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E-learning plays a key role in an individual's mental growth and a nation's future in today's competitive world. Traditional learning is teacher-centered, and teaching the same subject well every time is tough. Traditional teaching approaches can't be used everywhere. By mitigating this flaw in traditional learning, E-learning becomes a potent weapon for intellectual progress and contributes to intellectual society. Traditional learning's high prices, set hours, and limited classroom access may be avoided through e-learning. People are India's major strength as the world's first and biggest democracy. E-Learning benefits these countries and plays a crucial role in establishing intellectual think tanks that can be utilised by the entire world for constant growth and an aggressive reaction to other nations' logical cultures. In this regard, a more focused approach has been considered on introducing new e-learning methodologies, priorities set for each methodology for easy e-learning, and upcoming technological trends in the field of elearning such as Mobile learning, Microlearning, Beacon learning, Internet of Things(IoT), Cloud-based e-learning, Gamification, and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the location of the principles of India's Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, in the country's most recent National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, and the documents leading up to the policy. It draws on the capability development approach and critical theory that facilitate understanding education as a fundamental right, moving beyond the narrow understanding of education as a mere instrument for the global economy. It also draws on global education policy literature and critical policy analysis lens to examine the assumed policy rationality. Based on a qualitative document analysis the paper argues that the policy does not demonstrate a commitment to the ideas of public-funded elementary education, child-centered democratic learning environment, and bridging the gap between equity and quality. The recommendations signal a further dilution of the RTE mandates. The policy statements and linguistic choices show an allegiance to neoliberal discourses reflecting the influence of global education policy transfer without systematic consideration of the realities of Indian school education. This approach indicates a missing link between the policy aims and social justice, that does not bode well on the educational rights of the marginalised children.

Well-being is realised through the interaction of the individual's desires and capacities, and external contexts. Contexts in postcolonial societies diverge from the assumptions of functioning liberal democratic states and capitalist economies often assumed in theories of schooling. Instead, these contexts are characterised by poverty and inequality, cultural diversity, and ongoing projects of state and nation-building. Through case studies of two rural communities in India and South Africa, this paper analyses the role of postcolonial contexts in shaping well-being opportunities through schooling in these contexts. It highlights the contested nature of this relationship in cultural, economic, and political spheres.

While right-wing attacks on the ideas of democracy and socialism in academia are a worldwide trend, in the remainder of the paper, I will focus on India, considered to be the largest democracy in the world. India has become a hotbed of right-wing politics, led by an authoritarian Hindu-nationalist government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). There are various reasons why this has happened which this paper will not discuss (Das, 2020a; Jaffrelot, 2021; Vanaik, 2017). Suffice to say that the BJP is the political wing of the fascistic paramilitary organization called RSS (or, National Volunteer Corps) which, in part inspired by European fascism, aims to build a Hindu nation where religious minorities can live only as second-class citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal 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.)

How do people in the world's largest democracy consume news online? In this paper, I aim to answer this question by conducting a quantitative assessment of the online news consumption behavior of a large sample of Indian internet users (N≈50,000) over a period of 45 months. In doing so, I contribute to theoretical debates about global news media use, by systematically appraising the prominence and trends in audience share of different types of news sources, thereby shedding light on the digital news consumption landscape of a crucial, but understudied context. Theoretically, I engage with the displacement-complementarity hypothesis and find no evidence that digital-born media have contested the hegemony of legacy media in India online. Next, I investigate the regional-national media divide and find that regional, vernacular media have suffered significant declines in their audience shares over time. This begs the question whether the notion of 'polycentrism' – the idea that the Indian media environment is comprised of national and regional media of equivalent weight – is at all applicable online as it is offline. These findings also run counter to claims of 'internet vernacularization' that have been touted in the past. Finally, I propose the concept of audience mobility, and use it to identify qualitatively distinct dynamics in how vernacular audiences in India have migrated to national vis-à-vis international outlets. The findings and their implications are discussed in light of contemporary changes in Indian society that is characterized by rapid digitization and increasing literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"This research paper investigates the profound claim of India as nation having cooperative federalism. The most striking feature of Indian federalism is the concentration of power at the central level as well as the decentralization of certain powers to provincial units. Nehru envisioned a cooperative federalism for India's government structure, which postulates a multifaceted mechanism to maintain its territorial integrity as well as its democratic and plural character. The federal arrangement is constitutionally protected, and certain subjects, areas, and residuary powers are predominated by the union. The contentious issue of present discourse is whether India's cooperative federalism exists or lost its distinctiveness. The main task of this research paper is to examine how the politics has endangered the core tenets of Indian federalism thereby pushed the nation into totalitarian or majoritarian state. The massive abuse of the authorities, institutions and repeated dents to fiscal federalism are the area of concern. The main political battle is not about who is supreme-central government or regional government but whether Nehruvian model of cooperative federalism will survive or not. The regional government have been struggling to have equitable share in the resources, finance, and legislations. Many regional governments have steadily outspoken on the subject of undermining their power and central government authoritarianism. The tribulation journey of Indian federalism from cooperative to confrontationist poses serious questions about the future of Indian federalism and what would be the future of many territories, states, and centrally administered regions in India if this confrontationist approach continues. The primary base of the present research is to critically examine the political development of last few years and how these events have undermined the constitutional ethos apart from crisis of federalism". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Mahatma Gandhi said that "the greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated", he clearly implied that equality must exist between the evolved animals, i.e. Humans and the rest of the animal clan. Humans have always adamantly self-proclaimed themselves as the 'superior' species, granting to themselves an authority to govern the rest, backed by a well-drafted constitution. While it is undeniable that a democratic society ensures fundamental rights to its citizens, a more civilized and sensitive one does not shy away from extending the same to its animals, too. The Apex Court of India in 2011 broke all barriers and differences in the famous Jallikattu case, whereby it brought animals under the ambit of the right to life guaranteed under Art. 21 of the Indian Constitution. While now this fundamental right has been constitutionally guaranteed to animals to live with dignity, a pertinent question to be asked is, does the right also encompass the right to die. The Supreme Court, in the case of Aruna Shanbaug, did declare that passive euthanasia is legal in India, thus bestowing the scope of passively ending the life of a terminally ill patient. Considering that animals may also very much be under the same circumstances, is this right of passive euthanasia applicable to them as well. This paper will thus dwell into analyzing the current scenario in India pertaining to euthanasia of ailing and terminally ill animals, the legal provision & judicial precedents worldwide on the issue and the moral rationale behind the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan and India are the two oldest and largest democracies in Asia. Since the inception of their diplomatic relations in 1952, the two countries have maintained a cordial relationship. They remain aloof during the Cold War period due to their ideological differences. After that, India following the economic liberalization followed by the "Look East" policy in the post-Cold War period had a positive impact on bilateral relations. This took a sudden gap due to India's second Pokhran nuclear test in 1998 followed by Japanese economic sanctions. However, the relations normalized soon when Mori visited India along with other South Asian nations in 2000. The bilateral relations further improved when the two countries signed the "strategic orientation of Japan-India global partnership" during Koizumi's visit in 2005. Since then, the two countries have been engaging in different aspects of strategic partnership, and a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific along with the "rule-based order" has always been their priority. Thus, different scholars and statesmen from both countries started the discussion on building a new architecture of 'rule-based order' in the Indo-Pacific. To that end, Japan and India have continuously engaged themselves in bilateral and multilateral dialogue such as G4, Shangri-La Dialogue and Quad. Thus, this paper will try to see how far the two countries can persuade the international community to push the concept of "rule-based order" in the Indo-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades, several grassroots movement organisations across the world have tackled the issue of corruption with the aim of mobilising knowledge on this widespread problem. In our paper, we look at three bottom-up civil society organisations and collective actors fighting for greater transparency and curbing of corruption in Indian society, highlighting how they employ visuals to debate on these issues and to communicate their mission to their audiences. The focus is on how the initiatives employed visuals to discuss a particular anti-corruption policy of the central government. In particular, our paper sheds light on the dynamics between the three initiatives and the government especially at a time when democratic credentials of the country are in decline. Inspired by Rodriguez and Dimitrova's four levels of visual framing, we propose a revised schema for visual framing analysis, taking into account contextual dimensions, in our study of visuals as tools enhancing public debates on corruption and anti-corruption practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the multi-layered nature of electoral violence in India. At one level, the violence behaves like a barrier by excluding certain actors from political participation. At another level the violence functions like a filter - recognising, accentuating, or by creating social meanings that have electoral implications. Hence, instead of looking exclusively at its strategic, structural, or cultural dimensions, this paper looks at the simultaneous performance of electoral violence as a social process, a political strategy, and an institutional behaviour. To demonstrate the non-autonomous character of each of these levels, this article explores the limitations of using communal violence as an electoral strategy, highlights the unintended effects of securitization on voter turnout and political competition, and probes into the various unequal social structures that reproduce violent elections in India. It also offers an alternative perspective to studying electoral violence by looking at its historical development vis-à-vis the radicalisation of a society's political culture. On the basis of this multidimensional analysis, the paper concludes that electoral violence can be structurally induced by even well-consolidated electoral institutions and thus, cannot be regarded as simply a breakdown of democratic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With back to back electoral mandates to govern the country in national election to elect 16th and 17th Lok Sabha(lower house of Indian Parliament), in 2014 and 2019, Bharatiya Janata Party(B.J.P) bagging 282 seats and 303 seats out of total 545 seats respectively, seems unstoppable with main opposition political party Indian National Congress in doldrums due to organizational leadership issues. As such contemporary Indian politics presents a uni-multiparty period with narrative of B.J.P domination (from electoral to social space having a tinge of Hindutva[monolithic narrative on path of religion and community) and singularities of resistances to it. In this time of structural domination, political parties in India are grappling to find a balanced practical political position to correct this skewed power distribution scenario. In this context 'Dange-line' of united front tactics against right reactionary fascist political force propagated by Sripad Amrit Dange, yesteryear stalwart of Communist Party of India, in early 1970s, can be reinterpreted to nurture liberal-left-secular space which is under considerable strain in contemporary Indian democracy. Going beyond mainstream analysis of Dange-line within leftist framework of revisionism, this paper argues that it offers an indigenous eclectic political line of practical politics, soaked in ideas of nationalism, socialism and secularism. This paper tries to question the marginalistion of discussion on Dange-line in Indian left and non-left political historiography discourse and views it as a 'other' voice (disensus) of Indian left which is more open-ended, context specific and based on nationalism-socialism-secularism triad. The paper concludes by arguing that in contemporary opposition space of Indian democracy, Dange-line is an open choice for any political party (left or non-left) committed to ideals of justice, plurality, dialogue, rights, socialism, nationalism and secularism and before 2024 national election commitment to Dange-line (universal / mass) or to Party line (specific identity-oriented) will direct the tone and texture of Indian politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, the world's largest democracy, the right to express dissenting opinions has come under increasing pressure due to governmental reactions to violent and non-violent activities and opposition. As well as direct suppression, a concerning trend has arisen whereby individuals and groups may choose to self-censor rather than risk the consequences of speaking out. These outcomes are related in this paper to the treatment of social media, where official policies and laws regulate and censor content on social media on the dubious basis that it is 'offensive' or 'objectionable'. These restraints often lack clear guidelines and are applied arbitrarily, leading to a chilling effect on free speech and the expression of dissenting views. Furthermore, India lacks a comprehensive legal framework to address hate speech, resulting in a patchwork of provisions within the Indian Penal Code that inadequately define and circumscribe hate speech. This article contends that the 'freedom to criticise' should be legally better protected to ensure that diverse opinions can be safely held and expressed in order to maintain and reflect the pluralistic nature of Indian democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper examines the evolution, impact, and potential trajectory of regional political parties within India's dynamic political landscape. Through an exploration of their historical origins, electoral significance, and policy priorities, the paper sheds light on the substantial role these parties have played in shaping both state and national governance. By delving into their historical roots, electoral strategies, and evolving policy agendas, this study illuminates the intricate interplay between regional and national politics, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities these parties face in the context of India's diverse political fabric. Ultimately, this research underscores the importance of regional parties as pivotal actors in India's democratic journey, with implications that extend into the future of governance in the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed a significant inner transformation among political parties in both developed and developing democracies of the world. Different factors, such as changes in the structure of the media environment owing to the technological boom in the last two decades and changes in voting behavior, led to the transformation of the political parties in different democracies worldwide. Therefore, studying the patterns of this transformation has become an integral part of the current political science research. Early studies have demonstrated the indexes based on professionalization. However, limited studies have tried to examine the process of transformation relating to professionalization and are almost missing from the studies based on non-western democracies like India. Therefore, against this backdrop, this study tries to expand the literature by providing a theoretical framework consisting of causal mechanisms which would explain the process of professionalization of campaigns with special reference to Indian elections through the theory testing method of process tracing. The framework has been provided in a series of causal mechanisms to answer how the considered individual variables react when they come in contact. This paper concludes by justifying the conceptual framework of professionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'doctrine of pleasure,' as enshrined in the Indian Constitution, has its roots in the unfettered feudal system. In a feudal setup, the crown has absolute power; on the other hand, in a democratic setup, there cannot be anything unfettered, arbitrary, and irrational. The pleasure doctrine and its interpretation are alien to a democratic society as it grants power to the holder to act whimsically. This paper focuses on the precarious interpretation of the doctrine of pleasure in India with reference to gubernatorial power. In recent times, various political parties in power at the center have misused the office of Governor for political gains, which negates the very spirit of the Indian Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the associations between democratic performance, secular--traditional value orientation, and satisfaction with democracy in India and Pakistan through the lens of democratic performance and modernization theory. In an analysis of data from the 2012 World Values Survey, respect for human rights (one of two measures of democratic performance) has a stronger effect on satisfaction with democracy in India than in Pakistan. Freedom of choice influenced satisfaction with democracy only in India. Rather than having a direct effect, secular--traditional value orientation moderates the relationship between freedom of choice and satisfaction with democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Freedom of the press is a precious privilege that no country can forego. But if there is, as there should be, no legislative check save that of the mildest character, an internal, check such as I have suggested should not be impossible and ought not to be resented."-M. K. Gandhi. In a vibrant democracy like India, the media is considered as fourth pillar of democracy. The primary objective of media is to make the people aware about the society and the issue prevalent in it. Therefore, it becomes extremely important that media should conduct their activities in a more responsible manner and they should avoid presenting biased opinions. It is also the responsibility of media to avoid the practice of yellow journalism. In order to make media as an independent body, the concept of self-regulation is being adopted in India. However, present scenario clearly shows that the self-regulation has failed to make any significant mark and to avoid the misuse of media. With the emergence of technology, the face of media has changed significantly with the time. Today is an era of technology and media being not untouched from the impact of technological advancement that led to the new vertical of media i.e. Digital Media Platforms. Digital Media Platforms has enormous power to influence the mind of millions of people as these platforms can share the content instantly. Instances of fake news inciting communal violence are very common. Hence, there is a demand for controlling the media. However, the advocates of free media feel that an independent media is a sine qua non for a sustainable democracy whereas others feels that any institution with unbridled freedom will lead to the creation of a Frankenstein monster. Thus, a combination of statutory and self-regulating bodies is the best way to protect the freedom of the content across all media, where India has made a start and still has a long way to go. This paper attempts to examine the existing legal framework that applies to various broadcast technologies that are currently in use in India and presents a critique of existing legal framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades, universities in India have witnessed the joining of a record number of students from marginalized communities and oftentimes struggle. This expansion of access has brought about changes within classrooms and college campuses, sometimes giving rise to contention and causing numerous conflicts as well. Centered around my experiences of teaching in a working-class college in Bangalore, a metropolitan city in Southern India, this paper offers reflections on education in challenging circumstances. Further, the essay explores the possibilities of democratic pedagogic practices through the theoretical framework of Maitri. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to theorise the labour and corporeal carcerability of the non-citizen non-subjects in contemporary democracies of the United States and India. I reappropriate Joy James' framework of 'Captive Maternals' to understand the relationality between the undocumented, racialised, or incarcerated with the neo-liberal states that they inhabit and serve but where they do not belong. James describes Captive Maternals as those bodies subject to consumption by the democratic order in the tradition of slavery. I expand upon her framework to argue that the dehumanisation of illegal 'aliens' and racially policed bodies not only challenges the notion of freedom in the modern democratic social organisation but rather manifests the fundamental correlation between democratic sovereignty and its exclusionary violence. This phenomenon internal to the workings of democracies challenges Hegel's idealisation of the modern rational state as the most advanced form of government characterised primarily by freedom. Democracy also constitutes the exercise of necropolitical sovereignty which I interpret not as the right to kill but as the right to police and incarcerate. Against the Hegelian struggle for recognition (Anerkennung), I deliberate on the possibility of transcending to a less than fully-determined Sittlichkeit that does not rely upon reciprocal recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains and corroborates the mechanisms by which civic and political spaces opposed to Hindu nationalism have been attacked, especially after the arrival of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in 2014. Three mechanisms are discerned for replacing pluralistic values with Hindu majoritarian ones. Sometimes institutions are just allowed to drift by interpreting old rules in new ways. For example, no formal rules for media control have changed but the government's control over media has increased substantially. At other times, incremental legal and policy changes are executed to make the change explicit, often building on a new moral purpose. To give another example, the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) was amended and weaponized against NGOs in a layered way in 2020. Finally, when political opposition is weak, institutions that have provided guarantees for protecting diversity have simply been displaced by new and radically different ones. This was the case with abrogating Article 370, which converted the special status of the subnational state of Jammu and Kashmir to the status of two federally administered union territories--Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. These mechanisms place India in a competitive authoritarian frame, where those in power deploy electoral majorities to systematically attack the political opposition, making it more di(cult for it to rise. Despite these propensities, opposition parties have won elections in some of India's subnational states. The challenges facing the world's most populous democracy are significant, even though competitive elements co-exist. These elements in a competitive authoritarian regime, however, are under severe stress. India's democratic credentials can be revived only if the competitive elements of India's democracy stand united against ethno-nationalist Hindu majoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1991 India embarked on far-reaching economic, financial and regulatory reforms, which led to not only a surge in economic growth, but also spurred scholarly interest in Indian firms, their strategies, and their business environment. As it has been almost three decades since the reforms were initiated, we believe that it is an appropriate time to take stock of the research on strategic management in the Indian setting. Our scoping review finds three dominant themes in extant research: impact of environment (specifically liberalization) on firms, strategies of firms, and the different ownership structures of firms. We discuss the key findings within these domains and identify the theories and methods that scholars have used to address their research questions. We assert that the unique Indian context — a mix of public and private economy operating within a democratic system — provides a rich environment for not only testing existing theories in strategic management but also generating new theories. We conclude by identifying several important areas of research and urging strategy scholars to engage with the opportunities offered by the evolving Indian business environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Indian democracy, reservation policy is one of the major tools to reaffirm and develop right to equality as guaranteed, by the Constitution, to all the citizens of India and, in a way, to uplift the weaker and deprived sections of the society. But, due to its wrong interpretation and implementation in the present scenario, it is continuously creating a new type of disadvantaged and disheartened group in Indian society. Hence, the research paper tries to explore poetic expressions of a few contemporary Hindi poets for understanding the present form of reservation policy and its resultant effects on nation-building and nation-branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the Swedish policy institute V-Dem, India, the world's largest democracy, has 'turned into an electoral autocracy'. This paper illuminates the links between human rights and democracy. It outlines the evolution of constitutionally guaranteed rights in India from 1947 to the present, identifying and analysing the various ways in they are violated. The author argues that violation of human rights is anti-democratic, and calls for adherence to, and provision of, constitutionally guaranteed rights to prevent the ongoing erosion of Indian democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the Indian media, delving into the making and maintenance of the laws, practices, freedoms, and regulations that govern it. Focusing specifically on the Emergency and its aftermath, it demonstrates how the Indian media is often made to accommodate political agendas and commercial interests. The author argues that present-day Indian media is worse off than it was during the Emergency, providing an overview of the various reasons because of which it is facing a crisis of credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explain the concept of majoritarianism that is currently commonly used in the context of Indian politics. It also attempts to make sense of available empirical data that suggests a considerable presence of majoritarianism in India and, on that basis, discusses the implications of the diffuse nature of the majoritarian tendency. The paper argues that the diffuse nature of majoritarianism portends the possibility of democratic distortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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 de-focalisation of reporting and the focalisation of post-truth ideology is antithetical to the tenets of democracy. It reverts to the traditional centralised propagation of one truth, one reality, and one perspective while contracting, negating, or antagonising the possibility of alternative and parallel narratives. The right wing has created a narrative of suspicion, which is based on the conviction that anything deviating from the traditional cultural patterns is a contamination of the ethos of one's own native values, a deviation from the nativity, and hence an influence that needs to be disposed of. The ongoing Covid pandemic has magnified the narrative of post-truth through the use of sensationalism as an effective modus operandi. The blinding of the truth is rampant as news outlets are being guarded by right-wing gatekeepers and sensationalism is used to reflect the surging emotions of a public already gripped by a precarious reality. This paper examines the three primary and seemingly independent threats to democracy during the pandemic in India: de-focalisation of reporting, coerced homogeneity based on religion and language, and sensationalism. It addresses the question of how adversity is turned into a breeding ground for demagoguery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity and commonality of today's local and global challenges, such as achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, deepening democratic governance, preventing violent conflict, or tackling terrorism, is a poignant reminder of our increasing interdependence and the distant future of equity. Much like other nations, India is experiencing and resisting each of these. Since 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, the contours of these experiences and resistances are marked by somewhat centralised and authoritarian stakes imbued in an 'emotional force'. The emotional force is rooted in values of Hindutva 2 which has a precise type of ideological construction of how India, its people, and the Indian democracy should be. There is a conspicuous dualism and chauvinism in the imagined democracy. This imagination derives and delivers the 'new democracy' which is inextricably grounded in the majoritarian-populist politics. Bearing this in mind, this paper aims to unpack and understand the way democracy and dialogue, or the lack of it, shapes the everyday experience, while using some pertinent examples to typify the discourse. We find that democracy is challenged, but questioning its meaning is wrought with grim complexity and tensions. The author takes stock of an ongoing event to demonstrate that democracy and dialogue are becoming provisional and desultory tools in the larger scheme of things in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of 40,000 tweets that trended after the Tarun Tejpal acquittal in India showed that the nature of the debate around issues of molestation and rape exhibited attributes of deliberation and demonstrated that Twitter in India, in certain cases, has strong potential to emerge as a space for deliberative feminist activism. Discussions gave impetus to advocacy around sexual molestation. While the word "victim" was used in more instances rather than the human rights–based term "survivor," Twitter debates were supportive toward survivors of assault. There was minimum trolling and patriarchy was called out as was a legal system that sided with the influential man of power. Although city-bred English-speaking voices dominated, conversations were intersectional in nature acknowledging how the horror of physical assault was perceived by different women belonging to disparate socio-economic strata and how legal systems exacerbated gender related crimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in the most parts of the world, India of today also is governed and determined by a socioeconomic order where the profit is privatized, while the cost is socialized. The world has been witnessing a vulgar polarization of wealth in favor of a few privileged with a vast majority of the populace getting pushed into the deeper ends of poverty and destitution. India is traversing this trajectory, more aggressively in the last couple of decades, since she opened up her economy to the forces of neo-liberalization. The worsening economic conditions would obviously trigger unrest and anger against those in power, and the ruling class in turn pre-empt the possibility of any such upraising by preoccupying the mass with emotionally charged divisive issues that pit them against one another. "Nationalism" has always been one of the most effective "emotional tools" in the hands of the rightist forces world over in the past in their efforts to ward off mass resistance, and now it is India's turn to endure the enactment of the same. While capitalism is tightly preserving the economic structure that enables amassment of wealth for a few, fascism in the hands of the ultra-nationalists is acting as its gatekeeper to ensure that dispossessed do not gatecrash, revolt, and thrash the capitalist castle. The privileged work overtime to divide the very forces that could form a threat to their economic fortunes and system of loot. This paper is a detailed commentary on how the above said process is currently operating and how it is weakening the democracy, diversity, and sustainable development in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian mass media has a glorious history of its presence from the time of Indian freedom struggle against the British rule. It has a unique record of its growth and development journey in India. The fundamental objective of mass media is to inform, educate, and alert the citizens of a country, and further bridging the gap between the government and public by way of sharing their perspectives, moods and opinions with each other. People participation in governmental activity is very essential in a democratic country. Today's mass media has moved towards the path of commercialization against its original path of serving society by way of raising the voice of public to the policymakers and politicians so as to protect their right, respect, and recognition. Under the present study, it has been attempted to expose the underlying reality and implications of the rampant commercialization of Indian mass media on its credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can greater inclusion in democracy for historically disadvantaged groups reduce rebel violence? Democracy-building is a common tool in counterinsurgencies and post-conflict states, yet existing scholarship has faced obstacles in measuring the independent effect of democratic reforms. We evaluate whether quotas for Scheduled Tribes in local councils reduced rebel violence in Chhattisgarh, an Indian state featuring high-intensity Maoist insurgent activity. These quotas did not originate as a counterinsurgency technique, but instead as an effort to address the longstanding political marginalization of India's Scheduled Tribes. We employ a geographic regression discontinuity design to study the wartime effects of quotas implemented in Chhattisgarh, finding that reservations reduced Maoist violence in the state. Exploratory analyses of mechanisms suggest that reservations reduced violence by bringing local elected officials closer to state security forces, providing a windfall of valuable information to counterinsurgents. Our study shows that institutional engineering, like reforms to create more inclusive representative democracy, can shape the trajectory of insurgent violence. Institutional engineering creating more inclusive representative democracy during an ongoing conflict can affect the political economy of information sharing in civil war and, ultimately, affect the trajectory of insurgent violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has witnessed the dominance of a plethora of political dynasties, both at the national as well as the state level, since independence. The post-colonial Indian state adopted a liberal constitutional democracy premised upon modern representative institutions. However, the primordial principle of hereditary succession of power resiliently co-existed in the form of powerful political families that have continued to impact the nature of Indian democratic political discourse till today. The political parties are an instrumental driver of political life in all modern representative democracies including India. Hence, it is crucial to study how the Indian party system has consolidated the prominence of political dynasties especially from the 1970s onwards, in the realm of both party organisation and the representative institutions. In this context, the article attempts to problematise the nature of dynastic politics in India and offers a framework to analyse the causes of its dominance to understand how it impacts the right to equal political opportunity and electoral competitiveness. The article makes three arguments. First, to better understand the amorphous nature of dynastic politics, two elements – dynastic representation in elected institutions and dynasty-led parties – need to be studied distinctively, despite some commonalities. Second, dynastic representation is largely ubiquitous in most political parties (in both dynasty-led and non-dynasty-led parties) due to the party's preference for legacy candidates and their higher chances of electoral winnability. Third, the article offers two typologies of dynasty-led parties, explaining why the dynasties' grip over their parties, particularly in recent times, appears to be mostly performance-immune and in what circumstances some dynasty-led parties not only perform better in electoral contests than others but also face tough competition for retaining their dynastic control over the party. Lastly, the article concludes with some reflections on how dynastic representation and dynasty-led parties impact the form and substance of the Indian party system and democratic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hindutva is an extreme-wing policy, it’s grounded in Hindu religious and nationalist beliefs. It considers Muslims and Christians as ‘others’, and it rejuvenates its own Hindu religious myths. Under the BJP reign, the meteoric rise of Hindu nationalism has jolted India’s secular democracy and pushed India out of its secular federative lines. Their policies are deified under the ideology of RSS, the rightists desire to assert a Hindu Rashtra, under a Hindu rigid constitution. It has given rise to religious violence and divergence from the actual roots of Hinduism. The saffronization movement had cost severe damage to its multi-faith society and secular diversity. The study is historical in nature, it follows a qualitative research approach and with a focus on the descriptive method. It further addresses the political implications of Hindutva in India, following the extremist policies of BJP during Mod’s regime, and it also sheds light on the politicization of religion for greater political gain, under which India’s democracy has declined to electoral autocracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Politics is dirty' is a truism, a taken-for-granted reality in much of the world, particularly in India. Its implications are likewise seen as inescapable. Scholarship examining women's political underrepresentation often cites the 'dirty' nature of democratic politics as a key disincentive for women to participate. While not disputing that politics is, in some respects, 'dirty', I question the mechanisms through which it is said to hinder women's political representation. Drawing upon ethnographic research with female party workers and elected municipal councillors in Dehradun, North India, I analyse how 'dirty politics' positions women as 'out of place' within the political realm. While both men and women engage in acts of political care, men can more easily transgress the boundaries between them, straddling both 'dirty politics' and a 'politics of care'. This production of the 'political' as a realm unsuitable for women or mismatched with their activities, is one factor contributing to the underrepresentation of women in politics in South Asia, and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing how democracy varies within countries is paramount to the subnational turn in comparative politics. Despite recent contributions, we still lack a comparable measure of democracy for provinces inside countries. To overcome this limitation, I present the Index of Subnational Electoral Democracy (ISED), a measure that tracks the electoral dimension of democracy across the provinces of nine Latin American countries, the United States, Canada, and India for a period of roughly 40 years, making it the largest dataset on subnational regime outcomes to date. I then use the ISED to assess the democratic trajectories of Argentinian, Brazilian, Mexican, and Indian states, revealing that: 1) Indian provinces have been, on average, more democratic than their Latin American counterparts. 2) The relative position of provincial regimes within these countries has been remarkably stable over time. 3) Most subnational units in the Americas have had "low intensity" regimes. 4) Subnational regime hybridity has been the norm rather than the exception, and that 5) for the Latin American cases under consideration, democracy and development are positively connected at the local level. I conclude by outlining the ISED's research applications and reflecting on the implications of these five conclusions for future research on subnational democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The welfare state, once seen as the best institutional response to people in need, has steadily come under pressure, as much from shrinking state capacities as from neo-liberal advocates of individual responsibility. Still, despite decline of the post-war consensus on the efficacy of the welfare state, social 'vulnerability' still remains the key focus of public policy. However, though much in use in contemporary political discourse, the logical and practical implications of social vulnerability remain unclear. Its essential subjectivity – it is the 'feeling of vulnerability' which makes one vulnerable – turns the concept into a catch-all variable, impeding rigorous theoretical and empirical analysis. I respond to this problem with a 'vulnerability-responsibility', model. Its parameters include a 'responsive' state, an active civil society and a participatory political environment, bolstered by the assertion of agency of the vulnerable. With India as an empirical exemplar, the essay shows how 'nested' vulnerability – a community of pro-active citizens in need of urgent and vital assistance - in the backdrop of a responsive state and competitive, robust and resilient political participation, can generate a sustainable, context-relevant process to cope with the problem of social vulnerability. The model, currently aimed at vulnerable citizens in a democratic state, has the potential of being extended to non-democracies as well as vulnerable non-citizens into its domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are anti-defection laws efficient? Many parliamentary democracies have enacted anti-defection laws to prevent frequent government collapses and political instability. Using the anti-defection law in India as a reference, I argue that the party-based anti-defection laws enacted in many Westminster-style Parliamentary democracies do not achieve their goals, yet drastically impact representative decision-making. I show how the entitlements and protections granted by anti-defection laws to political parties and legislators do not achieve the purpose of maintaining government stability and suggest two options to improve it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral violence is perpetrated by anti-systemic actors opposed to the democratic system, as well as by those vying for power through the electoral process. Even though the motivations for violent tactics are distinct, we do not know whether intra- and anti-systemic violence differ in their effects. Focusing on state-level elections in India – a country that combines nationwide elections with persistent political violence – we demonstrate that the distinction is crucial for understanding spatial patterns of electoral violence and effects on election outcomes. Based on an original dataset of violence in legislative assembly elections between 1985 and 2008, we show that both tactics depress turnout overall but that the effect is larger for anti-systemic violence. Intra-systemic violence not only appears to be more selectively targeted, as it is more likely to occur in constituencies where the incumbent belongs to the state-level opposition, but also generates electoral benefits for the party in control of state government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article explores the challenges India faces in upholding its aspiration of becoming a democratic world leader while holding the G20 presidency, given its nonchalant approach toward the erosion of democracy in Myanmar. Despite claiming to be the "mother of democracy," India's indifference toward the ongoing civil war in Myanmar and the increasing proximity of its military leaders with China contradicts its aspirations of becoming a world leader. As India marches toward fulfilling its role as a democratic global power, persistent violent attacks on democracy and rule of law in its eastern neighborhood pose a direct threat to its strategic and economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region. The article sheds light on the implications of the military rule in Myanmar for India during its G20 presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the (contested) concept of political representation in Urdu during the colonial period to address "deceptive familiarities" and highlight multilingual and transnational influences on contemporary Indian Muslim claims. Drawing on official documents, letters, speeches, and newspapers from the late 1850s to 1919, it argues that the "politics of presence"—or descriptive representation—of "Old Party" leaders stemmed from their aristocratic concept of representation as trusteeship (wakālat). Despite changes in terminology, the concept was only challenged in the 1910s by the "Young Party" and by the embracing of democratic values. Conceptual change was then materialized by the appropriation of the Persian numā'indagī in Urdu—a term that might have consecutively accredited descriptive claims and the use of religious symbols in election campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotions and sentiments are central to explanations of how actual living democracies work, that is, the sustaining and reconfiguring of practices, relations and common-senses that constitute them. Elections are moments of heightened emotions, when democracy breathes life into the streets and pulses through people's veins. While studies in anthropology and political science have shed light on the ways that voters are recruited by and experience the passionate and sensuous elements of elections, and democracies more broadly, the emotions of candidates and the politicians they become have largely escaped scrutiny. The value of an emotionally attuned reading of elections is demonstrated through the narratives of women candidates in Dehradun's municipal elections in North India. The ways candidates feel, and in the process make democracy, illuminate unrecognised factors in the shaping of the political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of the global terrestrial biodiversity occurs on indigenous lands, and biodiversity decline on these lands is relatively slower. Yet, robust understanding of indigenous governance systems for biodiversity and ecosystem services remains a key knowledge gap. We used the socio-ecological systems framework to study the governance of ecosystem services (ES) by an indigenous community in the Village of Kibber in the Trans-Himalayan Mountains of India. Focusing on plant-biomass removal from communal pastures, we identified the main factors shaping local governance using in-depth focal and deliberative group discussions with community members. Notwithstanding inequities of caste and gender, we found that Kibber had a well-functioning, complex, relatively democratic and inclusive system, with all households of the village involved in decision-making related to ES governance. Robust systems of information sharing, monitoring, conflict resolution, and self-organization played an important role. We found the role of institutional memory sustained by the oracle to be critical in maintaining governance structures. Our work underscores the potential resilience and importance of indigenous systems for the governance of ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Indian sedition law laid out in Section 124(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which criminalises expression of disaffection towards the government. It analyses the functions of the sedition law in colonial and constitutional India. Rather than taking a legal approach to examine whether the sedition law is inimical to democracy, this socio-legal analysis studies the media and political discourse around sedition cases to evoke an underlying pattern of the use of the law across time and political regimes. It reveals how the law has been used in contemporary India to weave a narrative of the nation-state and national interests, often pitted against human rights and individual liberties. It goes on to argue that in post-colonial India, the law has simultaneously been critical in building a binding national identity while also enabling nationalism to be used as a political instrument that can subversively monitor and discipline citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the welfare state often examines social policies in democratic regimes separately from social policies in authoritarian regimes. Two bodies of research have emerged, as the extant literature views these political systems as sufficiently distinct to merit the division of analysis. In this article, we challenge the existing approach by showing that differing regime types can indeed be analysed together. By looking for patterns of similarities, rather than differences, we bring the two literatures into conversation and show how a common factor can trigger social policy expansion in both regime types. Using case studies of India and China, the two most populous democratic and authoritarian regimes, this article illustrates how the expansion of policies that serve low-income groups – India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREGA) and China's Minimum Livelihood Guarantee Scheme (dibao) – were both prompted by social mobilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic voting is thought to underlie Duverger's Law and lead to two-party outcomes in single-member district plurality (SMDP) systems. We examine the extent of strategic voting in the world's most populous democracy, India, where frequent exceptions to Duverger's Law have long puzzled political scientists. Using an original voter survey from the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state election, we find extremely low rates of strategic voting. Why? We show that the vast majority of respondents believe that their preferred party is likely to win in their constituency. For most voters, their partisan preferences overwhelmingly predict their beliefs about which party will win. Their election forecasts correspond to objective electoral outcomes only with respect to parties that they like less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The members of the Miya community in Assam, India have been facing an exacerbated threat of statelessness. Among the emancipatory grassroots organizations that have emerged to defend the rights of the Miya community, is an aesthetic resistance movement, now recognized as the 'Miya Poetry' movement. The bulk of the movement's work since its emergence in 2016 has been to call attention to the discriminations and human rights violations faced by the Miya people in citizenship contestation processes. Miya poetry has, on the one hand, received wide acceptance as a poetry of protest and resistance in artistic, academic, and liberal media circles, while on the other, its contributors have been frequently criminalized or questioned by the state for their political views. In this article, we argue that Miya poetry should be looked at beyond the frames of resistance and protest in order to understand its social work as a human-rights movement. These poems have the affective capacity to build resilience, to facilitate complex understandings of difference, and to reimagine equality, democratic values, and freedom from forced assimilation as integral to the idea of citizenship. We used innovative methods to form our data corpus, combining life history interviews with analyses of selected poems. We deployed thematic analysis to report our results. The findings will be useful not only for the poets and artists of different genres who seek to defend human rights, but more broadly for global human-rights practices that wish to actuate a deeper reflective engagement with art-based activisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]