Looks at the contested place of the provinces in twenty-first-century Russia, surveying cultural discourse in journalism, literature, and film to analyze changing notions of nationalism, authenticity, and postimperial identity.

We can hear Urumula Naganna’s drum roll during the rendition of the Sri Akammagaru Kaviya. An oral tradition which is as old as the hills is captured in the book Gods, Heroes and their Storytellers. Do you know the story of how the Madiga community came to inherit the right to skin cattle carcass and produce leather articles? How are contemporary Folk Oral Literatures connected to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata? There are many such stories and tradition bearers who doggedly go on in spite of the onslaught of the digital media. The author here has tried his best in keeping these traditions alive by not only telling the stories but also by living with the story tellers themselves. The rich details give us a window to a world which is not only very far away for our everyday mundane existence but also makes us retrospect on what we are missing out. Each of the tradition bearers are different and so are their stories and the region to which they belong. These are not merely stories but a way of life for these oral narrators who are fast disappearing in today’s consumerist landscape. The need of the hour is to keep alive these traditions and the tradition bearers.

From the reviews: "Bioinformaticians are facing the challenge of how to handle immense amounts of raw data, [...] and render them accessible to scientists working on a wide variety of problems. [This book] can be such a tool." IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology

Mala masti is a satellite dalit community that traditionally depends on the central Mala caste for its survival and sustenance. It is surprising to notice the paucity of works on such satellite-dependent castes in the Indian caste system. While the system itself is founded on structured inequalities drawn in to hierarchized and stratified arrangement, interestingly, the castes at the bottom too exhibit such a hierarchy. These satellite dalit communities are insulted, abused with derogatory terms by the central castes that are themselves much discriminated, and excluded from the mainstream. Such a situation generated much confusion as to their position in the caste hierarchy, bringing into focus mutual claims and counterclaims for superior position. This study brings to light the fact that the ambiguous position of these dalit satellite castes keeps the entire system intact without being critically questioned by those at the bottom, as they are always at loggerheads with other castes at the bottom for a claim of superiority. In this background examination of the position of Mala masti, vis--vis the central Mala caste and others in the system, would certainly bring out facts that are not given full focus in the earlier studies.

Sankya, Prilepin's first novel that is widely considered his best, draws on his own experiences to depict life among young political extremists. Sasha “Sankya” Tishin, and his friends are part of a generation stuck between eras. They don’t remember the Soviet Union, but they also don’t believe in the promise of opportunity for all in the corrupt, capitalistic new Russia. They belong to an extremist group that wants to build a better Russia by tearing down the existing one. When they go too far, Sasha finds himself testing the elemental force of the protest movement in Russia and in himself.