The Oxford Bookstore, formerly known as Oxford Bookstore and Stationery Company, is an Indian book store chain established in 1920. It has no connection with Oxford University Press. Its outlets, on prime locations in the high streets of most of the major cities of the Raj such as Delhi, Mumbai, Meerut, Chennai (2006) [1] and Calcutta, are well known even today. Still known as the Oxford Bookstores, the outlets are now managed by the Apeejay Surrendra Group, a Calcutta-based conglomerate, while the book wholesaling business has been merged with India Book House to become Oxford and IBH. [2] [3]
Oxford University Press came to India in 1912, and learned of the existence of the Oxford Bookstores shortly after they were set up in 1919. They had a brief legal tussle over the use of the telegraphic address 'Oxonian', but in general tolerated and even encouraged the firm, giving them special terms for OUP and Clarendon Press titles. ‘An enterprising firm, certainly good at display,’ Humphrey Sumner Milford, Publisher to the University, commented to Sir Maurice Gwyer.
OUP had taken legal advice and been told that the geographical identifier ‘Oxford’ carried no protection unless teamed with ‘University’ or ‘Press’; and if any two words of the name were used they could ‘jump in with both feet’, as Milford said, and prosecute for trademark violation.[ citation needed ] The Press had been able to stifle the activities of the University of Oxford, Tennessee, without too much trouble, but marmalade, sausages and shoes could all call themselves ‘Oxford’ with impunity. Milford encouraged Oxford Bookstores because he felt their ‘enterprise’ deserved it, and since they were not publishers their operations actually helped OUP, and the confusion over who owned the Oxford Bookstores may have acted in OUP's advantage.[ citation needed ]
The Oxford Bookstore was a landmark in Calcutta during the days of the Raj, along with Whiteaway Laidlaw's famous departmental store.[ citation needed ] Like most bookshops of the time, the store also stocked fancy leather goods, toys, perfume, albums, photo frames, indoor games, playing cards and silver and electroplated goods. It features in the memoirs of many eminent British and Indian figures of the twentieth century, and has always played a part in the city's life. In the 1970s, during the Naxalite rising, it was used as a message drop-off point by activists, who would slip notes into particular books for other members of their group to find.[ citation needed ]
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and the second oldest after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the vice-chancellor known as the delegates of the press. They are headed by the secretary to the delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The Press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho.
Borders Group, Inc. was a book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. In its final year, the company employed about 19,500 people throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores.
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Shopping generally refers to the act of buying products. Sometimes this is done to obtain final goods, including necessities such as food and clothing; sometimes it takes place as a recreational activity. Recreational shopping often involves window shopping and browsing: it does not always result in a purchase.
The Governor-General of India was the representative of the Monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 1947, the representative of the Indian head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William. The officer had direct control only over Fort William but supervised other East India Company officials in India. Complete authority over all of India was granted in 1833, and the official came to be known as the "Governor-General of India".
Company rule in India refers to the rule or dominion of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal surrendered his dominions to the Company, in 1765, when the Company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar, or in 1773, when the Company established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved in governance. The rule lasted until 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857 and consequent of the Government of India Act 1858, the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj.
The non-cooperation movement was a political campaign launched on 4 September 1920, by Mahatma Gandhi to have Indians revoke their cooperation from the British government, with the aim of inducing the British to grant self-governance and full independence to India.
The Bengal Renaissance, also known as the Bengali Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic movement that took place in the Bengal region of the British Raj, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Historians have traced the beginnings of the movement to the victory of the British East India Company at the 1757 Battle of Plassey, as well as the works of reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, considered the "Father of the Bengal Renaissance," born in 1772. Nitish Sengupta stated that the movement "can be said to have … ended with Rabindranath Tagore," Asia's first Nobel laureate.
The British Raj was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire, though not officially.
Ramachandra "Ram" Guha is an Indian historian, environmentalist, writer and public intellectual whose research interests include social, political, contemporary, environmental and cricket history, and the field of economics. He is an important authority on the history of modern India.
Indian Coffee House is a restaurant chain in India, run by a series of worker co-operative societies. It has strong presence across India with nearly 400 coffee houses. It has been a hub for Communist and Socialist movements for generations. Thus it has played a very important role in the politics of India.
Kankurgachi is a neighbourhood of northeast Kolkata, in Kolkata district, West Bengal, India. With a cosmopolitan crowd and several commercial buildings and restaurants, Kankurgachi is considered one of the upmarket and elite places in Kolkata. Kankurgachi has become a very important part of Kolkata for its excellent connectivity and infrastructure. Kolkata Airport, Bidhannagar Road railway station, Salt Lake and New Town are close to Kankurgachi.
Bhashacharya Acharya Suniti Kumar Chatterjee was an Indian linguist, educationist and litterateur. He was a recipient of the second-highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Vibhushan.
Cornelia Sorabji was an Indian lawyer, social reformer and writer. She was the first female graduate from Bombay University, and the first woman to study law at Oxford University. Returning to India after her studies at Oxford, Sorabji became involved in social and advisory work on behalf of the purdahnashins, women who were forbidden to communicate with the outside male world, but she was unable to defend them in court since, as a woman, she did not hold professional standing in the Indian legal system. Hoping to remedy this, Sorabji presented herself for the LLB examination of Bombay University in 1897 and the pleader's examination of Allahabad High Court in 1899. She became the first female advocate in India but would not be recognised as a barrister until the law which barred women from practising was changed in 1923.
Book Off is Japan's largest chain of used bookstores. Founded in August 1991, the company has had explosive success, expanding to 866 stores throughout Japan and eight overseas locations. In addition to books, its chains also sell manga, CDs, DVDs, video games, and even used video game consoles, mobile phones and portable media players. The stores are distinguished by their large surface area, cleanliness and bright illumination.
Harry Verrier Holman Elwin was a British-born Indian anthropologist, ethnologist and tribal activist, who began his career in India as a Christian missionary. He first abandoned the clergy, to work with Mohandas Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, then converted to Hinduism in 1935 after staying in a Gandhian ashram, and split with the nationalists over what he felt was an overhasty process of transformation and assimilation for the tribals. Verrier Elwin is best known for his early work with the Baigas and Gonds of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh in central India, and he married a 13 year old member of one of the communities he studied. He later also worked on the tribals of several North East Indian states especially North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) and settled in Shillong, the hill capital of Meghalaya.
Tapan Raychaudhuri was an Indian historian specialising in British Indian history, Indian economic history and the History of Bengal.
Higginbotham's is an Indian bookstore chain and publisher based in the city of Chennai. The company's first bookstore at Mount Road, Chennai is India's oldest bookshop in existence. The company's second bookstore in Bangalore, located at M. G. Road, opened in 1905 and is the oldest existing bookstore in the city. Since 1949, Higginbotham's has been owned by the Amalgamations Group.
Bourne & Shepherd was an Indian photographic studio and one of the oldest established photographic businesses in the world. Established in 1863, at its peak, it was the most successful commercial firm in 19th-and early 20th-century India, with agencies all over India, and outlets in London and Paris, and also ran a mail order service. A devastating fire in 1991 destroyed much of the studio's photographic archive and resulted in a severe financial loss to the firm. The long-term impact of the fire, legal difficulties with the Indian government, which owned the studio building, and the increasing dominance of digital technology, finally forced the studio's closure in June 2016. At its closure, the studio had operated continuously for 176 years.
Sir Humphrey Sumner Milford was an English publisher and editor who from 1913 to 1945 was publisher to the University of Oxford and head of the London operations of Oxford University Press (OUP).
Raj Mittra is an Indian-born electrical engineer and academician. He is currently a professor of electrical engineering at University of Central Florida. Previously, he was a faculty member at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and Pennsylvania State University, where he was the director of the Electromagnetic Communication Laboratory of the Electrical Engineering department. His specialities include computational electromagnetics and communication antenna design.