Autobiographies and memoirs of Ashraf Muslims reveal that in their perception and presentation of the issues of Muslims vis-à-vis the state/democracy, secularism becomes a dominant concern, while the question of caste among Muslims is pushed to oblivion.
As our lives are increasingly taken over by electronic gadgets and screens, we should remind ourselves how reading can change lives and bring us unfathomable hours of happiness.
Just as writers suffer from writer’s block, readers might well be burdened by “reader’s block” as they struggle between reading for pleasure and reading for purpose.
The transition from print to electronic content entails challenges of negotiating rights and restrictions covered in licence agreements which are executed by contract law of jurisdictions and are often unfamiliar to libraries. The traditional functions of libraries are affected by the stringent terms and conditions in these agreements. This article analyses the agreements signed by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore library in the acquisition of and subscriptions to electronic resources pertaining to business management, economics and other social science subjects. The growing displacement of copyright law by these agreements has created uncertainty and impermanence regarding the accessibility of content for posterity. The confluence of copyright and contract law and technological trends in publishing and dissemination will shape the information landscape for scholarship and research in the future.
The Calcutta Book Fair is now a formidable institution and has completed a quarter of a century's existence. It draws participants from across the country and sometimes from overseas as well. Even so it is an overwhelmingly Bengali affair.
