James Heitzman

Information systems and development in the third world

Abstract The shift in global economy toward the development of services, including information systems, offers challenges to Third World nations from five directions: microelectronics technology, a multiplicity of development theories or policies, the power of multinational corporations, international information agencies, and variables of national political economy. In the face of these challenges, developing nations start from a position of weakness, based on low levels of capital formation and rapid population growth. The resulting problems include low levels of investment in information infrastructures, lack of public interest in modern information facilities, and dependence on the multinationals. Responses are varied, however, as seen in the South Asian nations of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The general direction of solutions in the late 1980s is away from large-scale, centralized intervention and toward more decentralized national and regional projects.

Temple Urbanism in Medieval South India

The Tamil country of South India experienced a flowering of political, economic, and cultural forces during the Chola period (849–1279). The environments supporting this expansion were nucleated settlements focused on temples, surrounded by verdant paddy fields with artificial irrigation networks. This article is a study of the sacred sites and nucleated settlements that were the heart of this medieval civilization. The purposes of the study are two: first, to portray the dynamics of early urbanism during a crucial period of regional integration in South Asia, and especially to portray the geography of early centers; second, to provide the basis for a comparative study of early South Indian urbanism and premodern urbanism in other world areas.

State formation in South India, 850 -1280

The present study utilises inscriptional records from the Chola period (AD 849-1279) in South India in order to address several major problems connected with Chola kingship in particular and with early Indian polities in general: (1) What were the mechanisms evolved by kings to exert their authority over relatively large areas and disparate human groups? (2) To what extent did the authority of kings vary over distance and in relation to

Middle Towns to Middle Cities in South Asia, 1800-2007

The purpose of this article is to survey the field of historical studies concerned with “middle” cities (populations 100,000 to one million) in the post-Independence period of South Asia— which includes the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives—with particular focus on places with populations between 100,000 and 200,000 and places that are rapidly growing to enter this category. The discussion begins with a statistical overview of the explosive growth of urbanization in South Asia since 1947-1948. The argument then moves into the colonial past to sketch the preconditions for urban change at the beginning of the British colonial period and the British-led contributions to “secondary” urban growth through initiatives in transportation systems, the cantonment, the hill station, and the agrarian marketing-and-administrative center. The argument then shifts back to approaches that may aid in the understanding of post-colonial economic and technological processes that built on the colonial framework to propel urban growth for middle cities; case studies here include central place theory, analysis of grass-roots capitalist development and entrepreneurship, and the impact of state-designed industrial planning. The article concludes with observations on the challenges presented to the historical profession by this gigantic field of urban expansion.

Geographic information systems in India's ‘silicon valley’: the impact of technology on planning Bangalore

By the late 1980s, the parastatal authorities responsible for infrastructure delivery and planning in the Bangalore metropolitan region were encountering complex problems and pressure from lending agencies that pushed them toward capacity-building exercises utilizing electronic tools, including geographic information systems. Simultaneously, a network of non-governmental organizations and private consulting firms were developing within Bangalore that specialized in the application of geographic information systems tools for the solution of development problems. The result of these inter-related changes was the gradual assembly of multi-organizational teams for the implementation of development projects involving computerized mapping and database construction. This process represented a movement away from earlier centralized models of planning, and characterized an organizational matrix typically associated with the milieu of innovation or the regional growth pole. The investigation of this process in Bangalore allows the construction of a case study applicable to the analysis of technological and organizational change associated with urbanization and the information society within South Asia.

Evaluation of Public Libraries in India : the case of Karnataka

This article describes the development of the public library system in the state of Karnataka, India, several exercises in its evaluation during the mid-1990s, and the current direction of its planning. After outlining the system in the rural district of Chickmagalur, it concentrates on the system in the city of Bangalore, the state capital and India’s ‘Silicon Valley’. Quantitative and qualitative survey data portray the demographics of library clientele, their information needs, their rating of library materials, facilities and personnel, and the relationship between their evaluations and the preliminary stages of automation. Analysis focuses on issues of age, gender, trajectories of career development, and the rural–urban divide in determining the future planning of the system.

Sports and Conflict in Urban Planning The Indian National Games in Bangalore

The National Games, designed to develop Olympic talent and promote national unity, also allow the channeling of resources for the development of a sports infrastructure in Indian cities. This study of the 1997 National Games in Bangalore discusses the intersection between urban planning, sports infrastructure, and social organization. Issues covered include financing, the political economy underlying construction of facilities, slum removal, and the projection of nationalist ideology. In all cases, the sports spectacle uncovers and activates a range of social conflicts that reveal contradictions between social equity and planning models.

Urban geography and land measurement in the twelfth century: The case of Kanchipuram

The authors compute the length of the 16-span rod, a measuring instrument used in the Kanchipuram region during the late Chola period, by combining information on land boundaries from a single inscription with fieldwork and map tools. In the process, they reconstruct part of the geography of the city and examine long-term changes in land use, with implications for historical preservation. The article suggests that the application of this methodology to other epigraphic records may allow the detailed reconstruction of early agrarian and urban environments, and contribute to the quantitative evaluation of land holding or revenue systems.

Intersecting paths in early South Asian historiography: A review

The recent appearance of many volumes that provide retrospective visions of historical fields through collections of essays by single authors or anthologies of older, seminal works marks a moment of maturity and disjuncture in the historiography of early South Asia. The achievement of maturity has occurred through the absorption of theoretical and methodological contributions from other world areas and the development of endogenous approaches that have firmly established original schools and disciplinary paradigms. The disjuncture has occurred through

The state in medieval Kashmir

The study focuses on the central function of the medieval Kashmir Shahmir sultanate in relation to surplus extarction and the perpetuation of its domination with its heavy dependence on both brahmanism and Islam. It seeks to situate the medieval state of kashmir in the cultural and social traditions of the region. The study is organized around 4 aspects: The historical roots of state formation in pre sultanate Kashmir, conversion to Islam, The Sayyids, Sultans and the state, a search for legitimacy and the incorporation of the sultanate in the mughla state.