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This article discusses Romania's burgeoning development aid policy to the post-colonial space. By leveraging its expertise in petroleum extraction to forge a strategic relationship with India in the 1950s, Bucharest was able to gain a strategic foothold as oil assistance provider to the non-aligned countries. This text details Romania's efforts to help build India's national oil industry by bringing into focus the broad nexus of forces at play in such process. It therefore aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of 'the Second World's Third World' by discussing the ideological and geopolitical considerations of both East-East and East-South relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper offers some reflections on the role, effectiveness and challenges for health information systems in developing countries. It is argued that such systems need to support the use of information for action, but that this is often compromised by poor quality data. In addition, good data and related ICTs are inadequate by themselves since effective action also needs knowledgeable people and supportive institutions. Some approaches are discussed on software philosophy, educating people and changing institutions. The paper also includes a brief reflection on theory and its role in relation to action in health information systems, and ends with some reflections for practice. Illustrative examples in the paper are drawn mainly from India, but the issues discussed are relevant to engagement across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I document my fieldwork struggles in Kolkata India, to propose some common guiding notions of flexibility in the field. I argue that in moments of uncertainty, ethical judgment of the researcher should be a central guiding force while figuring out what flexibility looks like in the field. By detailing how I improvised research methods and ethics in the field based on the context of place, everyday lives of people in global South, and the political moment when the research was conducted, I offer two insights in the paper. First, I suggest that, apart from focusing on the prospects of information collection, it is important to be mindful of the daily practices of the potential research participants and the context of place while choosing qualitative methods, if the place is known to us prior to the fieldwork. However, having this awareness might not ensure that all methods choices will work in the field. Therefore, second, during the process of adapting to challenges and (re)strategizing research methodologies, I argue that being flexible should be viewed as more in line with being ethical and maintaining good practice in the field. In doing so, this paper calls for a broader ethical understanding that prioritizes compassion towards participants as well as oneself, which might necessitate going beyond institutionally defined regulations, to create a more inclusive geographical knowledge production process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the case of plastic waste regulations, existing policy frameworks ignore that recycling in developing countries is largely undertaken within the unorganised sector. To add to this policies such as Single Use Plastic (SUP) bans disproportionately penalise unorganised sector recycling units and workers employed within them. This paper seeks to identify the global framework of waste minimisation and the lacunae in its implementation in the case of plastic waste in India. This will be based on analysis of national level regulations on plastic waste, court cases in the High Courts of India, and results of a primary field survey of unorganised sector plastic recycling units in Mumbai. By doing so, this paper seeks to explain the importance of recycling as a productive activity, and the need to incorporate concerns of workers and small-scale enterprise owners from the unorganised sector, in order to achieve a just transition to sustainable plastic waste management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the bourgeoning of smart city initiatives across the Global South, their implementation and place-based outcomes remain understudied. This paper presents empirical studies in three Indian cities of Bhubaneswar, Pune and Chennai; three of the first 20 smart cities prioritized for implementation in the Smart Cities Mission. It investigates the place-based outcomes utilized to create smart cities under three categories of mega-, placemaking, and lighthouse projects. The results show varying levels of urban interventions contributing to 'bubble urbanism' – a fragmented combination of large-scale mega-projects and small-scale revitalization projects – with complex socio-spatial implications for smart city development in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most governments around the world are fostering innovation and entrepreneurial systems with a prominent role for venture capital (VC) support policies. However, the debate about the role and impact of VC support policies is still focused on the countries of the Global North. In this context, this paper seeks to describe and analyse the role that the state has played in the emergence and development of the VC industry in India and Brazil, two of the biggest economies of the Global South. We adopt a systemic and evolutionary perspective under the general context of a renewed role for the state in financing innovation. We offer interesting questions and implications to discuss the challenges, scale and impact that could be expected from VC industry support policies in the Global South countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at bringing out the cultural, economic, and political importance that Khadi has for India from pre-colonial times, during the colonial rule and after independence till the present times. The paper brings out Khadi's potential in rural development by solving the pressing concerns of unemployment and working conditions in developing countries like India. In spite of this, Khadi's potential at rural development is subsided by the contemporary threats the industry faces due to the different agents of neoliberalism, discussed in the paper. The questionnaire report on workers collected at the Cheriyakonni production unit and information collected at the District Project Office Trivandrum; brings out that rural women are the largest workforce victims of these threats, as the industry is slowly showing signs of degradation. Methodology: The research paper is based on both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Data is collected from Kerala Khadi and Village Industries Board (KVIB) Project Office Thiruvananthapuram through interviews. Questionnaire is conducted on workers of Cheriyakonni Production Unit, Thiruvananthapuram that operates under the board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critique of perspectives that see the recent global rise of right-wing populism as a direct reaction to the disastrous effects of neoliberalism. By turning attention to the uneven development of capitalism and international competition, in this paper, I present a distinction between 'offensive' and 'defensive' types of right-wing populism that take place in different zones of the world economy. Through a comparative analysis of India and Turkey, this paper discusses the particularities of the rise of 'offensive' populists in emerging powers of the Global South in a period of economic growth. The comparative-historical framework employed in the paper allows us to understand how the world-hegemonic crisis empowered populists by providing opportunities for upward mobility for emerging powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry in developing nations has not attracted much attention from standard theorists. One of the reasons is that developing countries are considered 'standard takers.' As a result, the limited scholarship on standards in the context of developing countries largely remains occupied with global value chains and standards. Besides, industries in these countries are often marked with various degrees of informality. Due to this, the innate structure and governance of these industries depend a lot on socio-economic relations, over and above the formal legal and regulatory structures. This makes operationalization of standards much more complex than simple adoption of standards in codified and documented form, dominantly considered in mainstream discourse on standards. This paper attempts to answer a few of the limitations highlighted and adds to the scholarship on standards in the context of developing countries by considering the case of Aligarh padlock industry. The paper explores the socio-economic dynamics which govern the emergence, adherence and proliferation of these standards. To this end, the paper considers standards as a form of knowledge that brings order to an industry. Further, adapting upon the literature on global value chain and its role in standard proliferation and informality, the paper explores the role of local value chain in the proliferation of industry-level standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private tutoring participation is increasing in several developing countries, and this expansion has attracted the interest of scholars spanning disciplines of economics, sociology and history. This paper presents a theoretical model of private tutoring demand. The model incorporates the household and school characteristics in a developing country context and demonstrates the source of gender gaps in access to private tutoring. Using a recent database from India and employing a hurdle model approach, the paper also provides estimates of the drivers of private tutoring participation and spending for pre-secondary students. Our results indicate evidence of gender gaps in private tutoring access, and that the socio-economic profile of a student is positively correlated with tutoring demand. Further, school quality indicators are negatively correlated with tutoring participation, suggesting that students at 'better' schools rely less on tutoring. Overall, the findings suggest that tutoring demand is influenced by a mix of demand-side (household, community drivers) and supply-side (school quality and learning environment) factors. The results bring into focus the equity implications of tutoring growth and the need to improve school quality in order to reduce the dependence on private tutoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-induced lockdowns have increased the importance of technology in education. Though access to technology as well as availability of the internet remain a major concern for a lot of children in the global south, children with intellectual disabilities are disadvantaged even more as most of the e-content is developed keeping in mind the average learner. Unstructured interviews were conducted with children with intellectual disabilities studying in government schools in Haryana as well as their teachers and parents. Thematic analysis of the interviews was conducted to understand the use-patterns of mobile phones by children with intellectual disabilities. Findings suggest that these children are learning to use mobile phones on their own or with some support and are able to navigate the complexities of these smartphones quite well. They use these devices mostly for their entertainment. This paper then reflects on the need and strategies to develop these technologies in ways that they can be used as effective tools for teaching children with intellectual disabilities, especially in the inclusive education system in developing countries. The paper reflects on the need to develop technology and tools using flexible and exploratory designs to enhance the learning processes for children with intellectual disabilities from the lower income strata. This study highlights the importance of being able to use mobile phones by children with intellectual disabilities belonging to low income families. Following this, the article argues for designing of mobile phones suitable for use by children with intellectual disabilities using playfulness and explorations, and Building e-content keeping the elements of playfulness and exploration which can enhance the learnings of this group of students which is often ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The G20, representing the world's major developed and developing countries, is experiencing a unique situation with a troika of developing countries – Indonesia, India, and Brazil – holding significant positions for the first time. India, holding the G20 presidency, has a unique opportunity to strengthen its ties while assuming the responsibility of leading the world towards economic recovery. To understand India's priorities regarding trade and supply chain resilience within the G20, it is essential to examine the background of India's trade relationships with G20 member countries. This paper explores the connection between technology-intensive exports and global value chain (GVC) participation for the period 1995 to 2018 using advanced time-series analysis. The results point towards the importance of forward linkages for India's exports of both high and low-tech exports and the backward linkage for medium-tech exports. The results show a connection between technological capabilities and exports to G20 nations through India's participation in the GVC. In light of these findings, the paper offers guidance for the development of timely and well-informed sector-specific strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the introduction of European prefabrication building systems in India in the years immediately after independence from Britain in 1947, through the lens of two episodes. In each case, the analysis challenges the often-perceived notion of the local, in this case Indian, actors in the Global South as mere recipients of superior foreign technologies, positing them instead as critical assessors, evaluators and decision makers. In the first example of UK's Alcrete House, well known as the reason for German architect Otto Koenigsberger's infamous departure from India, the paper examines archival materials, discussed here for the first time, to shed light on the role of Indian players who demanded accountability from foreign experts. In the second lesser-known example of the Swiss lightweight concrete building product, Durisol, the analysis highlights the role of local architects like Shaukat Rai, who deployed his own transnational and intranational networks in the product's bid to enter the Indian construction market in the early 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the concrete operation of the gold-exchange standard in colonial India imposed a process of financial subordination embedding colonial India in the currency hierarchy of British sterling. This system was instrumental in entrenching a core-periphery asymmetry that undergirded Britain's financial supremacy, providing elasticity to the sterling funding mechanisms of international money-markets by mobilizing the reserves of colonial India through the council bill mechanism and the placement of reserves in London. Its workings foreshadow the role of reserve accumulation in the financial subordination of developing countries in the context of the dollar hegemony in an international monetary hierarchy delinked from gold and enforced without colonial rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The COVID-19 pandemic created one of the biggest disruptions in human life. We were all confined within the walls of our homes or offices with day-to-day life worldwide seriously affected. In this context, access to and efficient use of technology determined the course of daily life for vast sections of the world's population. However, there was (and still is) a severe pre-existing global divide between the Global North and Global South vis-à-vis digital access. This paper attempts to understand this digital divide and how it has widened during the pandemic in the Global North and Global South with reference to India and the United States (US). This is initiated by analyzing certain factors within each country, namely positional and personal categorical inequalities. Through the cases of the US and India, the authors conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the global digital divide between the two worlds, affecting core social sectors like education and health. The larger implication of this is a broadening inequality between the Global North and Global South in leading development indicators like the Human Development Index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper grows from the research conducted on the video industry located in Purulia District, West Bengal, India, namely 'Manbhum videos'. 'Manbhum' signifies both place and idiom, and the videos are imagined and produced in relation as well as in opposition to its big Other(s), which include Bollywood, and reputable Bengali language cinema. Manbhum feature-lenghth videos, comprise discreet episodes, which are intercepted by songs and dances; working within popular narrative strategies and modes of address, some of these videos use unique voices, of both singers and dubbing artists, to tell the story. Such application of music and voice do not only re-present specific conditions of production, but also inform us about the ways in which the actor's 'body' and 'voice' may be used within parallel industrial practices. Therefore, besides addressing the industrial contexts and proliferation of video industries across Global South in the era of the digital, this paper considers subjects of language, community, culture, geography, politics and the problem of Jhumur (songs) transfiguring into a so-called 'vulgar' form, and thereby, examines particular videos to study the characteristics of production, and the question of narration and recounting, in such intermittent videos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars (mainly from the Global North) in International Relations have been turning to a (critical) constructivist agenda in norms research, the field has increasingly become devoid of applying this area of research in understanding the nuclear behavior of deviant states from the Global South. The paper therefore attempts to bridge this research gap by using the case of the India-US nuclear relationship. To do so, the paper: i) identifies the probable convergences of the existing literature on nuclear policy and the research on constructivist norms, ii) highlights India's racial treatment as a Southern nuclear state in academia and policy discourse, and iii) recognizes plausible avenues for the expansion of the Western dominated normative research agenda by analyzing India's nuclear relationship with the US ― with a specific focus to norm contestation and normative change. In bringing together (critical) constructivists and scholars in nuclear politics to further our understanding of how we perceive security of non-western states, this work makes an epistemological and ontological contribution in the field of international security studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing food demand, environmental degradation, post-harvest losses and the dearth of resources encourage the decision makers from developing nations to integrate the economic and environmental aspects in food supply chain network design. This paper aims to develop a bi-objective decision support model for sustainable food grain supply chain considering an entire network of procurement centres, central, state and district level warehouses, and fair price shops. The model seeks to minimise the cost and carbon dioxide emission simultaneously. The model covers several problem peculiarities such as multi-echelon, multi-period, multi-modal transportation, multiple sourcing and distribution, emission caused due to various motives, heterogeneous capacitated vehicles and limited availability, and capacitated warehouses. Multiple realistic problem instances are solved using the two Pareto based multi-objective algorithms. Sensitivity analysis results imply that the decision makers should establish a sufficient number of warehouses in each producing and consuming states by maintaining the suitable balance between the two objectives. Various policymakers like Food Corporation of India, logistics providers and state government agencies will be benefited from this research study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hypermarket is a combined supermarket and department store that carries a large range of products. Since the opening of the first hypermarket in the US in the early 1930s, this concept has spread globally. Nowhere is this trend more visible than in India, now the world's most populous country with a middle class that will expectedly grow to 800 million in 2030. This paper coins the theory of hypermarketization to explain why and how the hypermarket as a globalized form signifies the full integration of liberalization, retail and middle-class consumer culture in emerging markets. The argument that hypermarketization marks the point when successful economies in the Global South mature and then qualify as emerging markets is based on empirical material from fieldwork on vegetarianism and meat in hypermarkets and among middle-class groups in South India, namely participant observation and interviewing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to suggest an accounting framework for India for implementation of its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and design the appropriate modality for reporting its capacity building needs and priorities in a manner that is in consonance with the provisions of the Paris Rule book from the perspective of a developing country. The suggested accounting methodology considers India's national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory and climate mitigation policies. The Key Category Analysis concept of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for accounting GHG inventory estimation at the national level is used to identify and rank the key inventory categories for India. Accounting of various national level mitigation policies is undertaken by assessing their impact on the key categories, subsequently recognizing 'Key Policies' in accordance with the provisions of the Paris rulebook. 'Key Policies' are found to have a definite role in driving the progress of implementation of NDCs. The study recommends a modality that developing countries can use to report their needs for capacity building support for full implementation of their 'key policies' while accounting their future NDCs, using the flexibilities provided under the Paris Rule book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The precarity of journalistic labour has received significant scholarly attention globally, leading to a plethora of studies that attempt to theorise changing journalistic roles, practices, and norms. Whereas precarity in newswork is formulated as the "new normal" in the Global North, the precarious situation of marginal(ised) newsworkers in the Global South has been simply normal. Based on ethnographic research in two small-town formations in South India, this article presents how stringers working in Indian-language newspapers have developed a complex professional identity and shared norms through journalistic and extra-journalistic practices to survive in the field. In doing so, we develop, in a novel way, Bourdieu's concept of illusio to understand the formation of a professional identity that spans adjacent fields. This paper's critical engagement with the difficult working lives of stringers and their invisible labour has learnings for analysis of precarity in journalism across the Global North and South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Gender & Development is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines whether linking into Global Value Chains (GVCs) can facilitate product upgrading in developing country firms, enabling them to climb up the value-chain ladder. The analysis is conducted using an unbalanced panel of Indian manufacturing firms in the period 2001–2015. Extensive data at the product-firm level is used to construct a sales-weighted average product sophistication level of Indian firms. To account for econometric issues of endogeneity and self-selection, the study employs the System GMM estimator and Propensity Score Matching (PSM). Findings indicate that linking into GVCs boosts the average product sophistication level of Indian firms by roughly 2 percent. Younger, more innovative, and more embedded GVC firms capture higher product sophistication gains from GVCs, while no significant impact is found for foreign investment. Results are robust to the use of different measurement techniques, model and lag specifications and methodologies. Findings suggest that designing trade policies in developing countries to increase GVC integration can enable product upgrading but there is a need to boost internal innovative capabilities to maximise gains from linking into GVCs. Further, the study raises important concerns regarding the future of export sophistication in India, demonstrating a shift in India's GVC trade towards the Global South and its tendency to export less sophisticated goods to Southern partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on fieldwork conducted in Senegal, Tanzania, and India, this article argues for a territorialized approach to mini-grids. One of the most sought-after solutions to electrification and transition to renewable energies in the Global South, mini-grids can be defined as decentralized collective systems of electricity supply. Whereas the academic and grey literature has mostly focused on their presence in rural areas, this paper looks at their development in urbanizing localities. It documents access to electrical service in these spaces and shows that, behind the rather uniform vision associated with the mini-grid object, the service provided takes different forms depending on the environment in which it is deployed. The presence of mini-grids also raises issues of social and territorial equity of access to essential services. A territorialized approach to mini-grids, therefore, furthers our understanding of the complex energy changes at work in cities of the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency of polyester and bamboo geogrids in reducing the seismic settlement of low-rise buildings has been investigated in this paper. A series of shake table experiments was carried out for this purpose. It was observed that the beneficial attributes of a rocking foundations in reducing the flexural deformation and column moment remained unchanged after inclusion of geogrids. However, the settlement, a primary adverse consequence of a rocking foundation, reduced significantly (as much as 70–75%). In a developing country like India, natural material-like bamboo threads combined with geo-polymers may be utilized for safe and sustainable seismic design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex work can offer a quick way of making money and is the only profession in which women may earn more in fewer hours when compared to other available jobs. However, most studies with sex workers in India are based on socially biased assumptions about sex work; that is, women are either coerced or trafficked into sex work. Limited attention has been paid to the voices of non-brothel-based sex workers in India. Drawing data from a larger ethnographic study conducted between December 2009 and July 2010, this paper analyses how women sex workers operating from non-brothel-based sex work settings in Kolkata, India, foresee their future. Unlike the popular 'victim imagery' of women sex workers in the Global South, this study found that women are not passive recipients of the trade; instead, they employ agency - sometimes transgressing the normative boundaries and at times reinscribing these boundaries to secure a future for themselves and their families. Therefore, to promote HIV preventive behaviour programmes reaching out to sex workers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) must proactively inquire about women's future plans and assist them in materialising their future goals, which are mostly concerned with their children's future, a life free of stigma/shame, and financial security in old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world economy is witnessing the rapid digitization of global production, trade, and consumption of goods and services, which is significantly impacting economic activities in both developing and least developed countries. In this article, we examine and review the evolving framework of the national e-commerce policy in India and map digital policies in the broader contours of the industrial policy framework. Findings of this article show that interventionist policies such as localization of data and restrictions on cross-border data flows are vital for building domestic digital infrastructure, firms, platforms, and capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental discourses on electronic waste have converged around two framings of e-waste as a significant global concern: as a polluting and hazardous waste product, and as an under-tapped source of value: an "urban mine." This paper argues that the discursive shift between these two framings is not based in material differences between either the electronics themselves or related labor processes; instead, the major determining factor in e-waste's categorization as hazard or resource is based on the category of labor working on it and where it is located. Drawing on research in India's used electronics industry, this paper argues that when associated with informal labor in the Global South, e-waste is easily devalued and judged a hazardous waste through devaluing the labor that works on it. The conflation of pollution with informal labor in the Global South offers such a powerful narrative, particularly in governance and industry circles, that it has become a significant way to devalue e-waste in the Global South, opening up "new" frontiers of value that would otherwise be captured by local, predominantly informal, industry. Thus, environmental concerns about the hazards of e-waste can be used to secure corporate e-waste markets through devaluing informal labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capacity-building is acknowledged as an essential requirement for addressing environmental and developmental challenges in developing countries. In particular, the capacity to manage technological change is an important prerequisite for climate change mitigation, adaptation and green growth. Despite the importance of such capacity, there are surprisingly few empirical accounts unpacking its different dimensions and exploring how it might be built in developing countries in the context of climate and sustainable development challenges. In this paper, we contribute to this sparse literature through an in-depth qualitative case study on energy efficiency in India. Specifically, we take a systemic and evolutionary perspective to investigate how the Bureau of Energy Efficiency developed and implemented its programs to promote energy efficiency in household appliances, light-emitting-diode lamps and energy-intensive industries – and how in doing so, both drew upon existing capacity within and outside the country, and also built new capacity, to achieve significant energy savings. Key policy insights Since the capacity to manage technological change is distributed among a range of actors, policymakers require the ability to understand capacity needs from multiple actors' perspectives. Policymakers need to respond to evolving capacity needs over the course of a program – from strategic program design, trust-building and resource mobilization in early stages, to administration in later stages. 'System operators/integrators' can play a crucial role during the early stages of a program by helping develop capacity and sustaining it by creating a demand for such capacity, as well as bringing together actors, enabling coordination, and building coalitions among them. Preliminary analysis suggests that the Bureau of Energy Efficiency programs investigated in this paper resulted in significant energy savings and CO2 emission reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing demand for energy in the building sector drives the need for change from fossil fuels to environment-friendly power sources which can also mitigate the effect of global warming and climate change. One of the initiatives to knock down the peak load and energy demand in buildings is stepping toward energy-efficient buildings for a sustainable future. This paper aims to review the fundamental aspects for approaching net zero energy consumption buildings (nZECB) keeping into consideration the effect of building physics and challenges faced in the pathway and its feasibility. Also, it addresses various policies and plans that can dramatically change the future of developing nations like India toward a zero-emissions energy system. Considering all the facts, this study suggests inflating our focus beyond direct energy use and opt for hybridized clean energy sources and enhance the constructional parameters for a better, greener, and cleaner future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay critically examines the discourse of participation in development finance directed at the poor in the Global South from national and international development agencies. This discourse, often termed financial inclusion, posits the ability of development actors to reach the poor involving them in important economic decisions affecting their lives, provides access to products that improve their material conditions, and ensures their credit worthiness through highly nuanced information technology and social media tools. The paper presents evidence from two ethnographically inspired studies undertaken by the author in India and Kenya to ascertain the ways in which the participatory discourse in finance is understood among societal participants themselves. The paper presents relevant epistemes for analyzing what 'grassroots' actors understand as their participation in development-oriented financial inclusion projects. The study forwards two major conclusions: (1) 'habits of authority' among various development actors thwart effective participation; (2) technology platforms that allow for successive innovations and interconnections from businesses and other organizations encourage financial inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I use deconstructive theory to analyze the category of "millet" and the endangerment of food grains in India. I argue that "millet" cohered as a sign of difference from the 1960s through India's Green Revolution, which created a national infrastructure for the materialization of colonial and masculinist ideology. In the hills of Uttarakhand and through the food grain regionally known as mandua, we see how India's postcolonial success relied on the ontological-epistemic erasure of women's food/land practices and assaulted the intertwined "rootedness" (place-making faculties) of women and the crops they cultivate. Reading mandua as "millet" under erasure (millet) reveals how mixed crop systems and practices of socio-ecological reciprocity eroded in the face of Green Revolution ideology and functioned as a bulwark against it. I turn finally to the counterhegemonic potential of "millet," as Uttarakhandi seed activists link with decentralized third world networks, which are exchanging seeds and building power across and from marginalized places. This opens a potential space of visibility and belonging for Uttarakhandi women farmers in the national arena at a time when the ecological and alimentary value of "millet" has entered national and global conversations, infusing the sign of difference with new meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal settlements are now becoming an unavoidable and growing phenomenon in the global south, whose locations are inappropriate in official statistics and maps. The distinctive spectral signature of informal settlements in high-resolution optical images causes difficulties in finding automatic approaches. This paper investigates the Multi-Shape Multi-Size Morphological Profile-Guided filter (MShMSiMP-GF) approach for detecting the informal settlements from high-resolution optical images. The development of the proposed approach was inspired by the Superpixel-based Guided Filter (SGF) approach, which uses superpixels to construct the guidance image. Though the superpixel based guidance image extracts detailed contextual information (scale, size), it fails to model geometrical information (shapes, structures) in an image. In order to incorporate the geometrical information, the MShMSiMP-GF approach generates multi-shape multi-size morphological profiles with increasing radius of guided filters. Quantitative and qualitative results of the proposed approach are investigated by four different images of Madurai city, India acquired by Kompsat-2 and WorldView-2 sensors. From the classified maps, it is observed that the proposed MShMSiMP-GF approach achieves an overall accuracy of 91.37%, 90.19%, 93.46% and 99.36% for the subsets 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green grabbing is accelerating throughout the Global South to facilitate climate change mitigation. This paper illuminates the discursive and extra-economic means through which the state dispossesses agropastoralists of both land and energy to develop solar parks in semi-arid rural India. We advance the empirical and theoretical aspects of energy dispossessions, with implications for the agrarian question of labor. Using data obtained from mixed methods fieldwork, this research reestablishes the urgency of responding to the classical agrarian question in the context of low-carbon energy transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the informal channels of the job search process through migrant networks in the urban labour markets in developing countries. Using a novel approach and nationwide sample survey, we measure various aspects of migrant networks such as size, diversity, efficiency and experience content and estimate their effect on probability of employment. Our findings suggest that migrant stock (having experience content) has an inverted-U relationship with the probability of finding a job for a migrant. The share of employed workers in a migrant network (efficiency) and different origin identity (diversity) positively affect the employment outcome through weak ties. Further, the migrant network effect is more active in larger cities as compared to smaller urban areas. The implications of this study indicate towards the importance of non-market informal channels in job searches and the need for integrating labour markets to harness the benefits of larger positive network externalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the causal effect of women's age at marriage on prevalence of domestic violence using newly available household data from India. The paper employs an empirical strategy that utilizes variation in age at menarche to obtain exogenous variation in women's age at marriage. The results show robust evidence that a one-year delay in women's marriage causes a significant decline in physical violence, although it has no impact on sexual or emotional violence. Further, the study provides suggestive evidence that the effect of women's marital age on physical violence arises because older brides, as compared to younger brides, are more educated and are married to more educated men. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of better enforcement of existing social policies that seek to delay marriages of women, as well as formulation of newer interventions, to reduce the prevalence of domestic violence in developing countries. HIGHLIGHTS The study examines the causal effect of marital age on exposure to domestic violence. It utilizes recent household data from India. Variation in age at menarche is used to obtain exogenous variation in age at marriage. Results show one-year delay in women's marriage causes a decline in physical violence. The study conducts further analysis to shed light on underlying mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental actors are pushing the diffusion of solar powered irrigation technologies using different technology diffusion models in resource-constrained, underdeveloped agrarian regions of the Global South. Among the varied models, the hybrid model of technology diffusion and environmental governance has gained a lot of traction and support among the technology promoters in recent years. In this article, we analyse two cases of hybrid environmental governance employed for the diffusion of solar powered irrigation technologies in rural Bihar, India. The promoters of solar powered irrigation technologies wish to achieve environmental sustainability, enhance farmers income and mitigate climate change through promoting renewable-based technologies. The top-down framing of technology and environment in hybrid environmental models often uncritically negates the place-based embedded experiences of end-users and non-users. The paper argues that the role of end-users and non-users in hybrid environmental governance need to be understood using the bottom-up approach. The paper makes a case for acknowledging and incorporating the views and environmental subjectivities of end-users and non-users while planning developmental interventions. The paper ends up suggesting a few policy-relevant suggestions for hybrid models of technology and environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the vital role of patients' involvement and empowerment in selecting the most suitable service provider, this study provides an insight into the patient choice factors that affect them when choosing a hospital for treatment. The patient choice concept is essential to understand in a developing country like India, which struggles to provide public-funded health services to its citizens. This paper uses empirical analysis to evaluate data collected from a diverse patient pool of 258 patients from both public and private sector hospitals in two Indian states (New Delhi and Chandigarh). The study reveals quality of treatment, cleanliness, hospital reputation and amenities like payment and food facilities as important patient choice factors considered while choosing a health service provider in the Indian context. It was also found that service provider's response to majority of patient choice factors was indicated unsatisfactory by the patients, and hence a need for improved service delivery is emphasised for hospitals through this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The banking industry plays a crucial role in any economy by providing diverse services aimed at enhancing economic growth. In recent decades, this sector has been transformed due to financial liberalization and new regulatory rules. Therefore, measuring the efficiency of banking institutions is critically important to identify the evolution of efficiency drivers for banks. Based on a sample of 90 individual banks from four different world regions (Europe, US, China, and India), this paper conducts data envelopment, stochastic frontier and anova analyses to measure cost efficiency over a 15-year period (2002–2016). While the overall liberalization of financial markets seems to induce a convergence among efficiency strategies privileging cost minimization to improve efficiency, the existence of state intervention in China and India nuances our results. State owned banks base their efficiency more on maximization of their potential revenue than on controlling costs. On the contrary, their private peers are more similar to Western peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we assert the critical influence of education on health-beliefs among women from India, an emerging economy. We further examine the urban vs. rural differences and the role of social capital in shaping health-beliefs of women. Using nationally representative data of eligible women from India, we find education to have a positive influence on health-beliefs. We find this effect to be higher in rural regions. Further, we find social capital to negatively moderate the effect of education. Our findings stress the importance of education, especially in rural regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption that educational policies and practices in the global North are viable in the global South has promoted a universal template for inclusive education, or Education For All. In India, lived realities do not conform to this universal template, resulting in the emergence of low-income English language learners who are being labeled as learning disabled. The paper calls for a "de-colonial resistance" that incorporates indigenous knowledge and lived realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, the only way for the population of developing countries to access the Internet was through expensive smartphones, designed in and for developed countries. In the past few years, however, a major new innovation has emerged, the smart feature phone with Internet connectivity, which was specifically designed for those with low incomes in developing countries. This paper explains the development process for the smart feature phone, how this has influenced the nature and extent of adoption, and its use by low-income groups, including their demonstrated preference for uses related to entertainment rather than more traditional "work-related" goals. The focus is on the case of India, where the JioPhone has already reached millions of people with low incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticism of mainstream media as being "biased" has emerged as a defining characteristic of right-wing discourse all over the world. Such expressions are coupled with the establishment of right-wing news outlets that seek to undermine professional journalism. But while scholars have examined the operation of such outlets in the context of Western democracies, anti-media populism in the Global South has received little scholarly attention. Through a thematic analysis of articles published on OpIndia.com- a right-wing news site in India, this paper seeks to address this gap in the literature and identify the discursive strategies employed by the right-wing media to discredit the mainstream press in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar energy is an abundantly available free eco-friendly renewable energy source (RES). Solar energy holds great potential for providing a solution to the long-standing energy issues continuously faced by developing countries like India. The gap between power generation and demand is widening at an alarming rate in developing countries, especially in India. This gap can be filled by expansion of solar energy generation which has adequate potential to provide electricity. The current trends towards technical and economical potential of solar energy in India considering availability, current scenario, promotion scheme, recent investment, and strategies adopted for solar power generation has been presented in this paper. A detailed description of policies put forward by the Indian government in various states to encourage solar generation has been presented. In addition, the major achievements and future potential of RESs have also been described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Permaculture is an attempt to design and develop sustainable communities in harmony with natural ecosystems. It embraces solution-oriented approaches to contemporary social and environmental problems. Originating in Australia, permaculture was initially considered a design system but it has become a global social movement and it is practiced in different countries in various forms and at multiple scales. It is manifested in numerous networks of local practitioners, teachers, promoters, demonstration sites, organisations and magazines where various ideas and practices converge. Despite its popularization scant attention has been given to analysis of permaculture as a social movement. Moreover, the few academic writings which analyse permaculture as a social movement do not systematically engage with its manifestation and adaptation in the global South. The latter is the main contribution of this article. Based on original research this paper narrates the origins of the permaculture movement in India, and it pays close attention to its contextual adaptation by a diverse group of practitioners. It demonstrates that these diverse actors and their strategies have clear linkages to the independence movement; they are influenced by the incomplete project of Indian liberal democracy; they operate on the sphere of civil and political society; and they engage middle and lower classes in a formal and informal political nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyses complex arrangements of actors, infrastructure technologies and practices to argue that co-production of urban service delivery entails a mutual, but contested dependence of state and non-state actors. We present two empirical cases based on in-depth qualitative fieldwork highlighting the role of Councillors regulating formal hydraulics and the fragile, volatile relations of private water provisioning in Baruipur Municipality, a small, peripheral town in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area. Characterised by groundwater arsenic, iron risks and heterogeneous urban waterscape, our analysis shows that powerful socio-political intermediaries shape everyday provisioning and access, 're-politicisation' complicating notions of collaborative alliances, equitable benefits and sustainable, material improvements. While gaps in piped water provisioning in the global South cities do find nascent community-led, collective service delivery efforts, in a socio-political context where water is understood as a public right, a state provision, does the continued reliance on the state allow joint service delivery to manifest? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As social scientists engaged in Information Technologies for Development (IT4D), a question we need to necessarily engage with is “are we building a better world with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)?” This question, first posed by Professor Geoff Walsham in the IS field, was the topic of my plenary discussion at the IFIP 9.4 meeting in Jamaica 2014, and had now been further developed to this “view from practice” paper for this journal. A first step in this paper has been the reformulation of the question which Professor Walsham raised: “What distortions and obstacles are created by the historical, material, and institutional conditions, and how these shape our efforts of ICTs creating a better world?” This reformulation is done to bring in more explicitly the political dimension into the question, and to nuance the technological deterministic argument implied in the question of technology (always) creating a better world. Taking an empirical example of an ICT intervention from the public health sector in India, deliberately chosen to emphasize distortions typically seen is similar Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) projects, the analysis focuses on understanding the conditions of distortions, why they occur, and what can be done differently to contribute to our notion of a better world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reviews agricultural mechanization and reduced tillage use in the context of sustainable intensification in developing country agriculture. The scoping review includes selected and contrasting cases – including Zimbabwe (manual systems), Bangladesh (2-wheel – single axle tractor systems), India (4-wheel – i.e. 2 axles tractor systems), Kazakhstan (mechanized systems) and Brazil (diverse systems). The expansion of reduced tillage appears strongly associated with the level of agricultural mechanization – facilitated by a number of common drivers and contextualized by the prevailing farm power and intensity of tillage. Soil conservation, timely planting and farm power savings in crop establishment are important drivers for the expansion of reduced tillage across the world, facilitated by conducive markets, institutional and policy environments and the integration of diverse actors to introduce, adapt and promote the necessary components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced support for a human spaceflight program during his 2018 Independence Day speech. The target year of 2022 is when India plans to realize its first indigenous human space mission. Human spaceflight is a high risk activity and in many ways unaffordable for a developing country. Moreover, India professes that space technology is best utilized for aiding socioeconomic development and not as a tool in geopolitical competition and prestige. By assessing relevant developments, this paper argues that a variety of concerns and ambitions compelled India to consider a human space mission. The main actors are India's political and scientific leaders who found support for such a mission in response to China and international prestige factors. Indian political leaders also saw an opportunity for improving their domestic political image. Further, the Indian Space Research Organization views human space missions as providing a new raison d'etre to the organization and helping it retain a skilled workforce amidst industrialization of satellite and launch vehicle development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]