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In the past decade, financial inclusion has emerged as a leading international development paradigm to tackle poverty. It seeks to integrate all unbanked (adults) into the global financial system through credit and other financial services. From a political economy perspective, the rhetoric of financial inclusion has been criticised, among other things, for masking the financialisation of social reproduction in which (a) the unbanked become a new market segment for international capital and (b) households with low and insecure incomes must increasingly organise their precarious living conditions through debt. This paper builds on the critique of neoliberal development policy and supplements it with a materialist-postcolonial lens that examines the historical interconnectedness of the indebtedness of subaltern classes, colonial rule, and capitalist development in the context of India. It shows that financial inclusion/exclusion from the 19th century onwards was the response to a structural subsistence crisis that was decisively shaped by both British colonial rule and capitalist (class) relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is considered to be one of the most widely signed and ratified international human rights treaties, it seems that its implementation is confronted with significant problems. In particular, tensions arise between the endorsement of women's rights and the culture and tradition of each Member State. This may lead to different interpretations of women's rights according to each cultural background (cultural relativism), at the expense of universality of human rights. This tension is illustrated by the considerable number of reservations to the Convention, which impede its actual implementation. In this framework the article focuses on India. Being a relatively early signatory of CEDAW, with a great variety of religions and languages, different traditions and long cultural history, India offers a great example of the dimensions that the implementation of the Convention may have. The article, after examining first the cultural and constitutional background in India, seeks to clarify how the international protection of women's rights and Cultural Relativism interact here. For this purpose the paper discusses the reservations of India to CEDAW and its legal nature. Finally, it outlines the newest developments in India and makes explicit how the culture and legal regimes may determine one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents and analyses ideas about creation and conception among the Dongria Kond in Orissa, India. Its main aim is to understand a complex cultural system in which women are ascribed all creative power while men are expected to be active in order to facilitate and uphold creation. Using analytical concepts as redefined by Carol Delaney ( 1986, 2001) I argue that Dongria Kond do not have a concept o f "paternity", but of "maternity" since they ascribe all creative powers to women. Women are seen as the sole creators, yet their role in Dongria Kond society changes markedly with marriage. Before this event, young girls sleep in dormitories where they are visited by boys from other clans. Sexual encounters between boys and girls are controlled by the girls, who should avoid becoming pregnant. With marriage, women leave their parent's village and join the village of their husbands, where they have sexual intercourse that should result in procreation. Marriage can be seen as the culturally legitimate form for men to gain control over the creative powers resting in women and it takes two forms: either through exchange of one form of "life" against the other in marriages involving bridewealth prestations, or through violence involved in cases of bride-capture. Similar ideas about men's active role and the need to appropriate fertility associated with the female earth goddess are further identified in the buffalo sacrifices regularly performed by Dongria Kond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]