International affairs analyst David Devadas had a wide-ranging conversation with Benjamin Barber, the founder of the Parliament of Mayors project, covering a gamut of issues from environmental sustainability to terrorism, and from the breakdown of sovereignty to the prospects in next year’s US elections.
International affairs analyst David Devadas had a wide-ranging conversation with Benjamin Barber, the founder of the Parliament of Mayors project, covering a gamut of issues from environmental sustainability to terrorism, and from the breakdown of sovereignty to the prospects in next year’s US elections. A political scientist, Barber has been the Walt Whitman Emeritus Professor at Rutgers University and is currently a senior research scholar at the City University of New York.
His international bestseller, Jihad vs McWorld, has been published in 30 languages and he is preparing to launch its 20th edition next year. It examined the relationship between globalisation and insular tribalism. Barber’s more recent work, If Mayors Ruled the World, Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities has also been published in eight foreign editions. It focuses on ways in which cities are emerging as the locus of power and are connecting with each other beyond the frames of sovereign states in an increasingly globalised world. His next book, Cool Cities: Urban Sustainability in a Warming World, is to be published next year.
David Devadas is an expert on politics and geopolitics. Formerly a Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Visiting Professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, and Political Editor of Business Standard, he is currently Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Social Sciences. He has written books on Kashmir, on youth, and on history. He has been a radio compere, guest faculty at JNU's Academic Staff College, St Stephen's College and Hindu College. He has worked for the Indian Express, The Hindustan Times, India Today, The Economic Times and Gulf News. His most impactful article, on a murder cover-up, prevented a Congress President from becoming prime minister. One led to the closure of an airline, and another created a furore and consequent clean-up in Delhi's health department. Several have correctly predicted election results in key states, and a series of reports from Srinagar made the government aware of how unsettled the situation there was in 1990. He is an alumnus of St Xavier's School, St Stephen's College, and the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. He has lived for extended periods in Geneva and Berlin, and has traveled to almost 50 countries. He enjoys various kinds of music, theatre, design, architecture and art.
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