ethnographic study of science and religion in the context of South Asia, giving voice to Indian scientists and shedding valuable light on their engagement with religion. Drawing on biographical, autobiographical, historical, and ethnographic material, the volume focuses on scientists’ religious life and practices, and the variety of ways in which they express them. Renny Thomas challenges the idea that science and religion in India are naturally connected and argues that the discussion has to go beyond binary models of ‘conflict’ and ‘complementarity’. By complicating the understanding of science and religion in India, the book engages with new ways of looking at these categories.

This book presents an interdisciplinary understanding of the social, and economic drivers of far-right politics in South Asia. In response to the growth of xenophobia, reactionary nationalism, authoritarianism, and aggressive leadership in the region, it examines both the religious and economic conditions that have encouraged far-right populism and the profit-driven capitalist systems it produces. The book also delves into the unique histories of South Asia, along with the region's religious and cultural traditions, to provide context for broader economic and political trends and shed light on the consolidation of wealth and growing inequality. The book thoroughly explores the economic and political transformation of South Asia resulting from far-right populism, making it a valuable resource for students and researchers in the fields of political economy and South Asian studies.

Patriarchy and Gender Stereotypes in the Contemporary World offers a thorough analysis of the stereotyping of women, particularly in organisations and higher education. The book considers both theoretical and empirical evidence and articulates the potential for transforming perceptions of women at work and in society, emphasising the importance of understanding the pictures created in our heads by gender stereotypes and their impact both positively and negatively on the status of women. In addition, the authors consider gender stereotypes from different countries and generations, providing a uniquely detailed description of how patriarchy operates across cultures and time. The book is a key textbook and research reference for students, researchers, policymakers, academicians, and activists working on gender studies.

Strategies are integral to growth, expansion and sustainability of modern corporations. The agile strategies are central to overcome challenges of the turbulent times accelerated by risks, pandemics, wars, political instabilities and environmental disasters. This book on ‘Modern Corporations and Strategies at Work’ focuses on different strategies followed by corporations. This book makes critical reading of corporate strategies and evaluates them. This book offers insights into the way corporations develop and implement strategies to face different challenges. This book explores wider world of corporate strategies and their limitations. The future of world economy and international business is shaped by large modern corporations and their rapidly changing business, management and marketing strategies. This book explores the way modern nation states are standing behind the corporations to ensure that their strategies are successful in a world of complex challenges. This book further examines how collaborations between the state and modern corporations are part of the corporate strategy at work today. Further how modern strategies are integral to the start, growth, expansion and sustainability of modern corporations. This book explores operational agilities and organisational abilities of modern corporations to engage with diverse challenges and overcome the crisis. The volatile business environment is creating conditions of instabilities for the market to function effectively and efficiently. Such conditions are weakening all agents and structures operating within international business and world economy. This book argues that there is an urgent need for a profound reshaping of the corporate strategies to deal with a post pandemic society. It is perhaps as far reaching as that the remaking of corporate strategies are in the crossroads today due to its intrinsic profit motives. The remaking of modern corporate strategy comes in the wake of pestilence of a global health crisis; its full impacts are yet to be felt, evaluated and understood. A comprehensive shift in corporate strategy from formulation, implementation and evaluation to remaking is at the heart of this transformations in the working of the corporations and their fundamental ideological apparatus.

Creative Business Education is emerging rapidly to address the needs of the creative industries including digital media, journalism, advertisement, music, marketing, films, fashion and sports business etc. Inclusive educational praxis, decolonial knowledge traditions and diverse curriculums are central to egalitarian economic development and human empowerment. As such, this edited volume explores how creative business education specifically can help to build a more diverse and inclusive environment for an increasingly diverse body of students and faculty. It discusses how students can be encouraged to succeed and excel, reflecting on the need for academic pedagogies to embrace greater inclusivity for diverse cultures. Advancing different theoretical trends within intersectionality and the limits of its praxis, contributors deal with different forms of inequalities based on class, gender, race, religion and belief, sexual orientation, and disabilities in teaching and learning. It is important to articulate and outline the critical lineages of intersectionality within creative business education and its progressive potentials for pedagogical transformation.

This book explores the great transition of China from a subsistence agrarian economy to a technologically driven economic powerhouse which reflects the achievements of the hardworking Chinese people. China continues to grow as the second largest economy of the world from 2010 onwards. It is going to be the largest economy in the world by putting US economy behind. The Chinese GDP has increased of 1,500 times from 1952. This book examines the transformation of China and its economic growth is neither miraculous nor a product of market economy. Further, this book states economic development in China as a product of political pursuit shaped by the Chinese people led by the Communist Party of China from 1921 onwards. China is not only the workshop of the world today but also works as the engine of global economic growth and recovery of crisis ridden global economy. This book also shows how phenomenal Chinese economic growth and development led to the significant fall of poverty in China. This book states that the prosperous transition in China continues to show features of combined and uneven development. This is evident as China has largest billionaires, but many people still live and practice subsistence economy. However, many Chinese do not have access to clean air, water, sanitation and dignified sources of livelihoods. This book shows the social, economic and political inequalities as hindrances to deepening of democratic and egalitarian development in China. This book states that the gender gap and widening gap between urban and rural China are twin serious challenges to progressive transformations in China. The Chinese state and government are trying to implement different policies and programmes to overcome these challenges.

This volume critically analyses the conceptual contours of pedagogical transformations in the field of creative business education. It calls for an integrated and ethnographic approach to understand, to analyse and to innovate creative curricula that is different from traditional business and management educations and its compliant culture. The book argues for a pluriversal vision based on social intelligence, critical thinking, inclusivity and creativity resulting in a holistic pedagogy that understands the social needs of people and of the planet. The critical reflections on everyday realities of life is central to this intercultural pedagogic approach to understanding and explaining different forms of contemporary crisis. The book brings together interdisciplinary academic practitioners and their praxis with different philosophical orientations within a single ethnographic and theoretical narrative to reclaim global citizenship rights in the age of artificial intelligence, democratic deficit, hyperreality and alienation. In this way, the volume breaks away from the narrow silo of disciplinary boundaries to outline the pedagogical praxis of creative and critical business education that challenges existing knowledge, power and institutions while offering alternative pedagogic approaches to learning, teaching and research.

The volume on China: The Bankable State rejects neoliberal consensus and focuses on crucial contributions of the Chinese state in shaping Chinese economy. This book makes crucial theoretical contributions to the study of local political economy of China. This book engages with Chinese state responses to challenges China faces in the processes of reform, transition and development of both commercial and non-commercial banks. This book explores Chinese economic growth and development policy processes and its uniqueness in the wider world economy. The book examines Chinese financial policy praxis and offers an insightful account of its successes for the wider resurgence of alternative political economy of local development. Additionally, this book also showcases state led entrepreneurship in China.