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This paper argues that Indian farmers’ suicides may fruitfully be described as public deaths. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the South Indian district of Wayanad (Kerala), it shows that farmers’ suicides become ‘public deaths’ only via the enumerative and statistical practices of the Indian state and their scandalization in the media. The political nature of suicide as public death thus depends entirely on suicide rates and their production by the state itself. But the power of representations complicates the ethnographic critique of statistical knowledge about suicide. In a context like Wayanad, which had been declared a suicide-prone district by the Indian state, public representations of suicides have taken on a life of their own; statistical categories and the media interpretations of these statistics have had a curious feedback—mediated by development encounters—onto the situated meanings of individual suicides. Local interpretations of individual suicides mostly commented on personal failures of the suicide and on the perils of speculative smallholder agriculture. Ethnography of farmers’ suicide based on case studies alone, however, would soon encounter limitations equally grave as the limitations of statistical analysis. Not only is the meaning of suicide (intentions, causes, motives) at the actor level off limits for ethnography, but in addition to that the (public) meaning of suicide is co-determined by state practice including statistical accounting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, historical analysis and qualitative fieldwork are combined to question the belief that recent efforts in Kerala to induct women into local governance and mobilize poor women into self-help groups implies continuity with the earlier history of women's mobility into the spaces of paid work and politics. For a longer view, the histories of gender-coding of spaces and of women's mobility into paid work and politics are examined. In the twentieth century, while the subversive potential of paid work was contained through casting it within ‘feminine terms’, politics was unquestionably ‘unfeminine space’. However, recent efforts have not advanced women's mobility in any simple sense. The subversive potential of women's mobility towards work in self-help groups is still limited. In local governance, unlike the experience of an earlier generation of women, the ability to conform to norms of elite femininity now appears to be a valuable resource. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study aims to examine the interannual variation in fish biomass and to estimate the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) for the marine fisheries of Kerala, India. Although the productivity of a fishery is known to be dependent on species diversity, this relationship is not widely documented. This paper uses an extended Gordon–Schaefer model that is modified to incorporate species diversity to estimate the MSY levels of catch and the corresponding fishing effort. Species diversity is expressed as both biological and bioeconomic diversity using the Simpson index. The model reports that the actual fishing effort has exceeded the maximum level necessary to support sustainable yield, while the maximum level of catch for maintaining sustainable yield is not known. A comparison of fish landings and effort data across different fishing techniques indicates that there is a potential to decrease the current level of fishing effort without experiencing a significant decline in fish catch. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

AbstractIn July 2001, red rain fell over Kerala in India shortly after reports of a meteor. When analysed, this red rain appeared to contain red cells, apparently demonstrating that such cells must exist in space and that the theory of panspermia is correct. However, doubts have been expressed about whether reports of a meteor were merely a coincidence. This paper examines historical and mythical accounts of red rain, to establish if these, too, show a connection with meteors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the police raid on the ‘Muthanga’ land occupation by Adivasi (‘indigenous’) activists in Kerala, India, in February 2003, intense public debate erupted about the fate of Adivasis in this ‘model’ development state. Most commentators saw the land occupation either as the fight-back of Adivasis against their age-old colonization or the work of ‘external’ agitators. Capitalist restructuring and ‘globalization’ was generally seen as simply the latest chapter in the suffering of these Adivasis. Little focused attention was paid to the recent class trajectory of their lives under changing capitalist relations, the exact social processes under which they were having to make a living, and what had only recently—and still largely ambiguously—made them ready to identify themselves politically as ‘Adivasi’. Demonstrating the usefulness of ethnographic curiosity driven by an ‘expanded’ class analysis, as elaborated in Marxian anthropology, this article provides an alternative to the liberal-culturalist explanation of indigenism in Kerala. It argues instead that contemporary class processes—as experienced close to the skin by the people who decided to participate in the Muthanga struggle—were what shaped their decision to embrace indigenism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the influence of Protestant missionaries on male–female educational inequalities in colonial India. Causal mechanisms drawn from the sociology and economics of religion highlight the importance of religious competition for the provision of public goods. Competition between religious and secular groups spurred missionaries to play a key role in the development of mass female schooling. A case study of Kerala illustrates this. The statistical analysis, with district-level datasets, covers colonial and post-colonial periods for most of India. Missionary effects are compared with those of British colonial rule, modernization, European presence, education expenditures, post-colonial democracy, Islam, caste and tribal status, and land tenure. Christian missionary activity is consistently associated with better female education outcomes in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The results of research on the water relations and irrigation needs of coconut are collated and summarized in an attempt to link fundamental studies on crop physiology to drought mitigation and irrigation practices. Background information on the centres of origin and production of coconut and on crop development processes is followed by reviews of plant water relations, crop water use and water productivity, including drought mitigation. The majority of the recent research published in the international literature has been conducted in Brazil, Kerala (South India) and Sri Lanka, and by CIRAD (France) in association with local research organizations in a number of countries, including the Ivory Coast. The unique vegetative structure of the palm (stem and leaves) together with the long interval between flower initiation and the harvesting of the mature fruit (44 months) mean that causal links between environmental factors (especially water) are difficult to establish. The stomata play an important role in controlling water loss, whilst the leaf water potential is a sensitive indicator of plant water status. Both stomatal conductance and leaf water potential are negatively correlated with the saturation deficit of the air. Although roots extend to depths >2 m and laterally >3 m, the density of roots is greatest in the top 0–1.0 m soil, and laterally within 1.0–1.5 m of the trunk. In general, dwarf cultivars are more susceptible to drought than tall ones. Methods of screening for drought tolerance based on physiological traits have been proposed. The best estimates of the actual water use (ETc) of mature palms indicate representative rates of about 3 mm d−1. Reported values for the crop coefficient (Kc) are variable but suggest that 0.7 is a reasonable estimate. Although the sensitivity of coconut to drought is well recognized, there is a limited amount of reliable data on actual yield responses to irrigation although annual yield increases (50%) of 20–40 nuts palm−1 (4–12 kg copra, cultivar dependent) have been reported. These are only realized in the third and subsequent years after the introduction of irrigation applied at a rate equivalent to about 2 mm d−1 (or 100 l palm−1 d−1) at intervals of up to one week. Irrigation increases female flower production and reduces premature nut fall. Basin irrigation, micro-sprinklers and drip irrigation are all suitable methods of applying water. Recommended methods of drought mitigation include the burial of husks in trenches adjacent to the plant, mulching and the application of common salt (chloride ions). An international approach to addressing the need for more information on water productivity is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents an institutional-historical perspective about the property rights dynamics and indigenous communities in highland Kerala, South India. Indigenous communities find themselves at the losing end of socio-economic changes taking place in diverse contexts of development and changes in property rights to land and related resources had adverse effects on their livelihoods, which are almost dependent on these resources and the ecosystems to which they belong. Moreover, it also discusses that the historical processes behind these changes have their economic, political, and cultural specifications.

This study analyses factors associated with the incidence of sterilization regret in the four south Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Using data from the National Family Health Surveys, in all four states the incidence of regret was found to be less than 10% and the factors significantly associated with it were child loss experience and quality of services. Hence, there is a need to improve the quality of services, both in terms of counselling and service provision, and women need to be counselled about the permanent nature of sterilization in order to avoid future regret. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documents the social impact of the forest and its biotic resources in the northernmost areas of the Indian state Kerala. Popular attitudes toward nature; Anthropological focus on local discourses about Kerala's forests; Historical overview of environmental discourses; Social agonism in the forests.

Life tables of birth intervals and median birth intervals in two Indian states, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, were computed for several subgroups of the study population. Multivariate hazards modelling technique was used to examine the net effect of each of the variables studied. The results show a substantial effect of socioeconomic variables in child-spacing after controlling for the major intermediate variables. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]