Gabriele Dietrich is a well-know activist in the women’s movement, especially with the Pennurimai lyakkam in Tamil Nadu. She has also worked very closely with the unions in the unorganized sector and with the Dalit and environment. She has been teaching Social Analysis in a Tamil medium college in Madurai for over three decades and has published widely on people’s movements, while moving from one area of struggle to another. Since the mid-nineties she has been very active in the National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM).

One of Gabriele’s Dietrich main concerns is the inter-face between patriarchy, caste and class and the diminishing democratic space under the onslaught of neo-liberal globalisation. She has also worked significantly on religion, communalism and culture as well as feminist theology.

Gabriele Dietrich originally hails from West-Berlin and is a naturalized Indian citizen. Her writings attain fresh relevance in the light of the deep crisis of capitalism and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, under neoliberal regime which hits Dalits and Adivasis in devastating ways.

Uniting the forces of the exploited and overcoming the effects of cultural fragmentation is a major challenge in the struggle for the Right to Life and Livelihood, and people’s right over resources is also her major concern.

Yoginder Sikand is a seasoned author on Islam and Muslims in South Asia. He holds a doctorate in History from London University, and has done post-doctoral research at the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, in several books on Islam and Muslims in contemporary India, including Sacred Spaces: Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India (Penguin 2003), Muslims in India Sinae 1947: Islamic Perspectives on Inter-Faith Relation (Routledge Curzon, 2004), Islam, Caste and Dalit-Muslim Relations in India (Global Media Publications, 2005), Struggling to be Heard: South Asian Muslim Voices (Global Media Publications, 2005) and Madrasa Reforms: Indian Muslim Voices (Vikas Adhyayan Kendra Publications, 2008). He was, till recently, professor at the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and is currently based in Bangalore, where he works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at the National Law School.

This book by Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet discusses the question of international debt thoroughly. The authors argue that debt-cancellation is necessary but not sufficient, and must be accompanied by other measures such as the recovery of “ill-gotten gains” and their restitution to the dispossessed people. The debt is also a subtle mechanism of domination and a new method of colonization, hindering any sustainable human development in the South. The policies adopted by the indebted government are more often decided by the creditors than by the people of the countries concerned and ask who owes what to whom.

They also suggest alternative sources of finance, both local and international.