City don's political tome in Delhi

A political philosopher by training, Prof Rodrigues has taken a great deal of research interest to study social movements and in recent years, political ideas in India.

While he did his PhD thesis on the Left Movement, his interest over the years has been to tease out democratic possibilities and how democracy can profoundly qualify economic interests and empower the disadvantaged.

In his recent work on the Parliament, he argues for some of these ideas while admitting the obvious limitations of parliamentary democracy in India. But he also thinks that given the diversity and complexity in India, there is no easy alternative to a parliamentary system of governance here.

The book has been published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi. His earlier work, also published by Oxford University Press, entitled “B R Ambedkar, Essential Writings” has already seen 11 impressions.

One of the most distinguished academicians hailing from coastal Karnataka, Prof Rodrigues is a professor of Political Science at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Earlier, he served Mangalore University for over 20 years and was the Professor and Chairman of the Dept. of Political Science for about 10 years. A Agatha Harrison Fellow at the Oxford University from 1989 to 1991, he has successfully guided 17 Ph.D theses and 11 of them at Mangalore University. Over 25 students have successfully completed their M. Phil under his guidance.