Books by Govindasamy Agoramoorthy

In my professional career as field biologist, I came across thousands of people with diverse background, from politicians to policy-makers, and from indigenous people to intellectuals-Harnath and Sharmishtha Jagawat do not fit into any of them. They belong to an unusual class of India's rural development practitioners. Harnath is an idealistic institutional leader, who always looks far into the future to eradicate poverty plaguing the drylands. His creativity, administrative aptitude and physical robustness brought up in the remote Chambal valley from childhood embodied with the upbeat spirit armored by his competence and genuine big-heartedness helped countless farming communities for over four decades by his tireless social work centered on irrigation water. In contrast, Sharmishtha is a down-to-earth person, who bows down to greet all humans irrespective of their age and status-from children to chief ministers, she expresses her lovely enthusiasm with genuine human touch. In this book, the author, who is Tata Visiting Chair at N M Sadguru Water and Development Foundation, highlights their enormous contributions to India's rural development eradicating poverty while revolutionizing village-level food security.

In today''s world, we do not pass a day without reading or hearing the words "climate change". Politicians and policymakers have been converging at global climate summits every year to find ways to ease the crisis. It is known for decades that human creativity has developed resource-intensive economies with their unprecedented toll on nature. However, the technocratic approach to development has ignored certain spiritual and philosophical values that have channeled human energy within culture-specific ethical boundaries for centuries. Humanity requires not only scientific solutions but also spiritual guidance in its use of the limited resources of our planet. In this context, one can also ask if the teachings of the ancient spiritual scriptures persuade contemporary Hindus to take action aimed at mitigating the effects of human action on the environment. In this monograph, the author, an international environmentalist, addresses the seldom discussed subject matter of easing the climate change crisis using spirituality in the context of Hinduism.

Infanticide or the killing of dependent offspring by a mature animal of its own kind occurs in various species of monkeys. The interpretation on the adaptive significance of infanticide in monkeys has been one of the most controversial topics in animal behavior. Documenting infanticide in non-human primate species in the wild is not an easy task since it often occurs quickly and field observers could easily miss out the actual process. The author, who is an international primatologist with 25 years of experience in watching wild monkeys in all three tropical continents, has managed to observe several cases of infanticide among Hanuman langurs of India, red howler monkeys of Venezuela and proboscis monkeys of Borneo. In this book, the author has synthesized his field observations on infanticide in monkeys including theoretical interpretations and explained the evolutionary cause and function of this bizarre behavior. This book should serve as an introductory and reference text on animal behavior, primatology and zoology related courses in colleges, universities and other institutes of higher learning around the world.