One of the things keeping me busy is a Lenten course based on the countries highlighted by Catholic Relief Services Operation Rice Bowl. Each week our group makes a meal from the highlighted country and I provide some background on the country. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to have a speaker who has visited or lived in the country. I usually give out a resource guide so people who are so inclined can learn more.
Starting this week, I’m going to post my country resource guides. Here is India:
India: Basic Facts and Resources for Exploration
Basic Facts (Source: CRS 2008 Rice Bowl Educators Guide)
Population 1.1 billion
% population below age 15 32%
% population with access to safe drinking water 86%
Infant mortality rate (under age 5, per 1,000 live births) 87
Adult literacy rate (age 15 and above) 61%
Male/Female literacy rate 73.4% / 47.8%
GNP per capita (U.S. $) $540
% population living in poverty 28.6%
For Further Exploration:
India | Catholic Relief Services
Site detailing Catholic Relief Service work in India including education and post tsunami recovery work.
Government Sources
India: Selected Internet Resources (Portals to the World, Library of Congress)
URL: http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/asian/india/india.html
Library of Congress links to information about India in the areas of: Business, Commerce, Economy; Culture; Embassies; Government, Politics, Law; Health; History; Language and Literature; Libraries, Archives; National Security; Recreation and Travel; Search Engines; and Society.
National Portal of India
From the website, “This is the National Portal of India, developed with an objective to enable a single window access to information and services being provided by the various Indian Government entities. The content in this Portal is the result of a collaborative effort of various Indian Government Ministries and Departments, at the Central/State/District level.”
United States Agency for International Development – India
Describes work of United States in India, especially in the areas of economic growth, health, disaster management, energy and environment.
Books from Libraries in Juneau
Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India
Author: Madhur Jaffrey
Summary from CCL catalog: A childhood memoir by a noted Indian cook. Book covers growing up in Delhi and Kampur during the 1930s and 1940. Book concludes with 30 “family style” recipes.
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date: 2007
JPL Call Number – 641.5092
In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India
Author: Edward Luce
Summary from CCL catalog, “In Spite of the Gods illuminates a land of many contradictions. The booming tech sector we read so much about in the West, Luce points out, employs no more than 1 million of India’s 1.1 billion people. Only 35 million people, in fact, have formal enough jobs to pay taxes, while three-quarters of the country lives in extreme deprivation in India’s 600,000 villages. Yet amid all these extremes exists the world’s largest experiment in representative democracy – and a largely successful one, despite bureaucracies riddled with horrifying corruption.”
Publisher: Doubleday
Date: 2007
JPL Call Number 954.053 LUCE
India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy
Author: Ramachandra Guha
Summary from CCL catalog, “A political narrative of India’s six decades of independence, Guha’s history emphasizes how the country has remained a mostly territorially intact and constitutional state, despite the expectations of many after the Union Jack was lowered in 1947. An able and readable scholar, Guha proceeds chronologically from the violence-wracked partition of that year to the present, when elections became “indigenized,” as did another support to democracy, India’s professional, apolitical military.”
Publisher: Ecco
Date: 2007
JPL Call Number 954.04 GUHA
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Apologies for the funky formating. Attached to this entry is the same handout in Word. indiawk3.doc
Filed under: christianity | Tagged: india, rice bowl
