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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]

India is home to a large number of tribal or Adivasi communities. Particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) are one among them. The Indian state initiated several development programs in its affirmative action to benefit PVTGs. However, these initiatives have shown some effects on the ground, still a long way to go. After globalization, a lot of studies claim and argue that the state is slowly withdrawing from its agenda and encouraging multinational companies or corporations (MNCs) to take its role. The MNCs have started their operations by extracting resources without helping Adivasi communities. It led to large-scale protests by the tribal people and civil society organizations. The paper critically discusses development initiatives of the post-independent state to ameliorate the conditions of the PVTGs as part of their affirmative action policies. Furthermore, the paper draws inferences from secondary data sources collected from published and unpublished sources, documents, reports, and online sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses illustrations from rural India and Bangladesh to develop a critical analysis of practices and experiences of poverty often overlooked in development policies. It challenges the principle measurement, calculative rationality and static representation in anti-poverty interventions that present poverty as a 'problem' to be resolved. It draws on poststructuralist ideas to express poverty differently and shift from problem-solving to problematisation. Drawing on the concept of 'rhizome' it highlights the connectivity, heterogeneity and multiplicity of poverty. Examples from interviews and photo diaries illustrate manifold poverty as a combination of heterogeneous activities, objects and affects that complicate development ethics and challenge the logic of reason in existing policies. The paper explores improvisation, experimentation, hope and repetition as mechanisms for critically evaluating aquaculture-led development and attending to overlooked objects, uncertain outcomes and untold stories of disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory forms of policy-making have often been criticized for insufficiently theorizing the coproduction of publics and matters of concern. This paper seeks to investigate this relationship further by analyzing how the concept of civic epistemologies (CEs) can provide insights for understanding how political contexts shape both publics and contestable debates. Presenting fieldwork on cyclone governance in Odisha, India, based on the analysis of interviews with vulnerable fishing communities and state actors, the article shows how CEs influence the interdependent formation of vulnerable fisher and state subjectivities on one hand with representations of risk located in external biophysical atmospheric gases on the other, thereby sustaining reductive roles and futures. At the same time, the paper develops the concept of CEs by examining them as performative acts carried out by marginalized communities and state actors at the subnational level of a nonindustrialized country, thereby indicating sites at which epistemic agency can be increased and governed. Participatory knowledge production needs to understand how it is affected by CEs if it is to generate effective expertise for transformative futures in the face of increasing climatic risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and manufacturing of energy storage system (ESS) are essential for human society development. India has made significant efforts to improve its energy storage infrastructure. The main elements for energy storage development are batteries i.e., lithium-ion batteries (LIB), lithium air batteries, etc. and supercapacitors. As the lithium resources are specifically located in China, Japan, USA, and Chile, to reduce the dependency on these countries for lithium-ion battery, India must think about alternative material. Sodium-ion battery (SIB) is at the forefront of the development, and it aims at providing low-cost devices less affected to resources. This review paper addresses the fundamental principles, structure and focused on the components of sodium-ion battery. This paper also helps to address the electrolytes used in sodium-ion battery with their design and modelling. Current research and future directions has been discussed in this article for sodium-ion batteries. [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]

There is growing evidence of ride-hailing platforms' adverse impact on drivers. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of drivers continue to work on these platforms. Why? The key contribution of this paper is to show that workers in technology-mediated labour markets come to be increasingly dependent on the technology-provider in order to connect with the customers. As more and more customers choose to get various tasks done via intermediary platforms, for workers who perform such tasks for a living, this translates into growing dependencies on these infrastructuralized platforms for their livelihoods and thus increased vulnerabilities to the impact of platform design and policies. These 'new dependencies', therefore, make it critical for us not to conflate workers' continued use of platforms with their experiencing benefits. By drawing upon a qualitative study with auto-rickshaw drivers using Ola, a ride-hailing platform similar to Uber in India, the paper shows that a consequence of 'new dependencies' for drivers is that they are stuck 'between a rock and a hard place' whereby: a) on the one hand, the platform design heightens their precarity, provides them with little benefit, and often leads to tensions with customers, b) on the other, a shift of more and more customers from street-hailing to app-based hailing over time exacerbates dependencies for drivers on these very platforms, leaving them with little choice but to continue to use them for work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper engages with the world of outdoor election campaign materials (posters, banners and billboards) and their ways of establishing developmental truths during India's general election of 2019. Offering a content analysis as well as their discursive production, the paper seeks to understand how these materials commissioned by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are loaded with development metaphors even while differing from each other in the conception and delivery of development. Contrary to the commonly held belief that posters and banners are the prehistory of election campaigning, it is proposed that they are more democratic and participatory, and so a treasure trove of developmental meaning-making. Going beyond the delivery of messages through the textual and pictorial elements of visual materials, it is also proposed that their presence and abundance signify in ways not easily appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young caste‐class privileged gender justice workers in Delhi navigate several relations of power—with Euro‐American feminisms, and with less privileged feminisms and recipients of development work within India. Their experiences reveal that decolonial politics in India cannot be conceptualised without consideration of other axes of inequality including caste and religion. There is thus a need to broaden decolonial and intersectional analyses to include multiple spatial scales, from the transnational to the most granular interpretations of the local. By bringing intersectional analyses into greater dialogue with postcolonial feminist theory, this paper demonstrates that patterns of "outsourcing patriarchy" are observable at many scales, and that these patterns at different scales are co‐produced, each in turn shaping the other. Such a framework also explains how young caste‐class privileged gender justice workers outsource patriarchy and reproduce "mainstream" feminisms even as they seek to avoid doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent development in tourism is ecotourism. It is one of the tourism industry's fastest-growing subsectors. Ecotourism refers to any type of tourism that is focused on nature, has a little impact on the environment, includes locals in its planning and execution, and emphasises the importance of educating visitors. Ecotourism is distinct from other types of tourism because it is reliant on the maintenance of natural ecosystems so that they, and the cultural values they represent, can be experienced and appreciated by visitors. Many nations have come to rely on ecotourism as a major source of revenue. Ecotourism's ability to foster both economic growth and environmental protection in poor nations is exciting. This article will highlight the vast potential of Ecotourism in India by examining a few of the country's most popular Eco-tourism destinations. The present study also explores the emergence of ecotourism as an economic reader and the use of ecotourism as a tool for balancing environmental issues and sustainable development. This paper also includes a discussion of the government's efforts to promote ecotourism as a means of addressing modern environmental problems, as well as the results of a few studies of India's most popular ecotourism destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development in postcolonial India remains a contested terrain where competing approaches are negotiated and operationalized. From the early days of independence, development discourse in India carried elements of Nehruvian impulse of state-led technocratic development as well as people-centric community development primarily influenced by the Gandhian notion of the village economy. The present paper aims at engaging with this Indian development complex, where conventional binaries such as state-led/community-led, national/local, top-down/bottom-up, and so forth are transcended, leading to a framework where the binaries become complementary. It traces the evolution of community development and engages with its mainstreaming in the early decades of independence as well as in the neoliberal phase of developmental governance. Although this renewed trend of involving the community in the development process presents itself to be more people-centric, it is argued that such a tendency could be as homogenizing as the narratives of national and global institutions. The paper recognizes the ambivalence of community development and proposes that the state and community, far from being autonomous spaces, mediate and produce each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that many Indian rural dwellings lack toilets and that, therefore, a significant proportion of India's rural population is forced to defecate in the open has, by facilitating the spread of bacterial infections, profound consequences for public health. Compounding this is the fact that open defecation means that people carry limited amounts of water with them and so, by default, post-defecation handwashing is cursory. This paper, using data from the Indian Human Development Survey, examines the demand for toilets in India and the quality of post-defecation personal hygiene. Income, education, and ancillary facilities in the dwelling—like kitchens, and proper roofs and floors—were the strongest influences on demand. However, ceteris paribus households in more developed villages were more likely to have a toilet than those in less developed villages. This suggests that, over and above specific factors, households' toilet demand also depended on their social environment In setting out these results, the paper rejects the idea, put forward in several academic papers, that the problem of open defecation in India exists because considerations caste and ritual pollution lead rural Indians to prefer open defecation to toilet use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal mining and its unfavourable consequences have generated global attention. It has further stimulated the paradoxical debate of development and desolation in the contemporary scenario. Since the coal resources are profusely available in India and it is comparatively less expensive, the country has been largely relying on it for its essential and non-essential consumption needs. Coal resources indirectly fulfil many of the modern requirements and comforts. Consequently, mining of minerals in general and coal in particular has become the prime focus. It helps to generate revenue, augment industrialisation and promote employment opportunities in India. Despite these progressive features, the opencast coal mining activities impose serious threats to the livelihood of the local communities. Based on critical review of the relevant literature, the article seeks to exhibit the mineral reserves and coal mining activities at global, national and regional context. The paper has incorporated a special focus on Odisha—a resource-rich state located in eastern part of India. Particularly, the two existing major coalfields—Talcher and Ib valley, situated in western part of the state—have been emphasised. The manifold adverse externalities of the coal mining practices on the livelihood pattern among the affected people have been assessed. Furthermore, the paper aims to examine the mining-induced threats on different livelihood capitals which has given rise to multiple risks and challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on recent empirical research into indigenous Adivasi identities in India to explore Adivasi participation and demands for community rights within local structures of governance in a village context. I examine the multiple articulations of rights by the Adivasis that they consider crucial for community development in the backdrop of protracted violence and conflict. This paper engages with the local context of civil unrest by drawing attention to the Maoist movement, its assumed opposition to rights in official policy discourses and its relevance to the Adivasi lives. In particular, I analyse the ways in which the Adivasis engage with the local power relations with respect to the state, the Maoists and other community groups to make demands for everyday survival and gain access to resources. Linked to this, I attend to the modes of collective (dis)engagement, social and political participation of the Adivasis in governance forums to (re)claim the rights to land, forest, safety and overall community development that were denied to them as a group historically. These rights, I argue, are deemed necessary by the community in ensuring equal citizenship, social inclusion and in realising their specific struggles for human rights within the local context of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines discourses about sexual risk and respectability in the South Indian city of Chennai, through an ethnographic study of young women's participation in practices of public sex. Focusing on middle-class women located at the heart of neoliberal and national fantasies of the 'good life', it makes two arguments. First: the paper unpacks the ways in which urban publics have been stigmatised as 'unsafe' for respectable women. It demonstrates that in practices of publicly-located sex, young women subvert this. They instead see private and commercial spaces – which have been celebrated as the locus of their liberation – as places of surveillance and discipline. Second: the paper interrogates how spatial governmentalities produce regimes of legitimacy that accrue to particular sexual acts. It argues that what 'counts' as sex is also determined geographically: by where the sex act occurs and what geographies of discipline and imaginaries of risk and respectability it evokes in its location. Both arguments draw attention to the ways in which contemporary discourses about the 'risk' of urban publics evoke the logics of development within which the construct of respectable femininity is located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers, especially those working in developing country contexts have often encountered improvisation because it plays a critical social and cultural role. Engaging with anthropologist James Scott's conceptualisation of metis – contextual, practical and flexible skills and knowledge – and techne – universal technical knowledge – this paper furthers the geographical scholarship on the politics of improvisation. The paper makes three main contributions. First, using metis and techne, it provides a new conceptual repertoire for making sense of improvisation. The paper places improvisation at the nexus of metis and techne. Second, it pushes the understanding of the morality of improvisation by attending to the role of relationships of power in morally and materially legitimising improvisations. Third, although states and experts celebrate and actively engage with improvisation, this paper demonstrates that they also create limits and boundaries for improvisation. These limits demonstrate a contradiction in experts' actions. This paper is based on a nine months ethnographic research on two energy projects carried out in 2012–13 in five villages in Bihar, an eastern state of India. It used participant observations, home tours, interviews and group discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the impasse climate‐informed development practices currently find themselves in. This is represented by the fact that while "solutions" to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance capacities for adaptation and resilience are increasingly adopted around the world, we have enough evidence to suggest that strategies adopted "from above" have been unable to engender transformations towards more just and liveable futures. Situating the paper within recent calls for a "post‐adaptation" turn in the field, I propose a generative critique of climate‐informed development through the lens of care as a place from where to begin thinking and practicing development differently. The aim of this critique is not to discard or discredit development practices as necessarily tainted or flawed but to make them accountable to a whole set of concerns and cares going into their stories of success or failures. Throughout the paper, I therefore speculatively ask the reader to think though the possibilities that may be opened when we stop treating climate‐informed development projects as neutral and undisputable "matters of fact," engaging with them instead as necessary and non‐innocent "matters of care." Thinking through a tryptic notion of "matters of care," as at the same time a neglected doing necessary for the sustenance of life, an affective state, and an ethico‐politics, I look at examples from semi‐arid areas of India to give visibility to those practices, relations, and emotions of care that have been marginalised by mainstream development circles. Through this shift in perception, a deeper understanding of vulnerability as a state of shared fragility emerges, one that grounds an ethico‐politics of climate‐informed development to concrete circumstances and becomes the foundation upon which more inclusive practices can be built upon. Situated within a post‐adaptation turn, this paper propose a generative critique of climate‐informed development through the lens of care. The aim of this critique is not to not to discard or discredit development practices as flawed but to make them accountable to whole set of concerns and cares going into their stories of success or failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate the trend and pattern of nutritional status of women and children in North East India and explore the factors that perhaps explain the same. The analysis is based on secondary data available from various rounds of NFHS survey, Economic survey of India and other supporting secondary literature portrait the dichotomy between growth and development through the lenses of nutritional parameter. Apparently different NER states have flared differently in nutritional parameter and thereby urge to have states specific approach in identifying and targeting factors contribute the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building upon Lahiri-Dutt's (2015) critique of Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) initiatives, this paper explores four ways of 'knowing' menstruation to draw out the continuities and patterns of knowledge-making and unmaking in regard to the menstruating body. It engages with paradigms of menstruation advanced by colonial doctors, Hindu reformers, early twentieth century Ayurvedic practitioners, and contemporary public health researchers, reading these alongside personal accounts by contemporary slum-dwelling women and girls. Across these very different contexts, the paper shows how the complex epistemic terrains of menstruation in India are particularly attuned not only to the ways knowledge is produced, but also to the ways in which varied forms of knowledge position bodies, cultures, and practices as different—and often deficient—in relation to a shifting set of codes signifying civilization, development, empowerment, or culture. The paper demonstrates the ways in which menstruation is rendered a technical hygiene crisis by the development industry that declares women's knowledge of their own bodies as incomplete and inadequate. Yet, instead of a simplistic teleology of knowledge as development, or experience as a 'pure' source of knowledge, by exploring 'different knowledges' this paper illustrates how both difference and knowledge are produced in multiple ways in different contexts of knowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the pattern of urbanization and its impact on the quality and quantity of flow in the Yamuna river basin, India. The Yamuna river basin is a part of Great Ganga–Brahmaputra basin in India. During the last two decades, the basin has undergone urbanization at an unprecedented rate. The number of cities and towns in the basin has significantly increased over the last few decades, leading to an increase in water demand and reduction in water holding capacity in the basin. Urbanization has resulted in adverse impacts on the surface water drainage system that often gets clogged up due to siltation. Although the flow during the monsoon season has increased in the river Yamuna, the water availability during the dry season is still not adequate to meet various competing demands. An adverse impact of urbanization has been on the quality of river flow, which has deteriorated largely due to the disposal of untreated industrial and domestic sewage in the river. Due to urbanization, the flooding events in the basin, both in terms of magnitude and frequency, have exhibited an increasing pattern. Consequently, the vulnerability of thickly populated areas along the river has increased. Several implementable measures for sustainable development and flood risk management of the river Yamuna basin have been suggested in this paper. The results of the study presented herein could be effectively utilized by basin managers and planners to mitigate the adverse impacts of urbanization in river Yamuna basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a reaction against the institutionalized top-down developmental orientation, the theory and praxis of development as an inclusive process of socio-political collective transformation has been constantly realized. At this juncture, performative activities have become increasingly instrumental strategies in engaging people more intrinsically in their various personal and social development issues. The focus of this paper lies in studying Jana Sanskriti Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed, which despite being an apolitical organisation, offers significant contribution towards searching for viable socio-political possibilities in contemporary India. The paper delves into discussing some specific ground realities of rural West Bengal, deliberating on the endeavours of Jana Sanskriti in extending onstage representations to offstage reformation. This research investigates how sustainable changes, defined as both individual psychological transformation and groups' socio-political consciousness are generated among spectators through participation in this theatrical process. [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]

The article examines the discourse of 'women in science' in India, its tendencies to focus on the linear relation between women, science and development and its emphasis on 'increasing the number of women in science'. By doing so, the paper argues that this emphasis produces two predominant experiences - exhaustion and skepticism - among the scientific work-force in India. It offers an ethnographic account of these two affects and argues that closer attention to such experiences can contribute to the discourse of 'women in science', which is caught between failures and achievements of women scientists in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to major learning about the social and economic losses that an external shock to the system can cause. In this paper, we examine some sustainability issues focusing on three key focal points of sustainable development – economic growth, poverty and inequality in the context of climate change. We focus on the inter-relationship between economic growth, investment, labour force participation, energy consumption, poverty and inequality under alternative scenarios using the global framing of Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs). An econometric model is used for estimating the relationship between GDP and its determinants along with fitting a General Quadratic and/or Beta Lorenz curve using the World Bank's Povcal software for determining the relationship between income, poverty and inequality. Alternative GDP growth paths, redistribution assumptions and poverty lines are used for simulations which reveal the extent of sensitivity of the developmental targets to scenarios up to 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the determinants of stated individual support towards environmental action. The analysis is realized by means of an original Partial Least Squares Path model of Environmental Awareness-Social Capital-Action and it is based on survey data provided in the fifth wave of the World Values Survey (2005–2009) regarding 34.612 individuals from 42 different countries. Besides the global estimates obtained on the whole set of countries, the paper proposes a subsample analysis for developed and developing countries, as well as country analyses for four major economies: China, India, Germany and the United States. We find that environmental awareness and trust in not-for-profit organizations are important determinants of individual action in support of environmentally friendly policies. In general, trust in science and technology does not crowd-out individual support towards the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond questions of transition to and backsliding from democracy, scholars are beginning to debate the contours of democratic deepening. This paper develops an account of 'dignified development' to elaborate understandings of democratic deepening through an interpretive synthesis of the secondary literature on Bihar between 1990 and 2005 when the much-maligned Lalu Prasad Yadav controlled the State's governance. At a time when democracy is under threat not only in India but across the world, reflections on democratic depth offer us lessons on how democracy might be renewed and reinvigorated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Mapithel dam in Northeastern state of Manipur in India as a site of contestation between the state-led development agenda and the affected tribal people. Based on discursive field experiences, the paper reflects upon the competing values in relation to land use and ownership systems and raises a question – as to whether in the name of development, is the government eroding tribal people’s right over their land and resources? The Mapithel dam issue not only invites serious deliberations beyond dam construction and its social and ecological ramifications but also contemplates on the various dynamics in and through cultural identity, politics, and natural resources. The paper addresses some key aspects of the very political closure approach which emphasizes state’s hegemony through forceful intrusion into the life, livelihood, and ‘lebenswelt’ of tribal people and infringement of their traditional rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence is being reconfigured as a set of technologies that can address poverty with precision. The impacts of AI will both exacerbate and ameliorate the conditions of uneven development. Recent debates focus on the disruptive effects of AI, particularly to replication of development trajectories that have had success in reducing poverty. In this paper we further these debates by analysing the backroads of AI. The backroads serve as a metaphor for understanding the ways AI will travel from the sites of incubation to the frontlines of uneven development. We explore dialogues between AI and development in two arenas: the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation initiative (DIME) and the Government of India's national AI strategy, #AIforAll. We argue that both these arenas serve as hubs from which AI will travel out along the backroads to remote, poor, and fragmented polities. While the World Bank utilises AI as technology to empower experts and mobilise a techno‐political authority, what we refer to as precision AI, India seeks to function as a second‐tier AI hub, making AI cheaper and more accessible domestically and for other developing countries, what we refer to as populist AI. We conclude by discussing the interrelations of precision and populist AI along the backroads, and the potential of backroads research for mapping AI, uneven geographies of development and technology and the impacts of AI's disruptions at different scales. Artificial intelligence is being reconfigured as a set of technologies that can address poverty with precision. We further these debates by analysing the backroads of AI in two arenas: the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation initiative (DIME) and the Government of India's national AI strategy #AIforAll. While the World Bank utilises AI as technology to empower experts and mobilise a techno‐political authority, what we refer to as precision AI, India seeks to function as a second‐tier AI hub, making AI cheaper and more accessible domestically and for other developing countries, what we refer to as populist AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethiopia is witnessing new twists and turns both in its domestic and foreign policy domain of late with the incumbent government in power adopting political and economic reforms aimed at fostering changes to bring about development. This has invariably provided an opportunity for India to consolidate its relationship with Ethiopia further. The new domestic political and economic reforms and the friendly gestures that the present government under Abiy Ahmed has made with its neighbors has drawn the attention of the international community to the extent of awarding him with Nobel Peace Prize. Such reform measures of Ethiopia have given India with wide scope to engage itself constructively and extend political and economic support in areas where both countries stand to gain. India's active engagement with Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular is all the more important given the China factor that has been competing with other countries of the region. This paper describes the domestic political developments in Ethiopia during the post Cold War era and its struggle to maintain the intricate ethnic balance that has characterized its nation-building process by tracing it from the days of King Haile Selassie I. It further analyzes the steps taken by the government to remove obstacles to peace and development through adopting economic liberalization measures and foreign policy changes. These are discussed in a chronological manner starting with a conceptual framework and using predominantly secondary sources and relying on personal observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper presents the livelihood practices and opportunities of the youth of particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) living in Andhra Pradesh, India. The PVTGs are a group of tribes under the scheduled tribes of India. There are 75 PVTGs communities living in India, of which 12 PVTGs communities are living in the state of Andhra Pradesh. PVTGs youth are different in many aspects compared to urban youth and rural youth. PVTGs youth are the less developed among tribal groups, more vulnerable, marginalized, live in remote forest areas and hill tracks with poor connectivity and access. This study used two sampling methods i.e. stratified multistage sampling method and systematic random sampling method and conducted with 240 PVTGs youth between the age group of 18-34 years through a structured interview schedule. The study found that the major livelihood practices of PVTGs youth are agriculture or podu cultivation, daily wage, collection and selling of forest products, farm animals and livestock and small scale entrepreneurship. Still, the PVTGs youth are backward because of low income, poverty, poor connectivity, and living in remote forest areas. The PVTGs youth need separate reservations, separate welfare corporation to access the government employment and other welfare or developmental schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three versions of the National Water Policy (NWP) have failed to make any perceptible difference in improving water management in India. The excuse that water is a state subject and thus central government cannot do much is not valid. States have always been a party to the formulation of the NWP. They have the freedom to modify the NWP to suit their individual requirements. Many states have adopted a state water policy. Even such state-level policies have failed to make any significant impact in improving their water management practices. Neither the NWP nor the state water policies have made any impact on practice. Reasons for the NWP basically being a paper exercise are many, including lofty drafting and policy prescriptions that are divorced from reality; lack of courage at the Water Ministry to take a firm stand on any of the provisions at either the drafting or the implementation stages; the practice of keeping specialists away from policies; and the dominance of generalists who have neither a demonstrable understanding of the complexities of the water sector nor a long-term commitment to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the economic determinants of female-owned proprietorships for 52 metro cities in India. The National Sample Survey (NSS) unit-level data are used for the analysis. The descriptive results show that women's proprietorship is much lower than its counterpart. The Probit regression results at the individual level show that women entrepreneurs do not have a bank account or computer but use the internet, are not registered under any act or authority, and do not expand considerably. They operate within household premises with a limited number of months and duration of a day, undertaking mainly contract basis. They also face several problems that hinder their activities. City-level factors such as work participation rate, consumption expenditure, higher levels of general and technical degrees, and vocational training are essential. The likelihood of becoming a female entrepreneur is negatively impacted by the two agglomeration variables of population size and participation in mixed activity. City-level poverty and inequality also adversely affect it. State-level Human Development Index, Gender Development Index, and Gender Inequality Index are also significant. Finally, we propose important policies to enable the city environment to improve women's entrepreneurship activities for higher and sustainable economic development. • Female-owned entrepreneurship (FOE) is essential for sustainable and inclusive economic growth in developing countries. • The agglomeration size, unequal economic distribution, and less female-friendly society discourage becoming FOE. • Knowledge spillovers, labour pooling, availability of public services, and infrastructure encourage FOE. • Cities need to increase investment, employment, level of education, and delivery of public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the critical role of personal agency in influencing health and development outcomes and presents a framework for implementing non-therapeutic cognitive-behavioral interventions that foster agency, especially for women, in resource-poor settings. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has placed "empowerment" at the center of global targets, particularly to improve individuals' health and development. Despite extensive research on individual and community empowerment, there is limited focus on the role of psychological and behavioral approaches directly fostering individual and collective agency in health programs. Fundamental to this process is the understanding that decision-making is an interaction between mental processes and one's current context. Approaches that allow individuals to understand how their beliefs, values, emotions, and thoughts impact their behaviors and can be modulated to increase their personal agency are needed. This model is illustrated through a pilot behavioral intervention with women engaged in sex work in Pune, India, demonstrating substantive benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives This study measures the prevalence of risk factors among pregnant women and young children aged 12-24 months in a rural community in West Bengal, India. Methods Community health workers (CHWs) enrolled women and children into this 2015 cross-sectional study. Pregnant women were evaluated for underweight, anemia, and abnormal blood pressure. Children were evaluated for underweight, abnormal head and upper arm circumferences, and low scores from the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). Data were collected on smartphones and tablets or by paper. Results More than half of the 279 women (59.9%) had a risk factor during pregnancy: 48.7% were anemic, 35.1% had low blood pressure, and 7.5% were underweight. Among the 366 children, 59.3% had a risk factor, including 24.0% with low ASQ scores and 49.7% who had abnormal anthropometric measures. Conclusions for Practice Vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and young children, needed a greater connection to doctors in this rural community. This study demonstrated the feasibility of CHWs to listen to health concerns and connect underserved populations with health care services. [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]

Petty corruption is normally understood to be corruption faced by citizens and the private sector on a daily basis to receive basic services such as connections to utilities, passports, admissions to school and dealing with trade-related customs’ formalities. As opposed to grand corruption that involves millions of dollars, petty corruption is largely ignored in corruption-related research. This is probably due to the belief that it does not affect development and the provision of infrastructure the way grand corruption does. The scant attention may also be driven by the view that if grand corruption is reduced this in turn would have a knock-on effect on petty corruption. As to whether this is the case is highly debatable. This paper focuses on petty corruption and argues that it also undermines development. It examines the use of information technology (IT) creatively to reduce opportunities for petty corruption using ‘Bhoomi’, a project devoted to the digitisation of land registration services in the state of Karnataka in India, as an illustration. On the basis of our analysis of a number of surveys of Bhoomi that have been carried out since its inception, this paper concludes that IT has the potential to introduce efficiency and transparency. However, this potential can only be realised when the ‘people’ component of the e-governance equation change their attitudes towards the soliciting, and giving, of bribes and public officials refrain from abusing their office. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The irrigation scenario in Maharashtra has been under media focus for quite some time. The present paper traces the development of irrigation in Maharashtra state since its inception. The development of irrigation at the state level as well as across the regional divisions has been discussed. The focus of the paper is on the vast disparity in the irrigation potential created and the actual area irrigated. It also highlights the development of irrigation in terms of major, medium and minor irrigation projects across regional divisions. The paper raises some issues of concern for the future policy measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical studies of social capital rarely take into account the socioeconomic context of the region in which it operates, indeed as most of this research has been located in high income countries. It is imperative to investigate how development may influence the impact of social capital, especially in developing countries. This paper examines the relationship between social capital and child nutrition using the India Human Development Survey, 2005-2006. Using a multilevel framework and a sample of 6770 rural children under the age of five, it finds that household based bridging social capital, expressed as connections with development based organizations, is positively associated with child nutrition. Bonding social capital, expressed as ties with caste and religious based organizations, has the opposite impact. At the village level, contextual measures of social capital are associated with nutritional status of children, but their influence is conditional on local development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of development, elderly women living alone are facing problems. Due to development and migration, children move to other cities and starts living in the nuclear family set up. Here, elderly women who are physically and mentally dependent on their children are left behind. They face different type of problems in their day to day life, loneliness is one of them. Impact of development on loneliness has made the life of elderly women more vulnerable. The paper focused upon impact of development on loneliness among elderly women that are living alone. The main objectives of the study were to find out the profile of the elderly women and to highlight the impact of development on loneliness among elderly women living alone in the society. An empirical study was done through the non-probability sampling and 30 elderly women were selected with the help of snow ball method. Data was collected through interview schedule. It was found that a large number of the elderly women were facing a moderate level of loneliness followed by a complete loneliness. Thus, impact of development was reported by elderly women. It can be concluded that development is a process of social change which can affect the society positively as well as negatively. In the case of elderly women living alone, development has affected negatively as they face more loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights-based approaches (HRBAs) can challenge the underlying structures and power relations that perpetuate poverty. They have thus emerged in the development field as a prominent instrument for addressing development issues. Access to clean water and sanitation are now internationally acknowledged as human rights, and have become a stand-alone Sustainable Development Goal of the international community’s commitment to international development. This paper analyses the potential use of HRBAs by local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working on sanitation issues in slums in Mumbai. It is argued that it is more productive for local NGOs to build (i) partnerships with duty-bearers (in this case the state and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) and (ii) the capacity of rights-holders, in particular women, than to rely on litigation strategies to create momentum for change. HRBAs are more useful as a political tool for NGOs for establishing good working relationships with government agencies rather than as a legal instrument, which can be counter-productive to the poverty reduction objectives of NGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The state of Himachal Pradesh, over the past decades, has seen a marked surge in accelerating the development leading to remarkable growth and plethora of livelihood opportunities. This paper brings out the case of a village, Gagal, depicting the fortunes that the development has brought in the quotidian life of people and changing the picture of the village giving it a new dimension. The paper compiles selected case studies that .reflect on the success of development programs initiated in the area and how the people have drawn benefits from them. It also throws light on definite flaws and loopholes that have led to people lose their faith in these initiatives and explains how these programs have failed to accomplish their goals on the ground reality. The paper explores how the development has transformed the silhouette of the village encountering development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the question of when generalizations risk compromising the utility and accuracy of a theory and seeks to show how a balance can be struck between generalized and context-specific analyses in disciplines like international sociology, political economy, and comparative politics. For this purpose, the paper reviews three theoretical approaches to agri-food system change, placed at different levels on the ladder of generality. It then considers these approaches in relation to India's changing agri-food system. Finally, the paper discusses the general and the particularistic features of the Indian case and examines their implications for theories relating to global governance and international political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts of poverty and development have many meanings in contemporary globalized societies. Development by definition implies desired changes in terms of livelihood, improved quality of life and better access to assets and services, etc. However in reality development programmes sometimes have negative consequences, perhaps unintended, multiplying the acute scarcity of resources and opportunities, or reproducing poverty. Also, the consequences of developmental programmes often appear to be out of focus, and seen at the ground level, there seems to be a gap between what is intended and what is actualized. In this framework, this paper presents a case study of the social, cultural and economic correlates of the development processes in Adadakulapalle, a settlement of Sugali peoples, once a semi-nomadic tribe, in Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh, South India. The paper shows how factionalism and faction politics affect the implementation of development interventions. It also looks at the poverty in the settlement and focuses on the types of change that people have experienced with the implementation of different schemes by both government and other agencies. The type of change is discussed in the present study through the macro and micro analysis of development programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Much of the literature on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and development suggests that a top-down process is underway which leads to the dispersal of neoliberal ideals. Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research in Rajasthan, India, this paper examines how a poverty alleviation project “fits” into competitive and co-operative socio-economic relations already operating on the ground. It argues that in contradiction to neoliberal notions of empowerment espoused by project policies, both NGOs and their constituents have an interest in establishing and maintaining patronage networks that stabilize relationships of dependency. The paper concludes that neoliberal development projects serve to enable patron–client relationships between NGOs and villagers, and enroll the state in the continuing provision of benefits beyond those planned by the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores an attempt to bring biotechnology more directly within the ambit of civil society in general and resource-poor farmers in particular. The Andhra Pradesh Netherlands Biotechnology Programme (APNLBP) was one of four country programmes initiated by Dutch aid in the early 1990s. It is coming to an end as an aid project next year. The broad objective of the programme was to contribute to poverty alleviation through biotechnologies but to do so in a rather unique way. Instead of having R&D laboratories develop a raft of new technologies and then ‘disseminating’ these to farmers, the emphasis was put on direct interaction with farmers and related stakeholder groups such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The paper describes the programme's inception and evolution, outlines key governance aspects and sets the analytical discussion within the context of modern ‘innovation systems’ discourse. Two aspects in particular are emphasized. The first is the degree of connectivity among the different stakeholders that are part of the system. It is now well recognized that it is the flow of information across stakeholder groups that often determines the degree of technological development that occurs, although clearly there are other factors also involved. The second is the importance of institutions and institutional change in enabling successful innovation to take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the observation that rights-based approaches to development have tended to ignore the ways in which religion and culture shape understandings of human rights. Although religious traditions often act against the pursuit of human rights, there are also areas of overlap and consensus. The first part of the paper suggests that the absence of a research agenda within development studies on 'religion and development' has meant that a significant indigenous mechanism for pursuing rights has been overlooked. Drawing upon examples from India, the second part of my discussion then asks whether a language of social justice based upon the concept of duty is more appropriate than one based upon rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the pedagogic and disciplinary challenges posed by the effort to understand urban spatial practices and institutional histories in Bombay/Mumbai, and other postcolonial South Asian cities. Many cities in the region, such as Chandigarh and Dhaka were designed as iconic of the abstract space of the nation‐state. The dominance of the nationalist spatial imagination in the understandings of public space, citizenship, and the metropolitan environment – combined with the functionalist perception of architecture and spatial practice – have resulted in an urban pedagogy that regards the city only as a technological or physical artefact. Architectural education and urban pedagogy is therefore unable to address the diversity of social‐spatial formations in the city, and its political regime of predatory development, tactical negotiation, and blurry urbanism. To better understand this new regime, we require a collaborative urbanism that treats the city as an extra‐curricular space by which we can reconstruct existing institutional frameworks. Drawing on the work of CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust), Mumbai, this papers explores the post‐industrial landscapes of the Mumbai Mill and Port Lands as a case study in two extracurricular research projects, which grew into urban design and community planning interventions in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, where urban spaces became the arena for re‐imagining the relations between knowledge production, institutional boundaries, and civic activism on which nationalism has imposed a long estrangement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the development of Goa as a tourist site within India and examines the economic, cultural and environmental impacts of such tourism development upon Goan communities. In so doing, the paper argues that while Goa has become a dispensable space for the exigencies of contemporary tourist development it has also engendered various forms of resistance to this process. The paper utilizes Manuel Castells' notion of 'resistance identity' and David Harvey's notion of 'militant particularism' to interpret some of these resistances. In Goa, these have taken the form of 'active minorities' whose most immediate source of self-recognition and autonomous organization is their locality: resistance is practised, at least in part, as a defensive articulation of identity to protect collective resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]