Shodharthy- A Social Science Journal

Shodharthy is a Lokniti, CSDS patronized social science journal for the benefit of Hindi medium students started since 2005. The journal attempts to partially fulfill an academic deficit in the vernacular world. Most of the informed and serious social science discourses and debates take place in leading journals published in English. Students and teachers of Hindi medium suffer academic deprivation as they are unable to access them. That puts them to a disadvantage vis-à-vis English medium students and scholars. The Lokniti fraternity cleared a proposal to rewrite some of the best articles and produce their shorter versions/ longer abstracts in Hindi to offset this disadvantage. ‘Shodharthy’ was then born. Since its inception, it instantly became a hit with students and teachers both. Dr. A. K. Verma, Christ Church College, Kanpur is the Editor of ‘Shodharthy’.

‘Shodharthy’ has since then been put to two serious academic audits. The first was by a committee comprising of Prof. N. K. Jha (Pondicherry University), Prof. Rajendra Vora (Pune University), Prof. Ashutosh Varshney (Michigan University, presently at Brown University, USA), Mr Anindo Saha (Cornell University) and senior journalist Mr Arvind Mohan (then at Hindustan) in 2006. The second was by a committee consisting of Prof. Sanjay Pashikar (Hyderabad University), Prof. Sanjeev Mukerjee (Calcutta University), Prof. Leela Ram Gurjar (Kota Open University) and senior Journalist Mr. Arun Vardhan (Navbharat Times).

The availability of ‘Shodharthy’ was a problem as we were not able to market it. So, we have come up with its electronic edition. Students, teachers and general public can access ‘Shodharthy’ freely now from anywhere. We hope that its reach will benefit the poor and needy students in Hindi belt especially rural and backward areas and help them compete well with better equipped students of English medium. All are welcome to suggest improvements in the journal as well as the website. http://www.shodharthy.com