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In India, a popular trope is adapting cultural myths and religious iconographies into visceral images of the monster in literary and visual representations. Cinematic representations of the Indian monster are modelled on existing folklore narratives and religious tales where the idea of the monster emerges from cultural imagination and superstitions of the land. Since it rationalizes several underlying archetypes in which gods are worshipped in their monstrous identities and disposition, the trope of the monster is used in cinema to indicate the transformation from an ordinary human figure to a monstrous human Other. This paper examines cinematic adaptations of monster figures in Malayalam cinema, the South Indian film industry of Kerala. The cultural practice of religious rituals that worship monstrous gods is part of the collective imagination of the land of Kerala through which films represent fearsome images of transformed humans. This article argues that cultural monsters are human subjects that take inspiration from mythical monster stories to perform in a terrifying way. Their monstrous disposition is a persona that is both a powerful revelation of repressed desires and a manifestation of the resistance against certain cultural fears associated with them. The analysis of several Malayalam films, such as Kaliyattam (1997) Manichithrathazhu (1993) and Ananthabhadram (2005), reveals how film performance adapts mythological narrative elements to create new cultural intertexts of human monsters that are psychotically nuanced and cinematically excessive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender mediates climate vulnerability and adaptation action. Consequently, climate change adaptation policy has seen a push towards 'mainstreaming' gender and prioritizing 'gender-responsive' climate action. However, it is unclear to what extent this mainstreaming advances or obscures gender considerations and whether current climate policies reflect developments in the gender and climate change literature. This paper explores how gender is operationalized in adaptation policy in India through a policy review of 28 State Action Plans on Climate Change. We juxtapose normative goals around reducing differential vulnerability with policy approaches to mainstreaming gender and propose entry points that link advances in gender and feminist studies with climate change adaptation policy. Our analysis indicates that most subnational climate policies in India explicitly mention gender as a mediator of vulnerability and adaptive capacity but operationalize it inadequately and unevenly. We also reflect on how the heuristics of mainstreaming get operationalized in policies (gender-blind, gender-sensitive, to gender-transformative approaches) and what that means for addressing gendered vulnerability. Key policy insights While explicitly mentioned, gender concerns are unevenly operationalized in India's subnational climate policy. In most State Action Plans on Climate Change in India, gaps exist between normative goals such as reducing differential vulnerability and empowering women, and policy approaches (namely gender-blind, -neutral, -specific, -sensitive, and -transformative approaches). To be effective, the conceptualization of gender must expand beyond focussing on differences between women and men to engaging more with intersections of sex, caste, class, and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 15 years, a set of ideas now referred to as "thinking and working politically" (TWP) has coalesced into a "second orthodoxy" about how to take context into account when implementing development interventions. This approach stresses the importance of obtaining a better understanding of the local context ("thinking politically") in order to support local actors to bring about sustainable developmental change ("working politically"). However, the evidence base to justify this new approach remains thin, despite a growing number of programmes which purport to be implementing it. Officials in development agencies struggle with putting it into practice and it is unclear how TWP differs—or not—from similar approaches, such as Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) and Doing Development Differently (DDD). This Special Issue sheds light on what TWP means in practice by examining a set of initiatives undertaken by both development partners and government departments in Nigeria, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, China and India. This overview article outlines, in brief, each of the Special Issue's four papers and then draws out five lessons—for funders and for practitioners—from across all the papers. Our five lessons are: (1) the fundamental importance of undertaking political economy analysis (PEA) to adapt programmes to their contexts; (2) the importance of having a realistic level of ambition for interventions; (3) the need to support local ownership—not just "agreement ownership" (between a donor agency and government) or local "management ownership" of the programme, but critically "driver ownership" by generating trust with the key local actors driving change; (4) the need for a more effective set of tools for measuring results in complex programmes that attempt to achieve improvements in long‐run governance; and, (5) that although the political economy of donors is often seen as a barrier to applying TWP, the articles show how much can be done with a TWP approach if the analysis takes into account the political economy of donors as well as that of the local context. We conclude with a set of operational recommendations for donors and implementors, as well as suggestions of avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficient and effective management of climate risks is dependent on the availability of reliable climate information and services. To make health system resilient towards the impacts of climate variability and change, climate-related data and information need to be routinely integrated into health science, practice and policy making. The present paper studies the policy congruence at international, regional, national and sub-national levels for climate services for public health, with specific focus on India; to identify the gaps in understanding and possibly suggest a roadmap for co-developing climate services for the public health sector in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptation to environmental change, including biodiversity change, is both a new imperative in the face of global climate change and the oldest problem in human history. Humans have evolved a wide range of adaptation strategies in response to localised environmental changes, which have contributed strongly to both biological and cultural diversity. The evolving set of locally driven, 'bottom-up' responses to environmental change is collectively termed 'autonomous adaptation,' while its obverse, 'planned adaptation,' refers to 'top-down' (from without, e.g. State-driven) responses. After reviewing the dominant vulnerability, risk, and pathway approaches to adaptation, this paper applies an alternative framework for understanding human adaptation processes and responding more robustly to future adaptation needs. This adaptation processes-to-pathways framework is then deployed to consider human responses to biodiversity change caused by an aggressive 'invasive' plant, Lantana camara L., in several agri-forest communities of southern India. The results show that a variety of adaptation processes are developing to make Lantana less disruptive and more useable—from avoidance through mobility strategies to utilizing the plant for economic diversification. However, there is currently no clear synergy or policy support to connect them to a successful long-term adaptation pathway. These results are evaluated in relation to broader trends in adaptation analysis and governance to suggest ways of improving our understanding and support for human adaptation to biodiversity change at the household, community, and regional livelisystem levels, especially in societies highly dependent on local biodiversity for their livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines climate change adaptation and gender issues through an application of a feminist intersectional approach. This approach permits the identification of diverse adaptation responses arising from the existence of multiple and fragmented dimensions of identity (including gender) that intersect with power relations to shape situation-specific interactions between farmers and ecosystems. Based on results from contrasting research cases in Bihar and Uttarakhand, India, this paper demonstrates, inter alia, that there are geographically determined gendered preferences and adoption strategies regarding adaptation options and that these are influenced by the socio-ecological context and institutional dynamics. Intersecting identities, such as caste, wealth, age and gender, influence decisions and reveal power dynamics and negotiation within the household and the community, as well as barriers to adaptation among groups. Overall, the findings suggest that a feminist intersectional approach does appear to be useful and worth further exploration in the context of climate change adaptation. In particular, future research could benefit from more emphasis on a nuanced analysis of the intra-gender differences that shape adaptive capacity to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Risks due to the occurrence of climatic aberrations pose an impediment to the economic growth of the households in vulnerable regions. The frequency of these events is projected to increase in the foreseeable future, with developing countries being the worst sufferers. Dealing with this appears to be an additional burden on the resources of such countries, a large part of which is already devoted to providing better living standards for its inhabitants. Does this imply that developmental interventions should be discontinued? Is there a link between these programs and adaptation to environmental shocks? In an effort to answer such questions, the paper examines the impact of the developmental schemes on the livelihood of the households in Western Odisha, India and investigates whether they augment post disaster coping and adaptation as well. The results indicate that overall the programs have made an impact concerning their intended goals but the diffusion of benefits across beneficiary groups is heterogeneous. Additionally, the programs have contributed in post disaster coping, but only in the regions where either they performed well or their penetration was extensive. Activities promoting livelihood diversification, food security, and poverty reduction also tacitly facilitate improvements in the resilience of the individuals and communities thereby enhancing their capacity to deal with climatic risks. Policy implication advocates the continuation of developmental interventions. However, realigning their framework to incorporate actions intended toward disaster risk reduction and management would result in more inclusive impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Subway, the US fast food restaurant franchise, has adapted to Indian culture. Glocalization theory will be the guiding framework used in this analysis. Glocalization rests on the premise that a universal concept must change to fit and function in a local culture. Blending the local and the global, it provides a passage to empowerment where modifications to a particular commodity can make it prosper in various traditions. Four important themes of glocalization emerged from this analysis: (1) adjustment of restaurant ambience; (2) adoption of Jain values; (3) adjustment of advertising practices; and (4) adjustment of the use of social media. An important conclusion is that, although India is embracing modernity, Subway has honoured many religious and cultural views in that nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has good reasons to be concerned about climate change as it could adversely affect the achievement of vital national development goals related to socio-economic development, human welfare, health, energy availability and use, and infrastructure. The paper attempts to develop a framework for integrated impact assessment and adaptation responses, using a recently built railroad coastal infrastructure asset in India as an example. The framework links climate change variables — temperature, rainfall, sea level rise, extreme events, and other secondary variables — and sustainable development variables — technology, institutions, economic, and other policies. The study indicates that sustainable development variables generally reduce the adverse impacts on the system due to climate change alone, except when they are inadequately applied. The paper concludes that development is a vital variable for integrated impact assessment. Well crafted developmental policies could result in a less-GHG intensive future, enhanced adaptive capacities of communities and systems, and lower impacts due to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, climate change is one of the most challenging environmental issues as it poses potential threat to different sectors of economy at global level. Agriculture being an open activity is primarily dependent on climatic factors and change in climatic conditions affects the production, quality and quantity of crop production in an area. This paper attempts to study effects of only two parameters of climate i.e. temperature and rainfall on agricultural production in northwest region of India. Northwest region comprising of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir states is the greatest food bowl of India contributing to its food security. The analysis of mean monthly rainfall and maximum and minimum temperatures (1901-2006) shows no significant change in temperature and rainfall conditions from 1901 to 1960; but afterward the change is more pronounced. On the whole any significant change in climatic conditions will not only challenge the food production of the region but also challenge the country's food security situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the development of ‘network political ecology’, drawing on the insights from regional political ecology and recent advancements in network theories of scale, to meet the challenges of investigating the meso-scale problem of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. ‘Network political ecology’, attentive to scale as socio-ecologically produced and grounded in a regional resource use system, is one such approach that fills this gap in middle-range theory necessary to understand the complex processes through which vulnerability manifests and adaptive capacity is produced. This method is exemplified through the case of groundwater-dependent irrigating farmers in Rajasthan, India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite international efforts to protect human rights, climate mitigation policies are not adequately addressing the problems of vulnerable communities living in arid and semi- arid zones. Th is paper analyzes how climate change policy plans may interfere with the (existing) adaptation strategies of vulnerable communities and local institutions, and provides recommendations on how climate change policy and process can better deal with their own negative impacts. Discussion is based on case studies of vulnerable forest- dependent tribal communities from drought-prone semi-arid Rajasthan, India. Findings indicate that otherwise wellintended, but contradicting policy interventions can adversely affect tribal livelihoods, particularly women. Yet, community-based adaptation strategies adopted by tribal people fail to gain attention as potential solutions in policy processes. Recommendations to counter this failure are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper discusses an indicator-based framework – consisting of seven indicators, four parameters, and an index – to assess adaptive capacity of the water resources system in the Nepalese context and applies this framework to the Bagmati River Basin (BRB) in Nepal. With respect to the BRB, and Nepal in general, the study results show variations in adaptive capacity of the water resources system across the river basin (eight districts within the BRB), at different geographical (district, river basin and national level) as well as temporal (over decades) scale. Such variations suggest a need of differential policy interventions at different spatial scale to achieve adaptive management of the water resources. The adaptive capacity index can be used to prioritize basins, the adaptive capacity parameters can be used to identify the broader areas of intervention in the selected basin, and adaptive capacity indicators reveal the degree of attention required to strengthen adaptive capacity of the water resources system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While wildlife conservation efforts have become increasingly aggressive around the world, illicit use of resources in conservation areas has not subsided, raising questions about the ecological character of noncompliance activities. This paper reviews the results of research conducted amongst foresters and households living adjacent to a wildlife sanctuary in India in a period following a ban of human use activities. Using a formal survey supplemented by interviews and participant observation, the research sought to determine the intensity of illicit use, the demographics of resource users, and the attitudes of rulebreakers. The results suggest that noncompliance with conservation restrictions is nearly universal, that forest use is highly specialized, that available village resource assets do little to offset forest use, and that rule-breakers prefer current governance arrangements. These results paint a picture of deeply institutionalized forest use that suggests serious barriers to any simple enforcement solutions or governance reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying the fixed effects regression technique to the highly spatially disaggregated district-level data from 1966–67 to 2011–12 this paper has assessed the impact of heat stress on wheat production in India and concurrently evaluated the role of irrigation towards offsetting its harmful impact. It has brought out three key highlights. One, heat stress negatively impacts crop yield, and the impact has increased over time. Two, irrigation, besides its contribution towards improving crop yield, also moderates the harmful impact of heat stress, but over time its effectiveness has declined. Three, the measure of heat stress built on multiple aspects of excess temperature (i.e., intensity, persistence, and frequency) explains variation in crop yield better than does a single aspect of it. Given the increasing scarcity of irrigation water and rising temperature, these findings suggest the need for exploring technological and policy options for improving irrigation water-use efficiency and breeding of crops for heat tolerance and low water footprints. • Heat stress negatively impacts crop yield, and the impact has increased over time. • Irrigation partially offsets the negative impact of heat stress, but its effectiveness has slowed down over time. • The measure of heat-stress built on multiple aspects of excess temperature explains variation in crop yield better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]