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Public security discourse changes how public order has been traditionally viewed by states across the world. India, a country that attained independence from British colonialism in 1947 and has been democratising since, has faced the dilemma and challenges of preparing its security agencies, steeped in colonial culture and politicised since independence, to face the challenges of twenty first century. Organisational, criminal justice system and attitudianal issues dog the public security architecture in India. Since the Constitution of India has assigned the responsibility of public order to states, federal frictions to have arisen lately in dealing with security issues in the national domain such as terrorism and Maoism. The police and other public institutions responsible for the task must be braced up to meet the emerging challenges.

Public security discourse changes how public order has been traditionally viewed by states across the world. India, a country that attained independence from British colonialism in 1947 and has been democratising since, has faced the dilemma and challenges of preparing its security agencies, steeped in colonial culture and politicised since independence, to face the challenges of twenty first century. Organisational, criminal justice system and attitudianal issues dog the public security architecture in India. Since the Constitution of India has assigned the responsibility of public order to states, federal frictions to have arisen lately in dealing with security issues in the national domain such as terrorism and Maoism. The police and other public institutions responsible for the task must be braced up to meet the emerging challenges.

This study presents 13 articles interrogating themes likely to impinge on India's 15th general elections in 2009. These were written following intense discussion between the contributors and use available data as well as original data and analysis. The significance of the analyses goes beyond how much these questions find place in the campaign, or how much they would impact the electoral results. These have and would continue to be essential themes in Indian politics for some time. They would influence the country's politics, its leaders, parties and institutions an

Sudha Pai and Sajjan Kumar, Maya, Modi, Azad: Dalit Politics in the Time of Hindutva, HarperCollins Publishers, 2023, 310 pp., ₹599, ISBN 9789356296893 (Paperback).

Devesh Kapur, Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Milan Vaishnav, editors. Rethinking Public Institutions in India. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press. 2017. 527 pages. ₹995.

Revolutionary marxist politics which from its appearance in the political rhetoric of the Naxalite movement in the 1960s has had a rollercoaster ride. Traveling from the south to the east, returning to the south and then gradually spreading to raise the specter of a north-south red corridor, it has created an apparition of revolution from time to time without being able to realise the dream so far. However, paradoxically Maoism has not only emerged and spread across the country – at present in sixteen states and 194 of the 610 districts – despite socialistic claims of the Indian state and competitive open and transparent election process in the polity in four distinct phases, it has elicited a dominantly security-centric response from the Indian state. The current phase of liberalisation and globalization of the Indian economy has created new contexts for its spread and consolidation. This paper puts this phenomenon and the questions it raises in historical, social, political and economic contexts.

India's fifteenth general election took place in five phases during April 16, 2009 and May 13, 2009, which witnessed 59.7 percent of the 714 million electorate voting. Coming 57 years after independent India voted to constitute its legislatures at both the levels, it indicated a number changes that voting behaviour has undergone in these years. The decline of the one-party dominant system brought about an era of coalition politics in national politics. State/Regional parties gained in prominence. This essay goes beyond looking at shifts and swings in voting behaviour in this election, contextualizing them in larger context of national politics as well as in the context of changes in the party system since independence. This seventh general election of a new era of Indian politics that has shaped in the past two decades, has witnessed a reassertion and strengthening of the Indian National Congress in particular and national parties in general, a plateauing of the state/regional parties, rise and stabilising of electoral volatility and strengthening of the larger national party in coalition politics despite cohabitation problems. The essay also contextualizes the elections and its results in the context of weakening of institutions in the country.

B.L. Shankar and Valerian Roderigues. The Indian Parliament: A Democracy at Work. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2014. 428 pages. ₹550 [Paperback edition].Sudha Pai and Avinash Kumar (Eds). The Indian Parliament: A Critical Appraisal. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. 2014. 353 pages. ₹775.