Indian and Global

The EPW must be unique in the English language world, for its combination of current affairs and often high-quality scho­larly articles mainly focused on India but also on South Asia and on global issues.

I owe it a particular gratitude, because it published my first articles, back in the 1970s based on an ongoing field-level research into the operation and maintenance of irrigation canals in India. I overcame writer’s block by imagining, as I sat behind my typewriter, that I was addressing an Indian reader who had a broad interest in India’s economic development and state bureaucracies but no particular knowledge of canal irrigation. My task was somehow to pique and hold his or her interest. After my first few EPW articles I found the writing process a lot easier than at the start.