Prof Rohan D'Souza : People and contacts : Centre for World Environmental History : University of Sussex

Dr. Rohan D’Souza is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University (Japan). Previously, he taught at the Centre for the Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi, India) [2003-2015].

Rohan D’Souza Dr. D’Souza has been affiliated as Senior Research Associate with the Centre for World Environmental History (Sussex University) since 2003. He has held post doctoral fellowships at the Agrarian Studies Program (Yale University) and at the University of California (Berkeley) and visiting fellowships at the Centre for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania and at the Resources Management Asia-Pacific, Australian National University. Dr. D’Souza was also awarded the Short Term Chair at the University of Tokyo as Visiting Professor of Contemporary Indian Studies by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. He was General Secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union (JNUSU) 1989-90

Research interests and publications have involved themes related to environmental history, technology studies, sustainable development and current concerns with environmental politics in the ‘epoch of the anthropocene’.

Books

Drowned and Dammed: Colonial Capitalism and Flood control in Eastern India (1803-1946), Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2006.

Deepak Kumar, Vinita Damodaran and Rohan D’Souza (eds.), The British Empire and the Natural World: Environmental Encounters in South Asia, Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2011.

Rohan D’Souza, (ed.), Environment, Technology and Development: Critical and Subversive Essays [Economic and Political Weekly Series], Orient BlackSwan: Hyderabad, 2012.

Max Martin, Vinita Damodaran, Rohan D'Souza, (eds), Geography in Britain after World War II: Nature, Climate, and the Etchings of Time, Palgrave Macmillan: UK, 2019.

Vinita Damodaran and Rohan D’Souza, (eds.), Commonwealth Forestry and Environmental History: Empire Forests and Colonial Environments in Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia and New Zealand, Primus Books: New Delhi, March, 2020.

Book Chapters

‘Hindutva and the Political Citizen: Unmaking Higher Education in Modi’s India’ in Imtiaz Ahmed and Zhang Liyang (ed). Innovation and Education in Asia, Tianjin, China [Forthcoming]

‘Re-imagining the Northeast in India, Again: Did Geography Sidestep History in Vision (2020)?’ In Bhagat Oinam and Dhiren A. Sadokpam (ed.), Northeast India : A Reader, Routledge: London, 2018, pp. 436-52.

S. Ravi Rajan and Rohan D’Souza, ‘Environmental History of India: An Overview’ in S. Ravi Rajan and Lise Sedrez (ed.), The Great Convergence: Environmental Histories of BRICS, Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2018, pp. 274-95.

‘Pulses against Volumes: Trans-boundary Rivers and Pan-Asian Connectivity’ in Sumit Ganguly and Karen Stool Farell (ed.), Heading East: The Dynamics of Security, Trade, and Environment between India and Southeast Asia, Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2016, pp.240-253.

‘Mischievous Rivers and Evil Shoals: The English East India Company and the Colonial Resource Regime’ in Vinita Damodaran, Anna Winterbottom and Alan Lester (ed.), East India Companies and the Natural World 1600-1850, Palgrave Macmillan: UK, 2014, pp.128-146.

‘Towards an Environmental History of the Indus Water Treaty’ in N. Jayaram (ed.), Ideas, Institutions, Processes: Essays in Memory of Satish Saberwal, Orient BlackSwan: Hyderabad, 2014, pp.157-70.

‘Filling Multi-Purpose Reservoirs with Politics: Displacing the Modern Large Dam in India in Marcus Nusser (ed.), Large Dams in Asia: Contested Environments between Technological Hydroscapes and Social Resistance, Springer Academic Publishers: New York , 2014, pp.61-74.

‘Sustainable Development’ in B.S.Chimni and Siddharth Mallavarapu (ed.), Handbook of International Relations, Pearson: India, 2012, pp.180-194.

‘From Damming Rivers to Linking Waters: Is this the Beginning of the End of Supply-Side Hydrology in India?’ in Terje, T., Chapman, G. and Hagen, R. (ed.), A History of Water: Water, Geopolitics and the New World Order, Series II Volume 3, I.B. Tauris: London, New York, 2010, pp. 356-73.

‘Seeing Like a River: The Bengal Presidency’s Hydraulic Transition’, in Arun Bandopadhyay (ed.), Science and Society in India 1750-2000, Manohar: New Delhi, 2010, pp. 169-182.

‘River- linking and its Discontents: The Final Plunge for Supply-Side Hydrology in India’ in Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt & Robert J. Wasson (ed.), Water First; Issues and Challenges for Nations and Communities in South Asia, Sage: New Delhi, 2008, pp. 99-121.

‘From Natural Calamity to Natural Resource: Flood Control and the Politics of Natural Limits’, Amita Baviskar (ed.), Waterscapes: The Cultural Politics of a Natural Resource, Permanent Black: Ranikhet, 2007, pp.248-80.

‘Environmental Discourses and Environmental Politics’ in Smithu Kothari et al, (ed.), The Value of Nature: Ecological Politics in India, Rainbow Publishers: New Delhi, 2003, pp.23-38.

Journal Articles

‘Event, Process and Pulse: Resituating Floods in Environmental Histories of South Asia’, in Environment and History, Special Issue: ‘Disasters and the Making of Asian History’, Chris Courtney & Fiona Williamson (ed.), 26, 2020, pp.31-49.

‘Scarcity, Environmentalism and the Politics of Pre-Emption: reconsidering the environmental histories of South Asia in the epoch of the Anthropocene’, Geoforum, 101, 2019, pp.242-49.

‘Should Clean Energy be Politics as Usual? Reflections on India’s Energy Transition Quest’, Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs, Vol.4, No.2, winter 2019, pp. 38-44.

‘Nations without Borders: Climate Security and the South in the Epoch of the Anthropocene’, Strategic Analysis, 39(6), November, 2015, pp. 720-28.

‘The Indus Water Treaty and Climate Change: An Environmental History of Hydro-politics’, Journal of International Relations, 9 (I &II), 2011 (ISSN: 2218-7391), pp.104-115.

‘Framing India’s Hydraulic Crises: Politics of the Modern Large Dam’, Monthly Review Press, 60 (3), July-August 2008, pp.112-24.

‘Making Backwardness: How to Imagine the North-East as a Development Deficit’, Eastern Quarterly, 4( III&IV), October 2007-March 2008, pp.207-217.

‘Water in British India: The Making of a ‘Colonial Hydrology’”, History Compass (Blackwell Publishers, UK) 4/4. May, 2006, pp.621-8.

‘Rigidity and the Affliction of Capitalist Property: Colonial Land Revenue and the Recasting of Nature’ Studies in History, 20 (2), 2004, pp.237-72.

‘Canal Irrigation and the Conundrum of Flood Protection: The Failure of the Orissa Scheme of 1863 in Eastern India’, Studies in History, 19 (1), 2003, pp.41-68.

‘Damming the Mahanadi River: The Emergence of Multi-Purpose River Valley Development in India (1943-46)’, Indian Economic and Social History Review. 40 (1), 2003, pp. 82-105.

‘Supply-Side Hydrology in India: The Last Gasp’, Economic and Political Weekly, 38 (36) September 2003, pp. 3785-3790.

‘Crisis Before the Fall: Some Speculations on the Decline of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals’, Social Scientist, 30, (9-10), September-October 2002, pp.3-31.

‘Colonialism, Capitalism and Nature: Debating the Origins of the Mahanadi Delta’s Hydraulic Crisis (1803-1928)’, Economic and Political Weekly, 37 (13), March 30^th, 2002, pp. 1261-72.

‘Re-Evaluating Multi-Purpose River Valley Projects: A Case Study of Hirakud, Ukai and IGNP’, Rohan D’Souza, Ashish Kothari and Pranob Mukhopadhyay, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 33 (6), February 7-13, 1998, pp.297-303.

Working Papers

‘Carbon Forests and Rivers of Conflict: Writing South Asian Environmental History in the Epoch of the Anthropocene’, Asia’s Transformations to Sustainability: Past, Present and Future of the Anthropocene, The Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, National Institutes for the Humanities and Inter-University Research Institute Corporation, RIHN 11^th International Symposium Proceedings March 10-11, 2017, Kyoto, Japan, pp.108-129.

‘Drainage, River Erosion and Chaurs: an environmental history of land in Colonial Eastern India’, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Working Paper Series, History and Society, New Series 84, 2015.

‘River as Resource and Land to Own: The Great Hydraulic Transition in Eastern India’ in Asian Environments Shaping the World: Conceptions of Nature and Environmental Practices, National University of Singapore (Singapore), March 2009.

‘Floods, Embankments and Canals: The Colonial Experience in Orissa (1803-1928),’ Working Paper, 3^rd Series, no. VI, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, September 1996.

Review Articles

‘Peace is not possible and war is not an option! Should we still be ‘talking up’ non-traditional security?’ Strategic Analysis, 38 (5), 2014, pp.741–748.

‘Water as Dispute and Conflict’ in Economic and Political Weekly 42(16) April 21 - April 27, 2007, pp.1431-2.

‘Benign Capitalism by Another Name: Understanding Collapse’, Conservation and Society, 3 (1), January-June, 2005, pp. 238-47.

‘Nature, Conservation and Environmental History: A review of some recent environmental writings on South Asia’ in Conservation and Society, 1(2), July-December, 2003, pp. 317-32.

‘Environmental History: Whatever Happened to Colonialism?’, The Book Review, 32 (10), October 1998, pp.32-34.

‘Transport before the Railways’, Economic & Political Weekly, 32 (17), April 1997, pp.884-85.

Other Publications

‘Is land multi-dimensional or the inert grounds for politics and history?’ in Many Lives of Land - Moving the conversation from land to lands in contemporary India and beyond. Initiative by Global Challenges Research Fund and Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, April 2019. Web portal
‘Disaster Research: The Quest for the New Normal’ in Humanitarian Action after Nepal Earthquake, Agenda for IAP in Southasiadisaster.net, Issue no. 131, 2015, p.9.
‘Damming Politics: India, China, and a Trans-Border River’, India in Transition, Centre for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania, 11/04/2013.
‘Environmental History and Climate Change: the modern flood in South Asia’ in Vo Quang Trong and Nguyen Chi Ben (ed.), Museum & Cultural Heritage: Facing Climate Change (International Conference), Social Science Publishing House, Hanoi, 2013, pp.70-91.
‘Comment’, Current Anthropology, 53 (5), October 2012, pp. 631-32.
‘Floods and Climate Change: Sustainable Development and Other Imaginations’, UN Chronicle, Vol. XLIX No. 1&2 2012 (11.06.2012).
‘Hydro-Politics, The Indus Treaty and Climate Change’, SEMINAR 626, October, 2011, pp.26-30.
Hydro-politics, the Indus Water treaty and Climate Change: writing a new script for the Indus rivers’, Re-Imagining the Indus, Report by the Observer Research Foundation & Lahore University of Management Sciences, October, 2011, pp.95-106. www.orfonline.org
‘The Indian Ocean: The History, Ecology and Making of a Community’, Himanshu Prabha Ray, Rohan D’Souza and Gulshan Dietl in Water: Culture, Politics and Management, Indian International Centre, Pearson: Delhi, Chennai, Chandigarh, 2010, pp.49-68.
‘The OBC quota and the “New Economy”’, SEMINAR 563, July 2006, pp.66-7.
‘All dressed and nowhere to Go’, Hardnews, 3(7), June, 2006, p.21.
‘Some Reflections on Democracy and JNUSU’ in 30 Years in Defence of Progressive, Democratic and Secular Culture, Jawaharlal Nehru University Student’s Union, JK Offset Printers: Delhi, 2004, pp. 24-26.
‘Workshop Report’ V.V. Krishna & Rohan D’Souza, Science, Technology & Society, 9 (2), July-December 2004, pp.319-325.
‘Linking Rivers: Hydraulic Suicide’, The Hindu: The Survey of the Environment, 2003, pp.25-30.
‘Another Disaster in the Making: The Politics to Interlink Rivers in India’, HIMAL, 15 (12), December 2002, pp.8-9.
‘Capitalism’s Ecological Crisis’, SEMINAR, 516, August, 2002.
‘Hundreds Flooded by India’s Hirakud Dam’, World River’s Review, International Rivers Network, Berkeley, August, 2001.
‘Why Ambedkerites should be against Large Dams’, SEMINAR 496, December, 2000.
‘Politics, not Nature made Orissa floods calamitous’, The Telegraph (Kolkotta), July 25, 2001. Republished as ‘Hundreds Flooded by India’s Hirakud Dam: Politics, Not Nature Made Orissa Floods Calamitous’ in World Rivers Review, 16(4), 2001, p.4.
Edited issue on Floods with introduction ‘The Problem’, SEMINAR 478, June, 1999, pp.12-17.
‘The Politics of Flood Control’, The Ecologist Asia, 6 (5), September-October, 1998, pp. 36-37.
‘Spiti: Kul Waters From Glaciers’, in Agarwal & Narain (ed.), Dying Wisdom: Rise, Fall and Potential of India's Traditional Water Harvesting Systems, Fourth State of India's Environment Citizen's Report, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, 1997, pp.34-35.
‘Socialism and Immortality’, Mainstream, 31 (39), August 7^th, 1993, pp.24-25.
‘Himalayan Water-sharing System Endangered’, Down To Earth, Centre for Science and Environment, April, 1993.

Newspaper and Web publications

‘Why the Indian Taxpayer Should Be Happy to Pay for Citizen Scholar Umar Khalid’, The Wire, May 16^th, 2019.
‘Does a Machine-Colonized Future await Indian Youth in the Era of Industry 4.0?’, FIRSTPOST, November 11^th , 2018.
‘By Pitting Wild Dogs Against Lions, Mohan Bhagwat Has Stirred a Forest of Metaphors’, The Wire.in, September 11^th, 2018.
‘Tagore’s idea of nationalism was alien to the Indian psyche’, The Indian Express, November 21^st, 2017.
‘The Dalit story in today’s India is no longer a side plot of class’ The Hindustan Times, October 16^th 2017.
‘Army tank in JNU: should the sword be mightier than the pen?’ The Hindustan Times, July 25^th, 2017.
‘Srinivas Kuchibhotla murder: Why Modi’s nationalism no longer works for Indian-Americans’, The Hindustan Times, March 05, 2017.
‘Save university education: Keep politics away from the vice chancellor’s office’, The Hindustan Times, 23^rd February, 2017.
With Sushil Aaron, ‘BJP must get out of Election Mode to Govern’, The Hindustan Times, 23^rd May, 2016.
‘The Government must learn to leave Universities alone’ in The WIRE.in, 18^th February 2016.
‘JNU row: When dissent becomes sedition, democracy gasps for breath’ , Hindustan Times, 14^th February, 2016,
‘The Nationalist in the NRI’, The Hindu, 11^th December 2015.
‘Mistaking a Scholar for a Bureaucrat’, The Hindu, 24^th September, 2015.
‘Historians prevent us from becoming a people without history’, Hindustan Times, 8^th August 2015.
‘Hardly the Soft Sciences’, The Hindu, 10^th June, 2015.
‘Time to bridge this river divide’, The Hindu, 13^th September, 2013.
‘No more time for delays’, Hindustan Times, 26^th August, 2012.
‘How not to discuss water with China’, Business Line, January 1^st, 2012.

Other Assignments

Editorial Board (2020-24), Environmental History
Editorial Board (2018, ongoing), Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
Associate Editor (2019, ongoing), Ecology, Economy and Society [Journal of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics]
Editorial Board (2007, ongoing), Water Alternatives
Editorial Board (2013-2019), Strategic Analysis
Associate Editor (2004-2007), Conservation and Society, Bangalore
Series Editor for the Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History
Nov. 2017, Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) for the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE) on ‘Sustainability, Institutions, Incentives: Voices, Policies and Commitments’.
October 2011, Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) for the Sixth Biennial Conference of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE) on ‘Nature, Economy and Society: Understanding the Linkages’.
2011, Nominated as Member of the Transition Team and Executive Group for the design phase of the initiative termed Future Earth: Research for Global Sustainability. The Alliance comprises the Belmont Forum, International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC). http://www.icsu.org/future-earth/transition-team/copy_of_transition-team
2010-2014, Member, Board of Studies, School of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University, Delhi.
Referee to Manuscripts from the following Journals: Antipode; Journal of Agrarian Change; Indian Economic and Social History Review; Water History; Water Alternatives; Conservation and Society; Annals of Science; Asian Studies Review; Studies in History; Environmental Development; Social Studies of Science; Science Technology & Society; Contributions to Indian Sociology; Research in Economic Anthropology; Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient; WIREs Water; The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (incorporating Man); Geoforum; Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space; International Journal of Water Resources; Journal of Development Studies; WIREs Climate Change; WIRES Water.
Referee to Book Manuscripts: Oxford University Press (New Delhi): Orient BlackSwan (Hyderabad); Sage (New Delhi); Yale University Press (New Haven, USA), Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group (India).

Book Reviews

Dilip Da Cunha, The Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s Eye and Gangas’s Descent, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, 2019, Environmental History, (forthcoming).
Jeff Schauer. Wildlife between Empire and Nation in Twentieth-Century Africa. African Histories and Modernities. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, Journal of British Studies, (forthcoming)
Sunil Amrith, Unruly Waters: how rains, rivers, coasts and seas have shaped Asia’s history, Basic books, 2018, American Scientist, 107(5), Sept-Oct, 2019, pp. 312-14.
Debjani Bhattacharyya, Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2018, H-Net Reviews, March, 2019.
Daniel Haines, Rivers Divided: Indus basin Waters in the Making of India and Pakistan, Oxford University Press: New York, 2016, H-Net Reviews, December 2017.
David Gilmartin, Blood and Water; the Indus River Basin in Modern History, University of California Press: Oakland, California, 2015, Agricultural History, 91(2), 2017, pp. 251-53.
Gareth Dale, Manu V. Mathai and Jose A. Puppim De Oiliveira (ed.), Green Growth: Ideology, Political Economy and the Alternatives, Zed Books: London, 2016, Strategic Analysis, 41(2), 2017, 204–206
Ben Campbell, Living between Juniper and Palm: Nature, Culture and Power in the Himalayas, Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2013 in Studies in Nepali History and Society, 21(1), June 2016, pp.212-215.
Julie E. Hughes, Animal Kingdoms: Hunting, the Environment, and Power in the Indian Princely States, Harvard University Press, 2014, International Journal of Asian Studies, 11 (2), July 2014, pp. 217-218.
Iftekhar Iqbal, The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State and Social Change, 1840–1943, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 50(4), October-December, 2013, pp.521-523.
Prakash Kumar, Indigo Plantations and Science in Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012 in The Book Review, 6 (XXXVII), June 2013, pp. 4-5.
B.G. Karlsson, Unruly Hills: Nature and Nation in India’s Northeast, New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan & Social Science Press, 2011 in Organization & Environment, XX(X) 1–3, 2012.
Amit Bhaduri, Essays in the Reconstruction of Political Economy, New Delhi: Aakar, 2010 and idem., The Face you were Afraid to See: essays on the Indian Economy, India: Penguin Books, 2009 in Economic & Political Weekly, 45(37), September, 2010, pp. 34-5.
Gunnel Cederlof Landscapes and the Law: Environmental Politics, Regional Histories and Contests over Nature, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008 in Economic & Political Weekly, 64 (52), December, 2009, pp. 22-24.
Aniket Alam, Becoming India: western Frontier Under British Rule, New Delhi Foundation Books, Cambridge University Press, 2008 in Economic and Political Weekly, 29 (48), 2008, pp.26-27.
Joseph Morgan Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of development and the Legacies of British Colonialism, Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007 in ISIS [University of Chicago Press], 99(3) in September, 2008, pp.653-4.
Kaushik Roy, (ed.), War and Society in Colonial India (1807-1945, OUP: New Delhi, 2006, in The Indian Historical Review, 34(2), July, 2007, pp.225-228.
Gunnel Cederlof and K. Sivaramakrishnan (ed.), Ecological Nationalisms: Nature, Livelihoods, and Identities in South Asia, Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2005. pp.399 ; Rudolf C. Herdia and Shereen F. Ratnagar (ed.), Mobile and Marginalized Peoples Perspectives from the Past, Manohar, New Delhi, 2003 & J. Mark Baker, The Khuls of Kangra: Community-Managed Irrigation in the Western Himalaya, Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2005 in Indian Economic and Social History Review, 44(4), 2007, pp.556-59.
Archana Prasad, Environmentalism and the Politics of the Left, Left Word, 2004 in Social Scientist, 34 (11-12), 2007, pp.75-80.
Richard Drayton, Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the ‘Improvement’ of the World, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2005 (Indian Edition), in Economic and Political Weekly, 40(53), 2006, pp.5546-47.
Ganesh P. Shivakoti, Douglas L. Vermillion, Wai-Fung Lam, Elinor Ostrom, Ujjwal Pradhan and Robert Yoder ( eds), Asian Irrigation in Transition: responding to Challenges , New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005 in Science, Technology & Society, 11(2), 2006, pp.397-400.
Gary Nabhan, Why Some Like it Hot: Food, Genes and Cultural Diversity, Island Press: Washington DC, 2004 in TerraGreen, 3(3), Oct-Dec, 2006, p.62.
Lyla Mehta, The Politics and Poetics of Water: Naturalising Scarcity in Western India, Orient Longman: Hyderabad, 2005, in SEMINAR, 564, August, 2006.
Mihai Spariosu, Global Intelligence and Human Development: Towards an Ecology of Global Learning (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2004), in MINERVA, 44 (Springer), 2006, pp.235-237.
Joan Martinez Alier, The environmentalisms of the Poor: A study of Ecological Conflicts and valuation, Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2004 in The Book Review, January-February, 2006, p.55.
Arun Kumar Singh. Privatization of Rivers in India, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra: Mumbai, 2004 and idem, Inter-linking of rivers in India: A Preliminary Assessment, The Other Media: New Delhi, 2003 in SEMINAR, 554, December, 2004.
Medha Patkar (ed.), River Linking: A Millennium Folly? National Alliance of People’s Movements, Mumbai, January 2004 and Dr. Uma Shankari, (Compiled and Edited), Interlinking Rivers: Contradictions and Confrontations, South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy & Centre for Study of developing Societies, Delhi, 2004 in Down To Earth, 12( 24) May 15, 2004.
Aditya Mukherjee, Imperialism, Nationalism and the Making of the Indian Capitalist Class, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2002, in Indian Economic and Social History Review, 41(30), 2004, pp.341-3.
Ramaswamy R. Iyer, WATER: Perspectives, Issues, Concerns, Sage Publications: New Delhi, 2003 in SEMINAR, 537, May, 2004.
Dinesh Kumar Mishra, Living with the Politics of Floods: The Mystery of Flood Control, Peoples’ Science Institute, Dehradun, 2000 in SEMINAR, 529, September, 2003.
K.V. Raju, G.K. Karanth, M.J.Bhende, D.Rajasekar, K.S.Gayathridevi, Rejuvenating Tanks: A Socio-Ecological Approach, Books for Change: Bangalore, 2003 in The Hindu, Sunday, Jun 01, 2003.
Anil Agrawal, Sunita Narain and Srabani Sen (eds), The Citizen’s Fifth Report: State of India’s Environment Series (Part I and II), Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, 1999 in SEMINAR, 486, February, 2000.
Amita Baviskar, In the Belly of the River: tribal conflicts and development in the Narmada valley, SEMINAR, 466, June 1998, pp.87-88.
Ben Crow with Alan Lindquist and David Wilson, Sharing the Ganges: The politics and technology of river development, Sage Publications, New Delhi and Thousand Oaks, California, 1995 in SEMINAR, 438, February 1996.
Biswamoy Pati, Resisting Domination: Peasants, Tribals and the National Movement in Orissa 1920-50, Manohar: New Delhi, 1993 in Indian Economic and Social History Review, 32(1), 1995, pp. 123-5.

Select Presentations

Key Note Address

‘Development against Economic Growth: Reconsidering Debates in South Asian Environmental History’, International Workshop: Environment in Asia: interdisciplinary discussions and future directions National University of Singapore, 11-12, November, 2015.
‘Historical responsibility’ and the problems of writing South Asian environmental history in the epoch of the Anthropocene’, Conference on Resource Politics: Transforming Pathways to Sustainability, STEPS Centre, Sussex University, 7-9 September, 2015.
‘The Security and Insecurity of Water in South Asia’, Conference, Tapping the Turn: water’s social dimensions, Australian National University, November 15-16, 2012.
‘Colonial Watershed or Socio-Natures: writing South Asian environmental histories in the epoch of the anthropocene’, Ecology and Society Workshop at The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 24^th May, 2013.

Talks/Lectures/Presentations

‘The Impossible Dream: Education, Jobs and the Indian Middle class in the Digital Age’, Odisha Alochna Chakra, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, December 3^rd, 2019.
‘The Great Hydraulic Transition: colonial engineering and the making of modern rivers in South Asia’, Centre for India and South Asia Research, Interdisciplinary Research Cluster, The University of British Columbia (Vancouver), 23^rd September, 2019.
‘Futures without a Past: are environmental histories of South Asia still possible in the Epoch of Humans (the Anthropocene) ? , Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, The University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus), September 17^th 2019.
‘Art, Environmental History and the “Politics of Nature” in the Anthropocene’ in Mayday Artists, Activists and Environmental Historians Conference, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex, UK, 1^st May 2019.
‘The Great Hydraulic Transition : Colonial engineering and the making of modern rivers in South Asia’, Rising Waters: After Engineering, Rivers and the Life of Floods, the PENN program for Environmental Studies, University of Pennsylvania and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Main Campus, Mumbai, India, January 7, 2019.
‘Environmental Change and the Politics of Pre-emption: Reconsidering Environmental Histories of South Asia in the Anthropocene’ Histories & Ecologies of Health International Conference, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong, 13-14 December 2018.
‘Amphibians to Reptiles: How Colonial Eastern India became ‘land centred’ and ‘flood vulnerable’, Multi-dimensionalising Land, Workshop, Organized by the Land Global Challenges Research Fund and Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, International Centre, Goa, Dona Paula, India, 20-21^st December, 2018.
‘Anthropocene Rain and Soaked Concrete: can policy-making rescue the ‘flooded Asian City ?’, Water Heritage in Asian Cities, Symposium, Academy of Social Sciences, (Shanghai, China) 29^th November -1^st December, 2018.
‘Are Environmental Histories of South Asia still possible in the Epoch of the Anthropocene ?’, Panel C55-08 : The Anthropocene in Asia (Wednesday 26^th September, 2018) in World Social Science Forum: Security and Equality for Sustainable Futures, Fukuoka, Japan, 25-28 September, 2018.
‘Connectivity has no Pulse: rivers as a biological challenge to infrastructure in Asia’ in workshop titled Development Corridors and the Sustainability Challenge: land, water, livelihoods, Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development, Guwahati, Assam, 6^th-7^th March 2018 and at the 31^st Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies (Kanazawa, 29-30^thSeptember, 2018).
‘Writing South Asian Environmental History in the Epoch of the Anthropocene’, International Conference on Bihar and Jharkhand: Shared History to Shared Vision, ADRI Silver Jubilee Celebration 2016-17, Patna (Bihar), March 26^th 2017 and at the World Social Science Forum, Fukuoka, 25-28^th September, 2018).
‘The Great Hydraulic Transition: Colonial engineering and the making of Modern Rivers in South Asia’, Asian Research Institute, National University Singapore, Singapore, 4^th September 2017.
‘Hydrology as Ideology: water, power and environmental history in South Asia’ , MSc Environmental Governance, 10^th Generation Anniversary (November 2014), Sustainability Power and Change, Institute for Environmental Social Sciences and Geography, University of Freiburg, Germany. 11^th November, 2014.
‘The Great Hydraulic Transition: Modern Origins of Land and Rivers in South Asia’, School of Asian and African Studies, Kyoto University, April 1^st, 2014.
‘Bridging the River Divide: The Politics of River Water Sharing in South Asia’ South Asia University, New Delhi, 23^rd January, 2014.
Under the Theme ‘The Great Hydraulic Transition in South Asia’, Geography Department (Indiana, Bloomington), November 15^th 2013; CASI (University of Pennsylvania) December 5^th 2013 and New School (New York), 12^th December, 2013.
‘Cusec Deadlock: India, Pakistan and the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in the time of Hydro-politics’ Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, 13^th June , 2013.
‘The Geology of Morals and the Politics of Nature’, the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, October 20^th 2012.
‘Conflict against Security: the search for a water paradigm for South Asia’, Environment, Inequality, and Conflict, Indian Statistical Institute ( New Delhi) and Centre for Equality and Social Opportunity (ESOP), University of Oslo, 28^th-29^th March 2012.
‘Controlling Nature and Technology as Triumph: Is the idea of Progress sustainable?’ The History of Science and Technology in 20th Century India, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science and Indian National Science Academy, (Bangalore) (15 October 2011)
‘Nature of Money versus the Value of Conservation: Should Natural Endowments replace Ecological Services’ Student Conference on Conservation Science, National Centre for Biological Sciences (Bangalore), 14^th-16^th September, 2011.
‘Flood Control, Water Histories and Environmental Security: Rethinking Bangladesh-India Dialogues’ Special Short Term Course on India Bangladesh, Gangtok,Sikkim University, September 9^th-11^th 2011
‘When Soil and Water Do Not Mix: towards a history of drainage in India’, Environmental Issues in India, Institute of Life Long Learning , Department of History, University of Delhi and Indraprastha College, University of Delhi, March 16 & 17, 2012.
‘Cusec Deadlock: Is there another script possible for the Indus rivers?’, New Frontiers of Indian Foreign Policy National Conference, Panjab University, Chandigarh, March 15^th, 2012
‘Cusec Deadlock: The Indus and Hydropolitics in a Fault Zone’, Blue Revolution: Charting South Asia’s Water Future, Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, April 11^th, 2011.
‘Water as a source of conflict’, India, Pakistan & Regional Stability Round Table Programme, Dept. of War Studies, King’s College, London, 29-31March, 2011.
‘Social-Natures and Environmental Change: Should environmental histories trump environmental economics?’ in Changing Nature - Changing Sciences
The Challenges of Global Environmental Change Research for the Social Sciences and Humanities , International Social Science Council-CIPSH, General Assembly Joint Symposium, Nagoya, (Japan), December 13-14^th , 2010.
“Nature as calamity and development as triumph: is the idea of progress sustainable?” Symposium on Ecosystem and Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Sweden, November 24, 2010.
‘Framing India’s Hydraulic Crisis: The Politics of the Modern Large dam in India’ , Large Dams, Hydropower and Northeast India, 1^st- 2^nd September, 2008, Guwahati, (Assam), Panos South Asia & Kalpavriksh Media Dialogue.
‘Reconsiderations on Capitalism and the ‘ Natural Calamity’, Researching Disasters: Prospects and Dilemmas, International Roundtable Conference, 4^th- 5^th February, 2008, Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, (Mumbai).

Papers Presented

The Great Hydraulic Transition: Colonial engineering and the mak ing of modern rivers in South Asia’’, Panel: Rivers and Environmental History Around the World (Part 2), 3^rd World Congress of Environmental History, Florianopolis, Brazil, 22-26, July, 2019.
Christopher Courtney (University of Durham) and Rohan D’Souza (Kyoto University) ‘Straight Channels and Drained Swamps: Resituating River Control and ‘Wetland Cultures’ in China and India’, Rivers in the Anthropocene: Global Challenges and Local Responses, Duke-Kunshan University, Shanghai, China, 6^th-7^th, July , 2019.
‘Alternative Imaginations and Zero-Sum Games: Reconceptualizing the Trans-Boundary River Challenge for China and India’ , The Second China-India Workshop on Development and Governance, Dr. Seaker Chan Center for Comparative Political Development Studies, Fudan University, June 8^th, 2018.
‘National Culture to Consumer to Citizen of the World: Reflections on Higher Education and the University System in the Epoch of the Anthropocene’, Conference on Innovation in Education, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, China, May 25-27, 2018
‘Environmental History and the Humanities for South Asia: reconsidering large dams and resource politics in the Anthropocene’, International Workshop on Environmental Humanities in Asia: Ecological Crisis and Cultural Responses, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hong Kong. 10-12 April 2018,
‘Sustainability against “Safe Operating Space”: India’s cusec-megawatt rivers and writing environmental history in the Anthropocene’, Environmental Justice and Sustainable Citizenship, Global Asia Initiative (GAI) at Duke and Duke Kunshan University, Conference on Environmental Humanities in Asia, Kunshan (China), May 22-24, 2017.
‘Carbon Forests and Rivers of Conflict: Writing South Asian Environmental History in the Epoch of the Anthropocene’, Asia’s Transformations to Sustainability: Past, Present and Future of the Anthropocene, The Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, National Institutes for the Humanities, Inter-University Research Institute Corporation, Kyoto 10^th-11^th March , 2017.
‘All Unquiet on the ‘Great Himalayan Watershed’: India, China, Bangladesh and a Trans-Boundary River’ Dynamic Borderlands: Livelihoods, Communities and Flows, 5th Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network, Kathmandu (Nepal), 12 - 14 December 2016.
‘Floods, Disasters and Re-tooling History Can cross-disciplinary dialogues help Policy-making?’ Conference on Disastrous Pasts: New Directions in Asian Disaster History, National University Singapore, 21^st-22^nd November, 2016.
‘Writing South Asian Environmental Histories in the Epoch of the Anthropocene’, Dialogues on Environmental History for the BRICS in Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa, and the Programa de Pós-Graduação em História Social da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - PPGHIS/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), August 26-30, 2014.
‘Drainage, River Erosion and Chaurs: an environmental history of land in Colonial Eastern India, Environmental Histories: Pasts and Futures, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (New Delhi), 21-22 March, 2014.
‘The Making of the Modern Flood: Chronicling the Great Hydraulic Transition in South Asia’, International Conference on Cultural Heritages in the Mekong River Basin and Ganges River Region Facing Global Climate Changes, Vietnam Museum of Ethnology & Vietnam Institute of Culture and Arts Studies, Hue (Vietnam), June 11th, 2012.
‘From Conflict to Securitization: The Making of Another Hydraulic Paradigm in India?’ Water Security in South Asia, Peace Research Institute Oslo (Norway), 14-15 June 2011.
‘Making Modern Flows: The Great Hydraulic Transition in Colonial India’, Understanding Global India: The South Asian Path of Development and its Possibilities” 29th - 30th January 2011, Kyoto University, (Japan).
‘Making Modern Flows: The Great Hydraulic Transition in South Asia’, Panel: the Environmental History of India (part 2), American History Association, Boston, 6^th – 9^th January, 2011 (U.S.A).
‘Improvements for progress: Hydraulic transformations in Colonial South Asia’, 79^th Anglo-American Conference of Historians, Senate House, University of London, 1-2^nd July, 2010 (U.K).
‘Human Security Issues in South Asia: Water conflicts in India’ in the International Post-Graduate Program in Human Security at Tohoko University, Japan, 14^th January, 2010.
‘From Damming Rivers to Linking Waters: Is this the beginning of the end of Supply-Side Hydrology in India?’ The Currents of Power: Water and the New World Order, 20-21. April 2009 at the Centre for Advanced Studies, Oslo, (Norway).
‘River as Resource and Land to Own: The Great Hydraulic Transition in Eastern India’ Asian Environments Shaping the World: Conceptions of Nature and Environmental Practices, 19-21 March, 2009, National University of Singapore (Singapore).
‘Does History Matter: Rethinking Modern Irrigation in India’ in Conference on water Law reforms and the Right to water: Lessons from India, International Environmental Law Research centre (IELRC), Geneva, Switzerland, 23-24 January, 2009.
‘Debating the Nehru Legacy: Flood Control and the Making of Modern India’, India International Centre, (New Delhi), Frontiers of History, 22^nd September, 2008.
‘Development: Issues and Challenges’, Towards a New Understanding of North-East India, 23^rd-25^th January, 2008, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“Mischievous Rivers and Evil Shoals : The English East India Company and the Colonial Resource Regime.” Workshop titled: East India Company and the Natural World at the Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex, June 8^th , 2007.
“Rewriting the Script on Large Dams and Conflict in India” in International workshop on Water Access and Conflicts: Implications for Governance in South Asia. SaciWATERs: South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies, Chennai March 21 and 22, 2007
“Debating the Great Hydraulic Transition in Eastern India” , in Lecture presentation in Japanese Association for South Asian Studies (JASAS), Osaka City University, September 5^th,2006.
“The Great Hydraulic Transition: Colonial Rule and Making the Bengal Delta” , in Seminar and Lecture Series Colonial Matters and Materialities: Discussions on Technology, Culture and Economy, Institute of Advanced Studies, Lancaster Universities, UK, 15^th November, 2005.
‘Flooding and the Political Ecology of Resilience”, in Seminar and Lecture Series Colonial Matters and Materialities: Discussions on Technology, Culture and Economy, Institute of Advanced Studies, Lancaster Universities, UK, 16^th November, 2005.
‘The Conceptual World of the “Skeptical Environmentalist”: Putting Lomborg’s Environmental Facts in their Place’, Resource Management in Asia-Pacific, Australian National University, 28^th June, 2005.