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When the 'green revolution' began in Punjab in 1964, Punjab sprang to the front rank of Indian agricultural production. But since about 2000, it has been increasingly clear that the technology is leading to an encompassing ecological disaster. The reason for the change lies in the organizational framework. Born in a spirit of flexible egalitarian democracy, it is now dominated by rigid central authoritarianism that forces farmers to grow one crop rotation for one buyer: wheat and rice for the Food Corporation of India. The SGPC and Akali Dal have had an important role in this transformation. This describes it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India as a whole is not closing its development gap with the West. Economic growth in Punjab exceeded that of the rest of India during the period of the Green Revolution. Since then it has dropped to less than the national average. The most direct reason is that increasingly intensive applicat ion of the technologies of the Green Revolution has become ecologically and economically unsustainable. The deeper reason is that the governmental mechanisms at the national and state levels that were used in introducing these technologies in 1965 are still in place and prevent the development of alternatives. In the West, particularly the United States, the Constitution and laws support an enormous number of organizations that can engage in activities for the public good and support themselves by taxes or compulsory fees. The Constitution and laws of India restrict this power mainly to the central government and the states. This article describes the features of the Indian political system that do this, how the Punjab government used them effectively to create the Green Revolution, and how they have been perpetuated and have prevented the development of alternative productive strategies since. It concludes with a description of how the Punjab government might empower the people of Punjab to engage in a much wider range of productive activities even without change in the constitutional set-up at the national level, although it would be better to install such changes at the national level as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experimental method, in its most important sense, is a prescription for conducting a system of experiments, each answering questions raised by others until the analysis seems complete. I previously published an experimental method for the field elicitation of kinship terminologies, but did not demonstrate the chain of experimental procedures by which the elicitation and final results are connected. These analyses show the logical structure of kinship terminologies and how kinship systems are built on them. This article describes that chain and those developed by colleagues that deepen the analysis. It is the most complete and accurate account of the field data of kinship. It applies equally well to other cultural systems, and in showing the fundamental conceptual structures of kinship, it allows us to see how the power of conceptual systems like kinship rest in the rational basis of culture and, conversely, the cultural basis of rationality. (Experiment, kinship analysis, formal analysis, reciprocity, self-other) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article restates Shannon and Weaver's (1963) diagrammatic representation of the communication process in order to relate the fundamental conceptions of information it embodies to naturally occurring communication in the open air. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two main traditions in Western philosophy: a line of dualistic arguments resting on the form—matter dichotomy and the long historical accumulation of ideas related to it, and a line of skeptical arguments resting on an expanding idea of experience and an accumulation of ways to produce and reproduce it. The idea of ‘formal analysis’ has mainly been associated with the former, in which formal analysis is substantially the same thing as imposing the conceptual framework of the analyst. The argument here is that it can be much more fruitfully framed in the latter. Form is not something that one must impose—it can be found. The form of a thing or system is that which holds its parts together. This always devolves into a set of mutual relationships. Such relationships can be observed and characterized and, because they usually involve simple, repeated elements such characterizations commonly take on a schematic or mathematical character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents observations on the conference papers on cultural systems and organizational processes in the U.S. Basis for descriptive precision; Identification of the most basic empirical questions regarding culture; Distinct formalization of social systems.

Examines the relationship between irrigation and authoritarianism in Rajasthan, India. Tradition of authoritarian government in Rajasthan; Administrative structure in the area; Features of the irrigation systems in the area; Two systems of management in the area.

Jones' article suggests that the anthropological analysis of kinship has followed a single line of development based on a single underlying conception of meaning and method. In fact, there have been two opposed lines of development. Jones' conception is positivistic. The other is pragmatic. Pragmatic theory is superior on every recognized criterion. This briefly describes the differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]