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Drawing on Lave's theorisation of situated learning, this article engages with skills in the so-called 'unskilled' domain of waste work. Waste work involves handling diverse material discards, from household vegetable peelings, metal and plastic scraps, to human and animal faecal material and corpses. In India, forms of waste work are toxic, historically stigmatised, burdened on Dalit and Adivasi bodies, and officially categorised as 'unskilled' work. Based on fieldwork in a town in central India, the paper draws attention to skills in waste work, documenting social practices that involve processes of learning and acquiring skills. Analysing institutions that mediate skill acquisition in waste work, the paper argues that 'skilled' work is politically and socially constructed and materially contingent. The article destabilises reified notions of how work gets classified as '(un)skilled'. Further, the paper reflects on the conflicts and paradoxes that a conversation on skills in waste work throws up: valuing and recognising different forms of waste work while also pointing to their toxicities and struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once a popular buzzword for multinational corporations, 'professionalism' has now become a common catchphrase in India's emerging services economy. Today, youth aspiring to join entry-level services roles such as those in call centres, retail, and coffee shops undergo intense and regimented trainings to become 'professional', learning to regulate their bodies, behaviours, language, and overall identities, to fit into diverse and fast-paced 'servicescapes'. Whereas literature exploring notions of professionalism in India's growing services sectors has emphasised their corporate-western and disciplinary-ideological dimensions, more recent scholarship has begun to document how workers themselves perceive, experience and shape these notions. Drawing from this scholarship and ethnographic research conducted in a skills training centre in Pune city in western India, this paper explores how professionalism has increasingly become entwined with the discourse of 'soft skills' even at the margins of India's new services economy, and how it is being transmitted, questioned, and (re-)interpreted. The paper thus offers a grounded social constructivist view of professionalism, as not something that is simply imposed unimpeded upon passive neoliberal subjects by a powerful state and corporate actors, but rather as continually inflected by those who profess, teach and embody it, in line with local lived realities, experiences, values and belief systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Firozabad—a city in North India which specialises in glass production and is famous for being the centre of manufacturing for the billions of glass bangles worn by South Asian women—the Sheeshgarh caste used to master the most valuable skills. The transmission of these skills to other castes was a central stake, which highlights the relations between labour and capital, between dominants castes, between Muslims and Hindus. Therefore, this paper proposes the notion of trade consciousness to analyse the processes which shaped caste, gender and class relations around the common consciousness to be part of the same activity, the same community of practices. The paper then argues that understanding the way skills are introduced, transmitted and reproduced through master/apprentice relations, the everyday conviviality in the shopfloor, or in the mohallā, constitutes a crucial thread to understand the social transformation in Firozabad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing community and parental connection with schools is a widely advocated means of improving levels of student learning and the quality and accountability of education systems across South Asia. This paper draws on a mixed-methods study of accountability relations in education in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Bihar. It explores two questions: what formal platforms exist to enhance connections between socially disadvantaged families and the schools serving them; and (how) do they influence engagement with student learning? It finds that various platforms have proliferated across public, low-cost private and non-government schools. But, while they promote enrolment attendance and monitoring, a substantive focus on student learning is empirically demonstrated to be missing everywhere. The paper argues that an apparently surprising similarity of (dis)connection is located in system features that are common across school types, locations and social structures. It proposes that this is a 'field' in which connection, facilitated by various platforms, is performed according to bureaucratised norms of accountability that even pervade family and community responses. Seeing this as a socially constituted 'field' that constrains meaningful discussion of learning across schooling provision for disadvantaged families contributes new insight for accountability-focused reforms in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand the changing dynamics of internal labour market segmentation intertwined with the history of working-class struggle in an industrial belt in India's National Capital Region (NCR). Nuances of workers' class struggle in the automobile sector in Delhi-NCR over the last 15 years have shown that unity between permanent and contract workers was key to several successful struggles against worsening work conditions and management control within the global value chains of automobile production. Our fieldwork findings, along with direct and indirect political engagement in the region, reveal that increasing salaries and allotment of supervisory roles to small sections of permanent workers, coupled with the simultaneous fragmentation a lower strata of workers into multiple categories with very low salaries, benefits and heavy workloads, have been significant attempts by capital to break class solidarity among different sections of workers. Relatively pro-labour legislation and trade unions tend to concentrate in high-wage zones, while low-wage and precarious employment remains unprotected by such institutional mechanisms. Labour segmentation is inherent to capitalist exploitation, guarded by institutional mechanisms. Advanced mechanisation reduces distinction of skill requirements between highly paid permanent and lowly paid contract workers. In this context, labour segmentation is a political response to trade unionism from the side of capitalist management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on South–South Development Cooperation (ssdc) has grown exponentially in the past few years. One focus of analysis has been how domestic institutions and agendas shape the approaches to development cooperation of different Southern partners. However, few analysts to date have commented on how the ‘ordinary’ general public of these countries might perceive or assess their country’s role in international development. Through a study based on interviews and media analysis, this paper attempts to tease out the slim evidence currently available on ‘public’ attitudes in India, concentrating, for reasons explained, exclusively on elites and ‘middle classes’. It argues that, while some domestic criticism will certainly accompany the growing visibility of Indian development cooperation, the attractive blend of discursive positioning and material benefits may provide the Indian government with broad support for its growing investment and profile in international development, or at least offset a degree of criticism. At present there appears to be little public discussion about whether and how India’s external role relates to domestic poverty, or the nature of growth and ‘development’ that India is helping to stimulate in partner countries. The paper also discusses ‘boundary making’ with China through the public construction of Indian development cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Poverty as an object of study in India continues to be the domain of economists, statisticians and demographers. The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSS) serves as the main instrument of data collection to measure poverty relative to economic indicators. In this paper we draw on strengths-based research undertaken in an Indian village to foreground alternative ways of conceptualising and practising data collection when measuring poverty. Explored through an analytics of biopolitics, asset-mapping exercises with young people and women revealed new subjectivities that emerged via illustrative meaning-making and dialogue. This approach to poverty measurement facilitated methods and produced outcomes that were less calculated and predefined than the NSS, and encouraged participation, even questioning of the status quo, in the 'doing' of the methodology itself. A strengths orientation to poverty opens up radical possibilities, particularly in India where the state-sanctioned self--governing body, the Gram Sabhas, has a mandate to provide for the most marginalised groups. And while this governing body is not free from power imbalances, the potential it offers, when combined with strengths-based approaches (SBA) that value people for the expertise they already have, demands renewed attention in practitioner and policy debates in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has two objectives. First, it interrogates the normative understanding of the identification of poor people as a technical process confined to the domain of experts. The paper analyses the construction of Below Poverty Line (bpl) status in India, and provides evidence for how this is contested at multiple levels of the policy process, through both formal and informal policy practices. Second, the paper uses a case study of a major anti-poverty policy, the Suvarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, to demonstrate how the cumulative outcome of formal and informal policy practices is the erosion of the redistributive intent of policy. The paper emphasises the importance of foregrounding within policy discourse the politically contested nature of the processes of identifying poor people, and of determining their eligibility for anti-poverty policy resources. The typology of policy practices generated calls for deeper recognition of the significant influence of informal policy practices on the policy process in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen a plethora of writings - by scholars, journalists and policy makers alike - on India's rise to power. This paper argues that this much-vaunted rise needs to be viewed with caution. It examines the case for India's rise, and operationalises its growing influence by applying and further developing the concept of 'veto-player'. It highlights ways in which India has indeed acquired the status of a de facto veto-player in international relations. But the paper then presents three sets of reasons for caution. First, even though India's rise to power might appear dramatic and sudden, it is a product of a long and incremental process. This has policy implications: not all the policies of the preceding era should be carelessly abandoned by India or by other developing countries in similar circumstances. Second, there are still significant hurdles - many of which are domestic - that it must overcome if it is to fully realise its potential and acquire the status of a great power. Third, India may have acquired effective veto-player status in certain crucial negotiations, but this does not automatically translate into an ability to achieve preferred outcomes. Having examined the hurdles that India faces on its pathway to power, the paper goes on to suggest strategies that could be adopted to convert veto-player status into positive influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been almost a consensus among the political opinion makers in India that the Constitution of India that came into force in 1950 has been a secular constitution. This paper critiques that consensus and demonstrates that the secularism of India's constitution is Hindu-tainted. It takes up some key articles of the Indian constitution and, by analysing the constitutional debates of the 1940s that went into the making of those articles, highlights the Hindu bias features of the Indian nationalist movement and the constitution. While acknowledging some admirable and progressive features of the constitution, the paper argues that its Hindu bias must be read as symptomatic of the depth of institutionalised Hindu communalism in India and the shallowness of the secular foundations of the Indian republic. The existence of institutionalised Hindu communalism means that the power of Hindu communal sectarianism is greater than that which is merely represented by Hindu nationalist organisations. The paper concludes by suggesting that the secular reconstruction of India demands critical combat with the institutionalised communalism embedded in a range of societal and state institutions. Examining Hindu bias in the constitution is an instance of an examination of institutionalised communalism in one key institution of the Indian state and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global nuclear order has been built around the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), primarily aimed at addressing the challenges of nuclear non-proliferation. In the last two decades, this order has faced growing challenges from the demands of emerging nuclear powers which it has been unable to meet effectively. These powers have either been outside the order, like India, Israel and Pakistan, or withdrawn from it, like North Korea, or could leave in future due to arguably compelling security concerns, like Iran, Japan and South Korea. These nations and the challenges they pose to the global nuclear order are mostly considered unique and are treated as exceptional. This paper examines the case of India which has found partial acceptance into the extant order from being a pariah nuclear state outside the NPT to a de facto nuclear weapon state designated by the US-India civil nuclear cooperation pact of 2008. It explicates the ongoing process of its integration into the order, underlining why this task remains daunting. Other than factors unique to India, the case of its rise in the global nuclear order captures the structural shortcomings of the extant order. While these underlying shortcomings remain, new nuclear powers, with or without support from the established ones, are likely to challenge the order in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

irscholarship in India has focused on the borders, territory and sovereignty of the Indian state, overlooking the rich complexity of interior border formation between colonial and independent India. The paper argues that the study of the princely states under the British paramountcy (1858–1947), neglected so far, is valuable toirscholarship on three grounds. First, in mapping colonial India’s engagement with the outside world, the focus has been solely on British India. The princes were equally participative and perceptive of the outside world. Second, the princely states represent yet another challenge to the Westphalian notion of sovereignty, demonstrating the limited capacity of European categories to understand the ‘non-West’. Third, incorporating the paramountcy system in the genealogy of sovereignty of the Indian subcontinent offers a fresh account of border construction inside the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper seeks to assess whether there is a contradiction between the commitment to non-proliferation declared by Brazil;India and South Africa and their domestic nuclear choices. Despite differences in their international nuclear status;these countries share similar commitments to non-proliferation;at least discursively. However;once the domestic level—more specifically;the historical characteristics of each of these countries’ nuclear paths—is taken into account;a contradiction between their international discourse and their national interests seems to arise. By analysing their nuclear history;this paper asks the following questions: how much have these countries actually been doing in terms of non-proliferation? What are the aims of these countries’ domestic nuclear politics? Is there any contradiction between their international nuclear discourse and their domestic practices? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to investigate how in contemporary India the process of ‘othering’ of the Muslim minority has been the product of politically motivated and manipulated majoritarian cultural assertiveness, reflected in the Hindu right’s clamour to underline the significance of drawing the geographic and cultural boundaries of what its ideologues call the Hindu nation. Situating cinema as a crucial distribution source of popular culture, the paper contends that Bollywood cinema has exhibited an overt bias towards producing films that capitulate to this radical nationalist discourse professed by theHindutva ideologues. Making a discourse analysis of selected films produced by Bollywood since the 1990s, the premise of this contention is interrogated by examining how Hindi cinema’s portrayal of the image of Muslims has been carried out in a pejorative manner which stems from the strong grounding of its stories in a Hindu majoritarian setting. The paper concludes by arguing that, with such a penchant, Bollywood cinema has actively engaged in the politics of nationalism engendered by the right-wing neo-fundamentalist Hindutva movement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses the Indian government's policy response to the Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (trips) and examines the implications of this response for food security and farmers. trips has become one of the most controversial agreements of the wto. This is because of its wide and far-reaching mandate and its complex socioeconomic implications. It is argued that the changes made to the Indian Patents Act in response to trips will compromise the food sector and the rights of small farmers by conferring strong rights on upstream agents who produce proprietary agricultural inputs using biotechnology. Not only are these agents able to exert monopoly price control over agricultural inputs for 20 years, they also have the right to determine the conditions under which farmers and researchers use patented processes and products. The paper outlines policy options available to the Indian government to tighten the scope of patentability in the food sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the academic and media consensus on the notion that India is a secular state. It does so by marshalling empirical evidence that, far from being a state practising neutrality between the religious affiliations of Indian society or equidistance from all religions, the Indian state is actually and directly involved in Hinduisation of the country. It does this by promoting Hinduism through 'reform' and favouritism at state expense. While the constitution guarantees educational and cultural autonomy as well as religious freedom, in practice there are widespread and systematic violations by state institutions. In public employment the state follows discriminatory policies to perpetuate the Hindu majority by restricting religious freedom. The discriminatory policies are most visible in affirmative action policies and recruitment in the army. Contrary to some academic writings, the paper establishes that the Hinduisation of the Indian state is not only associated with the votaries of Hindutva represented by a 'family', or parivar, of Hindu militant groups. The notion of India as a Hindu state pre-dates the creation of the postcolonial state in 1947, and was inherent in the militant right wing of the Congress Party, which perceived Christians and Muslims as foreigners. There is, the paper demonstrates, major continuity between the educational, cultural and employment policies pursued by the Indian state regardless of the party in power. The paper is based on primary Indian sources and interviews in India and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, literature on the development of the Indian it industry has proliferated. Yet, paradoxically, an understanding of the dynamics behind this process of 'industrial catch-up' has remained limited. This can in part be attributed to the ideological flavour of the majority of studies, supported by a conventional wisdom that has attempted to draw links between the 1991 liberalisation of the Indian economy and the emergence and growth of the sector. Such works have both misrepresented the state as an obstacle to growth and overlooked its interventionist, facilitating role which, contrary to neoliberal postures, has increased substantially from the 1990s. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate this literature, taking as point of departure a more rounded empirical account, bringing out the integral role of the state in promoting and determining the character of the Indian it industry's development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critique of the essentialist notions of any community as a pacifist or militant community by examining the long history of the cycles of violence and non-violence in the evolution of the Sikh community in the Indian subcontinent. The theoretical premise of the paper is that communities' resort to violence and non-violence is determined by their strategic perspectives to achieve their politico-economic goals and not from any doctrinal adherence to violence or non-violence. The paper attempts a panoramic view of over 500 years of Sikh history (1469 - 2006) and offers a reinterpretation of that history by locating cycles of violence and non-violence in their historical context. It then provides a politico-economic perspective on violence and non-violence in their struggle for identity and political power. It focuses more on an analysis of the recent political conflict between Sikh militants and the Indian state, and concludes by drawing out the policy implications of that analysis for the politics of the modern Indian state regarding the Sikhs of Punjab. It identifies federal arrangements and human rights as issues of key importance in the political economy of this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on lessons learned from the disaster response to the Kashmir earthquake of 8 October 2005. It explores the factors that created a vulnerable environment for the creation of a catastrophe through Alexander's six-point typology of disaster vulnerability. The review of the disaster response will focus on the reasons behind chaotic relief assistance provision and poor sustenance of populations in winter conditions, as well as exploring the framework of international response, and the role of the army, voluntarism and co-ordination issues. Having reviewed the relief response, based on cross-cultural experiences, the paper then makes projections on possible challenges and issues that may emerge in the reconstruction process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the response of the international press to the co-hosting of the 1996 Cricket World Cup by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The event had a troubled background: the shift of power within cricket towards the subcontinent and the consequential commercialisation of the sport were causing some dissension among traditionalists. At the same time there was some instability in South Asian politics, especially between India and Pakistan and because of the civil war in Sri Lanka. While these issues overshadowed the event, some aspects of its organisation were unsuccessful, leading to some negative press coverage. It is argued here, however, that the problems faced by South Asian countries in trying to use this sports event to promote a positive image were further exacerbated by underlying stereotypes and criticisms of South Asian cultures. As such, the paper addresses several important themes relating to major sports events and 'semi-peripheral' countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main argument of this contribution is that the distinction between internal and external is at best blurred and in reality does not make much sense in the case of India’s foreign policy. It may start and end at the border and be determined by negotiations, diplomacy or brute force but there is no conclusive evidence in the literature to decide what determines what. There are important dynamics and interplays across the thin line between the domestic and international spheres, especially in terms of understanding the reciprocal challenges related to how factors of culture and ethnicity relate with the legitimacy of the state. The aim of the paper is to serve four purposes. To unpack and give a critical overview of the debates concerned with the internal and external aspects of India’s foreign policy; to situate the literature dealing more specifically with domestic issues related to culture and ethnicity and outline the main approaches involved; to give an overview of how external factors impact foreign policy conduct and relate to India’s role in defining international norms and regulations; and, finally, to give some theoretical markers, suggestions and concluding remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on approaches to class emphasising the multiplicity of labour relations at work under capitalism, and from feminist insights on oppression and social reproduction, this paper illustrates the interconnection between processes of class formation and patriarchal norms in globalised production circuits. The analysis emphasises the nexus between the commodification and exploitation of women’s labour, and how it structures gendered wage differentials, labour control and the high ‘disposability’ of women’s work. The analysis develops these arguments by exploring the case of the Indian garment industry and its gendered sweatshop regime. It illustrates how commodification and exploitation interplay in factory and home-based realms, and discusses how an approach on class premised on social reproduction changes the social perimeters of what we understand as labour ‘unfreedom’ and labour struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses governance, democracy and economic adjustment in India. The first part of the paper will focus on the evolution of the role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from an international lending institution to a supervisor and facilitator of good governance. The second part of the paper explores the relationship between democracy and economic development in India and illustrates how the World Bank and the IMF have performed a consultative and supervisory role in overseeing the implementation of structural adjustment and stabilization in India during the 1990s. It will also show that a more overtly disciplinary role has been exercised by the World Bank in environmental and resettlement policy, and in trade and intellectual property by the U.S. government and the World Trade Organization

After discussing the various points of departure suggested by scholars of development, this paper argues that, in the context of India, one way out of the post-development impasse lies in shifting the focus from development politics to the workings of the developmental state on the ground, and to change the methodological vantage point to ethnography. It is suggested that this change in approach would provide fresh insights into the workings of the developmental state and into the process of development in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents and analyses 46 proposals made between 1947 and 2008 for resolving the India-Pakistan dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. We conduct a content analysis to recognise the patterns that emerge from these formulations and identify the key elements that recur over time. Our analysis suggests that the dispute may be more 'ripe' for resolution today than it has ever been in the past. For the first time in the dispute's history, there is growing convergence over a core element of the solution, ie granting autonomy to Kashmiris. This is matched by a virtual consensus on the 'catalysts', namely soft borders to allow relatively free human and economic exchange within Jammu and Kashmir, the notion of Kashmiri involvement in any negotiations on the issue and demilitarisation of the state. Ripeness alone, however, does not lead to resolution. Over the years various dynamic proposals have been made, which means that this particular convergence could also dissipate, as some of the prior ones have. There is a potential window of opportunity today, but it will not last indefinitely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of development co-operation—the 'development paradigm'—took shape during the decades of global decolonisation and growing political autonomy of the former colonies. It can be understood as a historic reconfiguration of the centre-periphery relationship originally established through colonisation. The rise of new state donors such as China or India questions not only the established modes of development co-operation but also the development paradigm as a whole. Themselves historical products of anti-colonialism and political autonomy understood as non-alignment as well as absolute sovereignty, these new 'Southern' donors question the very idea of development (co-operation) as a Western, postcolonial concept. This paper, first, attempts to characterise the 'development paradigm', providing a historical contextualisation of the development discourse in its continuities and ruptures. Second, it asks what the rise of new state donors such as China and India looks like at the political-normative level as well as at the level of Realpolitik. Lastly, some future consequences of these trends are discussed illustrating the far-reaching (normative) consequences and the necessity to reconsider the established political discourse on development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the terms 'developmental nationalism' and 'cultural nationalism' to conclude that, because developmental nationalisms always have cultural elements and cultural nationalisms, developmental ones, the precise, and varied, meanings of 'development' and 'culture' demand careful scrutiny, as do the shifting proportions of their combinations in different ideological - political formations and in the confrontations and partial accommodations between, and across, diverse nationalist traditions. The central argument is that we might get a better purchase on the developmental/cultural nationalism transition in the Indian case in juxtaposition with the problematic of poverty. Indian intellectuals turning towards self-conscious nationalism often placed the poverty of the country at the heart of their nationalism, making it basically a critique and the nation still in need of 'making' or constitution. The alternative has been to project the nation (or, with votaries of 'communal' politics - religious communities, Hindu or Muslim) as in every case an always already established glorious entity, with a resplendent history and culture, free of blemishes other than those imposed by external invasion or domination. Through four sets of case studies of these opposing traditions at four moments in the history of modern India, the focus here is on degrees of fetishisation of the nation, and their consequences in terms of the strengthening, or subversion, of hierarchies and power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the need to critically define the bases and contours of ‘rights’ as created by law. Taking the example of changes in Hindu women's position in relation to property through the rights generated by statutory and constitutional provisions, the article critically evaluates the potential for such a ‘rights regime’ to enable Hindu women's greater access to property. It argues that the idea underlying a particular claim, its legitimacy and therefore effectiveness within a legal framework must be critically evaluated. The legitimacy of claims presumptively conferred within a legal framework must be interrogated in the light of legal, historical, political and cultural contexts. Such a contextual and critical analysis is crucial for effective protection of rights claims through law. To the extent that legal regimes reflect and substantiate wider social relations, their potential for bringing about substantive change in the lives of women can only be realised through ongoing critical analyses of gender, law and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the way in which first English translation of The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (1883) was strategically grafted into English culture, in particular into the library and into the bedroom, as the authority on the (Indian) art of love. I argue that the text emerges at the intersection of discourses on the Orient and on sexuality, and that consequently it both provides a powerful position from which to challenge English sexual morality, and draws upon and contributes to the depiction of India as an essentially different culture. The Kama Sutra is both appropriated and at the same time left in place. It is my contention that this dual location of the text constructs repressed English sexuality as something which can only be found elsewhere, on the other side of a border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the party political turmoil that plagued New Delhi during the 1990s, West Bengal is an Indian state that has demonstrated remarkable stability. Atul Kohli has made much of this contrast, arguing that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has held power in West Bengal since 1977 through the combination of its organisational and ideological coherence. His wider conclusion is that the institutionalisation of political parties is essential in staving off the 'crises of governability' faced by many democracies in developing countries. At a time when 'good governance' is a major theme within development studies, Kohli's thesis deserves close attention. This paper critically examines his work in two ways. Empirically, it questions elements of his portrayal of the CPI(M), and West Bengal's politics more generally, as 'exceptional'. In theoretical terms, it questions Kohli's treatment of political institutions, arguing that more attention should be given to institutional culture and political discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF), in terms of its social functions in India and beyond. WHEF is a newly emerged platform consisting of elites from India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu nationalist circles around the world. Founded in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, WHEF stands for creating a new (and non-Western) type of entrepreneurs to mobilise Hindus in the business field. Although WHEF organised itself in the countries around India in the beginning, it has grown considerably in the last decade, reaching out to North America and Western Europe. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with the forum elites and a broad analysis of the forum's documentation and adopting a neo-Gramscian international political economy approach, this article argues that WHEF mobilises businesspeople, technocrats, and academics possessing Hindu nationalist commitments around the world as business gurus to produce an alternative conception of the world, combining Hinduism with neoliberal market-oriented ideas. And, taking a critical stance towards Indian Congress-originated protectionist policies favouring India's large corporations, its business gurus project themselves as mentors of the subordinate groups in the Indian business community to strengthen Hindu nationalism in India in relation to their global network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how local, national and international interests are reflected in India's attempts to protect traditional knowledge through the formation of a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). It compares how the digital library is contextualised within India's domestic policy with how it is presented to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The article argues that WIPO has endorsed the Indian initiative and embraced the promotion of protective databases as an uncontroversial tool that diverts attention from more contested forms of traditional knowledge protection. Consequently, India has been able to use WIPO as a platform to promote itself and the TKDL to the global community. Domestically, however, the library serves other purposes. Since it systematically documents a vast body of traditional medical knowledge, Indian authorities can use the library to claim that knowedge as part of a national cultural heritage, and as a source of scientific innovations to the economic and social benefit of the country. In that regard, the TKDL reflects an interplay among local, national and international interests, where the goal of protecting the traditional knowledge of indigenous and local communities against misappropriation risks being co-opted to serve national purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2015 witnessed an important shift in India's development cooperation, resulting in uneven convergence towards practices associated with 'mainstream' aid donors. This is demonstrative of a wider evolution in Southern development actors. Using the case of Indian governmental concessional lines of credit (LoCs), this article demonstrates how diplomatic, strategic and party-political interests drove the Indian state to adopt policies from the World Bank and UK on project selection, design, tendering and monitoring. These were intended to increase technical proficiency, timeliness and development outcomes but also to change the companies undertaking these projects. Such policies depart from the non-interventionist, non-hierarchical norms of South– South cooperation espoused by Southern countries emerging as major development actors. However, whilst converging in these aspects of technical planning and implementation, the political and strategic interests driving the LoC changes did not extend to examining developmental or environmental outcomes; state-to-state relations continue to have primacy in approving projects. Uneven convergence has therefore occurred, with a change in technical policies but greater persistence of South–South cooperation norms. This reflects the wider multi-directional evolution of development, with 'Southern' powers increasingly adopting policies from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors and the World Bank whilst they redefine aid and increase blended finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What type of democracy is multi-ethnic India, and how has it maintained territorial unity since Independence? I argue that India is best coded as a 'crypto-ethnic democracy', in contrast to traditional 'consensual' and 'consociational' interpretations, specifically in relation to its peripheral religious/ethnic minority groups. This argument is demonstrated through three interrelated themes: (1) nation/state-building, legitimating ideology and nationality construction; (2) ethnofederalism, regional political parties and ethnic peace accords; and (3) national security legislation, human rights and state-sponsored pogroms. The new conceptual formulation of 'crypto-ethnic democracy' integrates 'control' with both 'consensus' and 'consociationalism' within democracy. 'Crypto-ethnic democracy' also adds to existing typologies of multi-ethnic democracies, including differentiating the de facto dynamics of 'control' from the de jure institutions identified in traditional models of 'ethnic democracy'. It is argued that the concept of 'crypto-ethnic democracy' has significant conceptual and comparative value for scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jointly with the Global North, the rise of the Global South has come at a high cost to the environment. Driven by its high energy intensity and the use of fossil fuels, the South has contributed a significant portion of global emissions during the last 30 years, and is now contributing some 63% of today's total GHG emissions (including land-use change and forestry). Similar to the Global North, the Global South's emissions are heavily concentrated: India and China alone account for some 60% and the top 10 countries for some 78% of the group's emissions, while some 120 countries account for only 22%. Without highlighting such differences, it makes little sense to use the term 'Global South'. Its members are affected differently, and contribute differently to global climate change. They neither share a common view, nor do they pursue joint interests when it comes to international climate negotiations. Instead, they are organised into more than a dozen subgroups of the global climate regime. There is no single climate strategy for the Global South, and climate action will differ enormously from country to country. Furthermore, just and equitable transitions may be particularly challenging for some countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rules employed to govern cross-border data flows are in dispute, the outcome of which will certainly affect digitalisation policies in the so-called Global South. Against this backdrop, data localisation has become one of the most prominent and disputed policy measures for states seeking to regulate cross-border data flows. This article argues that data localisation can be understood as the product of a new type of resource securitisation, namely data securitisation. This process is shaped by a range of state-specific political and economic issues, and by the outcome of the pressure exerted by national and foreign interest groups. Specifically, the article examines the case of India, where a set of policy measures and initiatives introduced in 2018 began a set of strict data securitisation moves; however, their results were ambivalent. On the one hand, economically driven data localisation requirements have been softened by the stark lobby of foreign governments and transnational corporations, in tandem with local actors, illustrating the structural limits faced by Global South states' sovereign digitalisation policies. On the other hand, a geopolitically driven data securitisation move against Chinese firms has been successful. The article concludes by outlining what lessons Global South actors can draw from this case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rio Tinto had been developing a diamond mining project in Madhya Pradesh for a decade when in 2017 it hastily abandoned the project. We analyse this counterintuitive exit through an ethnographic approach nested within a qualitative case study framework. We argue that the exit was caused by multi-scalar politics. Local protests over livelihood and labour issues –pre-emptively rearticulated by regional civil society groups through an ecological 'framing' – led to litigation. The national forest bureaucracy posed regulatory hurdles, and a change in the national political regime in 2014 brought to power a party that leveraged national capital of a certain variety, which weakened Rio Tinto's political position. Lastly, a slump in the global diamond market created economic uncertainties, finally leading to its exit. It has not, however, deterred the government from facilitating investment by Indian mega-corporate houses in mining diamonds, once again ignoring local dissent. Under the current regime in India, the space for activism is increasingly restricted, and that restriction, we contend, can lead to the disarray in strategising alliances and goals between ecological and social justice concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Official figures claim that almost 3000 people were killed, and many more injured or displaced, in four days of rioting aimed at the Sikh population of Delhi in late October and early November 1984 following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. This article analyses the efforts made to address the human rights violations that occurred. It argues that as a divided democracy, India has struggled to do justice to the victims, despite multiple commissions of inquiry, compensation schemes and a prime ministerial apology. It argues that this has occurred not simply because of challenges commonly faced by democracies dealing with similar incidents, but also because of the particular problems faced in a context in which we see continuity of rule by a political elite allegedly implicated in the abuse and in which there is acute concern for the survival of a fragile divided polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the success chances of subaltern political agency. Empirically, it investigates how indigenous groups can prevent unwanted access to their traditional knowledge regarding biological resources. The article compares indigenous politics in Brazil and India. Brazilian movements effectively defend regulations to deny the disclosure of their knowledge, whereas comparable demands of the Adivasis in India have remained fairly neglected. To explain these differences, the article connects the insights of social movements and postcolonial theories. It shows that a synopsis of both literatures helps to explain both the potential and the limitations of indigenous political agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign policy making in India is typically viewed as highly centralised and dominated by the Prime Minister's Office and bureaucracy. Yet in 2004, the Congress-Party-led United Progressive Alliance government launched a Composite Dialogue with Pakistan which included a place for Indian think tanks in the Kashmir dispute. We suggest that as India liberalised its economy amidst domestic political upheaval, think tanks were given greater access to domestic and foreign funding and adopted new roles in foreign policy making. In the case of the Kashmir conflict, peacebuilding think tanks were encouraged by the government to engage in cross-border activities that would build constituencies for peace with Pakistan and promote economic cooperation as an incentive for peace. While the government aimed to depoliticise the conflict, these think tanks used this opportunity to draw attention to marginalised perspectives and issues. Peacebuilding think tanks nonetheless faced significant challenges in shaping the peace process because of structural constraints regarding access to resources and lack of autonomy to further their agendas. This reflected resistance within the state to depoliticising a conflict that has long been India's central national security issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the determinants of rapes in India using state-level data for the time period 2001-2015. The panel model analysis indicates that there is no impact of education and economic growth, pointing towards a larger role of social and cultural factors in this context. The effect of deterrence variables (such as the number of police stations) is non-existent, possibly pointing towards the incompetency of the police force. Social attitude towards women emerged as the most robust predictor of the extent of rapes in India. We argue that the fundamental problem lies in the misogyny deeply rooted in the Indian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is frequently cast as a troublemaker and blamed for the breakdown of the Doha Round. This article provides a critical re-reading of India’s trade policy and its position in multilateral trade negotiations. It challenges the widespread characterisation of India as a recalcitrant spoiler, intent on derailing trade liberalisation at the WTO. It shows that with the emergence of its highly-competitive, export-oriented services sector, India became one of the leading advocates of global services trade liberalisation in the Doha Round. Yet, not unlike the traditional powers, India’s offensive trade interests are also combined with significant defensive concerns in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining a classic formulation of the relationship between colonialism and postcolonial nationalisms in postcolonial theory, as well as its recent critiques, this article puts forward a thesis that contemporary colonialisms and imperialisms may be best diagnosed through the lens of identifying forms of sovereignty rather than relying on the geopolitical framework of West/non-West recognisable in the conceptual vocabulary of postcolonial theory. Focusing on the disputed issue of Indian sovereignty over Kashmir, this essay asks the following questions: What forms of occupation by postcolonial nation-states remain concealed by ways in which extant postcolonial approaches assume geopolitical divisions? Why is it necessary to rethink the parameters of imperialism and colonialism for a contemporary era? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often claimed that industrial restructuring leads to diminished roles for trade unionism and other forms of labour organisations by informalising employment and relocating production. Drawing on selected case studies from long-term fieldwork in regions of India, this article shows that trajectories of industrial restructuring and the responses by organised labour over the past two decades have been diverse. It is argued that the diverse response not only reflects structural opportunities and constraints for labour to be organised in particular ways, but also different histories and experiences of labour association. Contrary to the presumption about the general demise of trade unionism and the apparent unattainability of class solidarity in contemporary globalised capitalism, it is observed that India’s labour movement is experiencing a degree of resurgence, and new forms of labour organisations and activism are emerging, especially involving informal workers in the formal sector. That these innovative forms of mobilisation are shaped by experiences and aspirations that do not conform to the established institutionalised frameworks for dispute resolution has important policy and political implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses why informal labourers working ‘at the margins’ of global production networks lack ‘structural’ and ‘associational’ power. It does so in order to better understand potential changes in their material and political conditions, and as part of broader calls to put labour at the centre of development studies. The article focuses on rural-based labourers in south India who work relatively invisibly as agricultural labourers and informal factory workers, and on the construction sites of a ‘global city’ (Bangalore). It deploys a three-way labour control regime framework that encompasses (1) the macro-labour control regime, which is ultimately defined by capitalist relations of production, and characterised in India by particularly high levels of informality (precarious and largely unregulated work) and segmentation (due to the fragmentary impact of caste); (2) the local labour control regime, which refers to how class relations in specific places are shaped by patterns of accumulation and work (themselves shaped by differences in agro-ecology, irrigation, and remoteness from non-agricultural labour markets), distributions of classes and castes, and the uneven presence of the state; and (3) the labour process, which is increasingly marked by forms of ‘remote control’ marshalled by labour intermediaries. Debate on the macro-labour control regime and on the labour process is well established, but little has been said about local labour control regimes, which are newly defined here and discussed in terms of differences between ‘wetland/circulation zones’ and ‘dryland/commuting zones’. The article identifies locations where labour has greater potential structural and associational power. Increased worker organisation in these areas could have knock-on effects in more ‘obscure’ sites. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rise of new economic powers has seen increasing attention focused on the international role of the BRICS countries. Importantly, a common feature uniting the BRICS is that they are all resource-rich, and many analysts (and some BRICS governments) have argued that natural resources are one of the key factors propelling the rise of the group. This article explores the BRICS’ emerging status as ‘resource powers’, examining how resource wealth underpins their economic development and foreign policy strategies, and thus contributes to their growing influence in international affairs. It is argued that through the use of nationalistic mining and energy policies, the BRICS governments have exploited natural resources for both domestic economic and international diplomatic objectives. However, there are several challenges and emerging risks facing the BRICS’ resource strategies, which mean that resource wealth is making a positive – though inherently limited – contribution to the growing international status of the group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article critically explores the implications of the recent turn to transnational efforts in activism that seeks to counter caste-based discrimination. In particular, it analyses the consequences of mobilising a concept of caste that is sufficiently expansive to accommodate occupation- and descent-based discrimination globally, and which primarily frames caste in terms of human rights. To what extent is it possible to maintain a nuanced conceptualising of caste and of what it means to occupy the margins of the caste system, if efforts to influence the workings of global governance institutions divest caste of its regional and local distinctiveness? The article demonstrates how, even though Dalit (‘untouchable’) activists have been successful in bringing attention to caste as a global concern, present endeavours, on the one hand, reinforce the marginalised identity that they seek to overcome and, on the other, fail to recognise the diversity and situated-ness of the Dalit experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite its growing status as an ‘emerging’ power, perceptions of India’s current and future role in multilateral organisations continue to be overshadowed by its reputation for blocking rather than supporting progress in multilateral negotiations on grounds of national sovereignty and Third Worldism. In this article we suggest a more positive interpretation of India’s role through a close analysis of its diplomacy during the 2001 Doha Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (wto). The Indian delegation attempted proactively to shape the agenda of the negotiations and to promote a form of developmental multilateralism that might correct the perceived imbalances within the substantive commitments to and structure and processes of thewto. India failed to get its way at the time, but the ongoing deadlock at Doha demonstrates the continuing salience of such alternative conceptions of global justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The resilience of the problem of child labour in the global economy has been amply documented, but, we suggest, the reasons for this situation have not yet been fully captured in the associated debates. Our aim is to advance a way of thinking about those forms of child labour which occur in the context of global production networks (gpns), and to contend that greater attention must be paid to the organisation and functioning of gpns, and the social foundations on which they rest, if we are to grasp more fully the conditions and processes which facilitate the persistence and evolution of child labour. The way of thinking we propose is rooted in the concept of ‘adverse incorporation’ in the global economy, which we develop by drawing together currents in gpn analysis and poverty research to explore the commercial and social dynamics in gpns which give rise to these forms of labour exploitation. We illustrate our arguments with reference to the garments industry in New Delhi, India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The international development arena is currently subject to major changes in the geographies of power. In this article I analyse how and to what extent the (re)entry on the development scene of China, India and Brazil, together with increasing prices for primary commodities and improved access to international finance, has affected Zambia’s political leverage to set, implement and fund its own developmental policies. I argue that, while real changes in external financial flows comparable to aid from these non-traditional state actors are still small, these actors’ experience is providing Zambia with an alternative development model that combines purposive state intervention with market-based economic growth and integration into world markets. While Zambia may be taking the first steps in strengthening its ‘sovereign frontier’, the extent of this movement is still small and its development outcomes are far from assured. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]