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Simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies have been proposed by the NITI Aayog and other government institutions to minimize the disruptions caused by frequent elections which include enormous expenditure, administrative burden, communal violence, policy manipulation, etc. These institutions endeavour to introduce and sustain simultaneous elections with the aid of mechanisms like constructive vote of no-confidence, fixed-term legislatures, and executive rule in case of premature dissolutions. Such proposals are based on the misplaced assumption of the dependence of simultaneity on these mechanisms. We find that simultaneity can be introduced without incurring accountability costs. In a bid to achieve stability in governance, they make the system rigid, attack the principles of democracy and federalism, and erode executive accountability towards the legislature, implicating an important tenet of parliamentary democracy. We suggest alternative models which introduce simultaneity without the aid of these mechanisms through flexible legislative terms and phased elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the evolution of the debates around lobbying regulation in India and Brazil. Studies on lobbying regulation have compared the results of regulatory frameworks implementation, but little work exists in countries where these practices are unregulated. Findings from this paper show that the debates in Brazil have evolved due to the pressure for the institutionalisation of the government affairs sector; while in India, the debates still remain fragmented with lack of cohesion amongst interest groups, since lobbying is associated with corruption. These findings have implications for Commonwealth countries since, in the majority of countries, lobbying is still unregulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign policies of landlocked states have been a topic of interest for scholarship on international relations but the landlocked states in South Asia have received negligible attention. Due to their geographical realities, South Asian landlocked states that include Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal, depend on their neighbours for trade with the outside world. A range of factors place landlocked states in an unequal relationship with their coastal neighbours. While these factors include the superiority of coastal neighbours in terms of economy, population size, and military strength, we argue that their landlockedness plays a crucial role. To further investigate the role of landlockedness, this study compares the foreign policy decisions that guide India-Nepal and Afghanistan–Pakistan relations. Based on the assessment of historical, economic and geopolitical factors, we argue that India and Pakistan exploit their landlocked neighbours to achieve their national interests. Frustrated by the treatment of their coastal neighbours and the presence of new trade opportunities have compelled Afghanistan to use its closeness with India to counter over-dependence on Pakistan and Nepal has enhanced cooperation with China to overcome its reliance on India, thereby creating a new geopolitical dynamic within South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Commentary, I propose a bold, four-step plan which would address the question of self-determination for Kashmiris and hopefully resolve permanently the 70-year-old Kashmir issue which has poisoned Indo-Pakistan relations since Partition. Two important elements of this plan would be: first, the involvement of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group to assist Kashmiris, Pakistan and India in the mediation of the plan; and, second, the holding of four UN-supervised referenda which would be held simultaneously but counted separately: Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir; Kashmir valley; Jammu; and Ladakh. All Kashmiris would have three options: Join Pakistan, Join India or independence. As an incentive to India and Pakistan, the international community would deliver substantial economic assistance for the development of all parts of Kashmir. But as a quid pro quo for the economic aid package, there would have to be guaranteed free movement of people, capital and goods between all parts of Kashmir after the referenda, regardless as to which option had been chosen by the Kashmiris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate concerning China's emergence as a revisionist power has taken a more direct shape under the Donald Trump administration in the United States. Such a debate is not as prevalent in India even though New Delhi began perceiving Beijing's assertive rise long-ago with caution. India's deductions of China as a revisionist power are drawn on its national security calculus and the anticipatory challenges it faces from China in the land and maritime domain that threatens the status-quo of the region. In other words, India's perception of China in Indo-Pacific is much more constructive, drawn on a dualist outlook of power-partner contention, that comes both as a challenge as well as opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southern Asia has seen multiple standoffs between three nuclear weapon states. The face-off has escalated into multiple wars between the three- China-India-Pakistan, adversaries and rival nations. The stability-instability paradox exposes the vulnerabilities and deterrence that actually leads to higher crises escalation in an unstable strategic environment. The unstable strategic environment in southern Asia brings up two important objectives of this study: (1) The understanding of the strategic environment and practice of deterrence in Southern Asia, and (2) India's context and vistas of deterrence within the region. The conceptual framework of study examines various assumptions and relevance of deterrence in strategic complexities of Southern Asia. The theoretical account will enable analyzing the interlinkage between deterrence and the strategic scenario in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's revocation of Article 370, which had granted Jammu and Kashmir a special status, has changed the security and strategic dynamics in the relations between India and Pakistan. India claims it is an internal matter whereas Pakistan considers it an international issue and pushes to resolve it in accordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions. While Pakistan has limited international support, it still vows to go to any extent to secure 'freedom' for the Kashmiris. The visit of US President Donald Trump to India and the signing of a peace agreement between the US and the Taliban have added new dynamics to this conflict. This article discusses the aftermath of the revocation of Article 370, outlines Pakistan's claims from an historical perspective, analyses immediate measures initiated by Islamabad, points out the available options Pakistan may see at its disposal, and provides critical assessment of each. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The victory of India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has shaped current socio‐political discourse through the lens of Hindu fundamentalism. Driven by right‐wing Hindu nationals in the party that advocate the hegemony of the Hindu way of life, or Hindutva ('Hindu nationalism'), contemporary political narrative can be seen to recontextualise the country's history through 'saffronisation' of public space, social practice, and education. This paper will explore how under the governance of the ruling party, socio‐political sentiment is perceived to be shaped increasingly through Hindutva, by analysing the media framing of political ideology. To conduct the analysis, the paper draws on Bhatia's (2015) theoretical framework of the Discourse of Illusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic elections in the Philippines and India in 2019 yielded a paradoxical result: the strengthening of the political hegemony of personalities partial to authoritarian rule. An examination of economic, social, and political conditions prior to the elections shows that the usual paradigms used to explain voters' choices – class theory, rational choice theory, and patron–client theory – fail to account for the sweeping victories of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A more useful framework is that of charismatic authority derived from Max Weber. Employing this paradigm, the article discusses the origins of charismatic authority in the two polities, the differences in charismatic appeal, the social construction of charisma, charisma and the creation of the Other, and the democratic dialectic at the heart of charismatic authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Modi regime in India shares many exclusionary features in common with authoritarian populists elsewhere, one distinguishing feature is its umbilical relationship to the semi-fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose long-term goal has been the establishment of a Hindu rashtra (nation). One of the major instruments for achieving this has been education, with the RSS seeing cultural hegemony as more foundational than political control. This article examines the transformation of school and higher education under the Modi regime in an effort to bring India more in line with the Hindu nationalist vision of its parent body, and the degree to which being in government supports or creates contradictions with the RSS vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to analyze whether the United Progressive Alliance government in India (UPA, which was in power from 2004–14) was successful in implementing its Look East Policy (LEP). It will discuss to what extent it was effective in realizing its vision of a community of nations conscious of their historical ties, cultural heritage, and connective identity in the Asian platform. This article argues that the government's idea of a 'shared destiny' has formed the core of an emerging 'identity' in India, and has acted as the main anchor of India's approach towards the South East Asian region. The paper also examines whether the UPA government was successful in its vision of strengthening institutional cooperation, capability, and connectivity, in the region and how the implementation of the LEP has impacted on India's economic and security interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian government, led by Narendra Modi, imposed a stringent lockdown with only four hours notice. It paid no attention to the millions of migrants who work on a temporary basis in Indian cities. Most lost their livelihoods as a result of the lockdown, and millions sought to return to their native villages. At the same time, the rural economy confronted its own difficulties caused by the lockdown. The relief that the Modi government offered to the large numbers of poor people who had been adversely affected by its response to COVID-19 was limited and poorly delivered. The episode showed the lack of responsiveness of Indian democracy to the needs of working people and the failures of development. Yet Modi's particular brand of authoritarian populism worked so well that a government displaying very little compassion retained strong popular support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's development during its more than 70 years of independence was less spectacular than that of other nations, but nevertheless impressive. Therefore, today the country has a new position of international responsibility. While the high ambitions may have looked too illusive before, today it is a roadmap already in discussion. India, opposite to China, does not seek predominance within Asia or worldwide, but her "rightful place" within the community of nations, creating status, respect and recognition. This paper discusses the growing dynamics of changes within the last decade till 2020 as well evaluations and predictions until 2030. Observed are dimensions of power -- politically, economically, militarily -- both national and in their global recognition. Within the coming decade India will reach the third position in the world order ranking, behind the USA in second place and the then leading China. However, there will still be considerable distance towards both of them insofar global political leadership is operative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elections held outside of advanced, industrialized democracies can turn violent because elites use coercion to demobilize political opponents. The literature has established that closely contested elections are associated with more violence. I depart from this emphasis on competitiveness by highlighting how institutional biases in electoral systems, in particular uneven apportionment, affect incentives for violence. Malapportionment refers to a discrepancy between the share of legislative seats and the share of population, violating the 'one person, one vote' principle. Drawing on recent work on malapportionment establishing that overrepresented districts are targeted with clientelist strategies, are more homogenous, and are biased in favor of district-level incumbent parties, I argue that overrepresented districts present fewer incentives for using violence. In contrast, elites in well-apportioned or underrepresented districts exert less control over electoral outcomes because such districts have more heterogenous voter preferences, raising incumbent and opposition demands to employ violence. I examine the effects of malapportionment on violence using constituency-level elections data and new, disaggregated, and geocoded event data on the incidence of election violence in India. Results from six parliamentary elections from 1991 to 2009 show that electoral violence is less prevalent in overrepresented constituencies, and that violence increases in equally apportioned and moderately underrepresented districts. The analysis establishes additional observable implications of the argument for district voter homogeneity and incumbent victory, accounts for confounders such as urbanization and state-level partisanship, and validates measures of election violence. The findings illustrate that institutional biases shape incentives for electoral violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asset declarations requiring politicians to disclose their financial information are becoming increasingly common across the world. The information contained in these disclosures frequently reveals that politicians rapidly accumulate wealth while in office, a fact that may raise suspicion among voters. However, little is known about the ways in which such information may affect voter behavior. To address this gap, we use original experimental and survey data from India to explore voters' reactions to information about wealth and wealth accumulation. Results suggest that voters strongly disapprove of wealth accumulation in office and associate it with corruption and political violence. Further analyses suggest several mechanisms that may partly explain why many "wealth accumulators" win elections in India despite these negative reactions. Voters generally lack information about disclosures and many weigh wealth accumulation less than some other prominent concerns, such as performance in office or caste-based appeals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's Smart Cities Mission (SCM) launched in 2015 has awarded 100 smart cities nation-wide, proffering funds, compulsory corporate partnerships, and new configurations of urban governance. Perhaps most striking are the ten smart city bids from Northeast India, a region shaped unevenly by separatism, military occupation, and heavy economic dependency. Smart cities in the Northeast have been awarded with key exceptions to SCM rules. We take this to be a largely unprecedented experiment in digital urbanism in what Dunn and Cons (2014. "Aleatory Sovereignty and the Rule of Sensitive Spaces." Antipode 46 (1): 92–109) label 'sensitive space'. Through a critical reading of the 10 smart city bids from the Northeast we make three arguments. First, despite the techno-utopian rhetoric, the primary aim of the SCM is integrating frontier space into national territory. Second, the extension of the SCM to the frontier accelerates the recalibration of the frontier into a market for corporate capital under the necessary stewardship of the Indian state, though the role for customary authorities in these arrangements is unclear. Third, with few other avenues for revenue generation and in response to perceptions of neglect, local authorities have used SCM bids to request conventional infrastructure rather than digitally networked projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • I examine the targeting performance of and access to social pensions in India. • Exclusion of poor older people continues to be a widespread problem. • The overall benefits from targeting are very limited. • Below Poverty Line (BPL) card as eligibility criterion can be misused by non-poor individuals. • Poor older people lacking a BPL card and/or political connections appear to be left behind. Abstract Whether social transfers should be targeted or universal is an unsolved debate particularly relevant for the implementation of social protection schemes in developing countries. While the limited availability of public resources encourages targeting, the difficulty to identify the poor promotes a universal allocation of benefits. To address this question, this study examines the targeting performance of and access to a social welfare scheme for an increasingly vulnerable group – India's poor older people. The results show that during a time period of social pension reforms, exclusion and inclusion errors were successfully reduced but the exclusion of poor older people continues to be extremely high. Comparing the existing targeting approach to a random allocation, I show that the benefits of targeting are limited. The reforms aimed at increasing the transparency of social pension allocation indeed made the Below Poverty Line ration card the most important determinant of access to social pensions for older people. However, this focus on the ration card promoted by the national government has its own weaknesses. Non-poor older people exploit the unwarranted possession of this ration card and results suggest that after the reforms individuals with direct connections to local government officials are more likely to access social pension benefits. The current targeting approach seems to be beneficial for well-connected older individuals while many poor older people typically lacking these connections lag behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties have proliferated in India since the 1980s. A marked feature of the growth of parties has been the competitiveness of regional parties. Political entrepreneurs have broken away from established parties and formed separate parties that have competed at both state and national levels of the Indian political system. A few of the newly formed parties became strong competitors in their home units, sometimes leading state governments, demonstrating that they were large parties in their own region. A larger number of regional parties won representation in the Lok Sabha after 1989, but most of these newer parties, and some of the older ones, remained small. In the context of coalition politics many small parties were welcomed into national coalitions. Yet a lack of Assembly seats usually resulted in small parties being excluded from government at the state level. This article develops a typology that distinguishes small parties, active in national and state elections, from the larger regional parties and the hundreds of smaller parties registered with the Election Commission. The wider significance of the small parties is assessed in relation to party system change and the everyday conduct of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the impact of globalisation in Asia in particular India. It mentions key features of globalisation in India which include rapid urbanisation, social change, modernisation and loss of traditional life, especially for younger generations. It informs that global activity increased since Indian government allowed foreign investment in 1991, as a result of liberalisation and the payment crisis with the International Monetary Fund.

On 4 May 2014, as a tumultuous general election in India drew to a close, the Indian Express newspaper published a column by Tavleen Singh, with the headline 'No more petitioners: no more petitioners'. The column went on to quote P. Chidambaran, the outgoing finance minister of the defeated Congress government, who diagnosed a historical shift in the mentality of the Indian electorate. 'India has moved on,' Chidambaran was reported as saying, 'from a petitioner society to an aspirational one. Treating people as petitioners is a mistake... even the poor demand a better life and are no longer resigned to their fate.' In India, the column argued, 'poor people' now had 'middle class aspirations', desiring 'jobs and development' rather than 'charity' and that this was a major reason for the success of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 elections. To be a 'petitioner', in this analysis, was to be ground down by poverty and resignation, and dependent on the 'charity' of others. It was a passing historical condition, a sign of underdevelopment that could be sloughed off by the sudden awakening across society of 'middle class aspirations'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will argue that to understand Naga sovereignty, one must take into account the intimate connection between Christianity and nationalism. This relationship is centred on the idea of 'Nagaland for Christ', a central slogan (also seen as a covenant) for all Naga nationalist groups. It suggests that God is the primary agent in sovereignty, and that the land is connected with the idea of Nagaland for Christ. I argue that national territory is not an object or a place that can be fixed in time, but rather an act of narration and imagination with the power to shape where it belongs. I will make the case that we need to rethink modular forms of sovereignty that are based on a strong national state. Instead, it would be more useful to think about sovereign territories as the organisation of space, or territoriality (Sack 1986). Robert Sack argues that territoriality is 'intimately related to how people use the land', how they 'organize themselves in space and how they give meaning to place' (Sack 1986: 2). If history has shown us that ascertaining the precise territorial lines of national units are always a challenge, it is more helpful to try and understand how people give meaning to place regardless of boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains the variation in states’ nonstate partners in civil warfare? States often use nonstate actors to do what their regular military forces cannot do well - navigate the local population. Some of their nonstate partners are ordinary civilians, while others are battle-hardened fighters with a rebellious or criminal past. The choice of proxy carries serious implications for the patterns and effects of violence during civil war, human rights, and international security. This article is the first to disaggregate the nonstate counterinsurgents and offer an explanation for why and how states use each type. It brings together the politics of collaboration with the politics of exploitation. The article shows that the state’s use of nonstate proxies is shaped by the supply of willing collaborators, the state’s ability to exercise control over them, and the trade-offs underlying the use of the different types of nonstate actors. The empirical evidence used to support this argument comes from a novel, comparative study of Turkey’s counterinsurgency campaign against Kurdish separatists and India’s counterinsurgency against Kashmiri separatists. The original data were collected through fieldwork in the disputed territories of each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A profusion of recent research has focused on historical legacies as key to understanding contemporary outcomes. We review this body of research, analyzing both the comparative-historical analysis (CHA) and modern political economy (MPE) research traditions as applied to the study of communism, imperialism, and authoritarianism. We restrict our focus to the sizeable subset of arguments that meets a relatively strict definition of legacies, i.e., arguments that locate the roots of present-day outcomes in causal factors operative during an extinct political order. For all their differences, the CHA and MPE approaches both face the challenges of convincingly identifying the sources of historical persistence and of reckoning with alternative channels of causation. We find that mechanisms of persistence in legacy research generally belong to one of three main categories. While both traditions acknowledge the role of institutions in historical persistence, CHA research tends to emphasize the lasting power of coalitions, whereas work in MPE often argues for the persistence of cognitions. We argue that, at their best, CHA and MPE approaches yield complementary insights. Further progress in legacy research will benefit from greater cross-fertilization across research traditions and deeper recognition of commonalities across communist, imperialist, and authoritarian regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why have China and India, both energetic forces in the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), continued to resist the Court’s charms? In addressing this question, the present contribution’s analytical framework employs three points of reference — before Rome, at Rome, and after Rome. These will facilitate consideration of Indian and Chinese participation in the shaping of the ICC, its existence, and its forward trajectory. The aim is to identify and compare positions taken by both states about the ICC in the three different phases, not to second guess meanings or to interpret political contexts and cultural approaches. This culminates in a reflection on the issues where they have shared and divided positions, whether there has been any softening of perspectives, and what it would take to bring 36.56% of the world’s population under the protection of the ICC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has seen impressive investments in governmentfunded health insurance but still severely underfunds the health sector. The government of India has a critical role in ensuring effective health coverage to the "missingmiddle": the urban poor. The urban poor have been excluded from benefits targeting eligible populations below the poverty line. Lack of access to public facilities and qualified primary health care providers in urban areas often results in treatment delays or patients relying predominantly on out-of-pocket payments to informal providers. The urban poor are also excluded from affordable health insurance markets. Illiteracy and poverty in the slums result in limited access to goods and services and unequal participation in social life, as well as in overall social exclusion. The government of India, in its 2018 union budget, announced a flagship National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) that will provide health insurance benefits of up to INR 500,000 (7,692 USD) per family per annum. This article explores current and future opportunities to fill an important gap in access to health services, specifically targeting the urban poor by providing health insurance schemes that include primary health services for this population. Current public health insurance schemes providing exclusively hospitalization benefits are unsustainable; part of the solution is keeping people healthy and out of the hospital. Primary care integrated into health insurance improves population health management and is associated with higher patient satisfaction, fewer hospitalizations and emergency department visits, lower claim costs, and overall reductions in morbidity and mortality. There is no single solution to finance health services for the urban poor. This population mostly belongs to the informal sector, which encompasses workers whose jobs are not recognized formally and from whom no taxes are collected. However, the new NHPS could play a major role in expanding safety nets for the urban poor by providing financial risk protection and improving social inclusion. The government could use the introduction of the new scheme to shape approaches aimed at increasing opportunities for the urban poor through investing in public health facilities, subsidizing and fostering public-private affordable health insurance, and enhancing access to information, voice, and respect for rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses changes in India's policy on the Indian Ocean under President Narendra Modi. Topics covered include Modi's creation of the National Maritime Authority to strengthen the country's management of Indian Ocean affairs, his initiative of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), and upgrades made to the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, Project Mausam, and the Act East policy.

Inefficient and corrupt institutions provide an incentive for citizens to focus on short causal chains, which prize instant benefits from direct, clientelist exchanges over the promise of uncertain and distant programmatic rewards. Drawing on a tightly controlled comparison arising from the bifurcation of a state within the Indian federal system into two units that have demonstrated marked differences in institutional development post division, and a survey administered across the new state boundary, we show that citizens are more responsive to small inducements in weak institutional settings where the delivery of basic goods by the state is less certain, but that these institutional effects weaken as the size of the inducement increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the changing trends of electoral politics in Assam. Jorhat, one of the most socio politically important districts of the state has been made a reference point in the article. It is observed during the study that Assam electoral politics has some unique features in comparison to the other states. Some of Indian scholars of electoral politics argue that many of Indian states hada significant political upsurge from 1993 to 1996.During this period, people participation in the electoral process wasrising substantially with significant growth in regional political forces and parties along with intensive electoral competition and mass mobilization. But such a political development startedin Assam from the mid-eighties of the last century. In this article an effort is the made to analyses the significant changes that took place during this period in the state. The article is prepared with the help of secondary data available in government and non-government sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many observers recognize policy continuity as a prominent feature of India’s statecraft, but practitioners see fundamental changes in the last quarter century. In this article, we explain how India’s economic expansion because of sustained economic growth altered its statecraft. That prosperity is a prerequisite to sustain power has been well recognized through history by major thinkers of strategy. We examine the relationship between India’s economic strategy and its congruence with its foreign policy strategy. In particular, we illustrate how India has viewed geoeconomics, defined here as “the use of economic instruments to achieve specific geopolitical results.” We highlight the degree and instruments of India’s economic statecraft as an integral component of its foreign policy, and its strengths and limitations relative to other rising powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to address Sustainable Development Goal 6, the Government of India’s initiative, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), aims to make India open-defecation free by 2018. This viewpoint analyses the consequences of SBM from the perspective of women and water in the context of toilets. With the construction of toilets for 2.4 million people, the vulnerability of women is expected to worsen as available water is scarce. The viewpoint concludes that construction of toilets as a target is difficult to achieve and sustain without green technology design that overcomes the constraints of water and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 73rd amendment to the Indian Constitution launched an extensive experiment in local democracy. Based on a study of 2,794 gram panchayats and field observations in West Bengal, this article examines when and why popular participation in panchayat elections—the most basic and visible aspect of local democracy—differs across local governments. The study finds that gram panchayats witness high levels of participation when they pursue policies that benefit the villagers, such as greater investment in education, and when they are seemingly less corrupt. Investment in public goods and lower rents are known to promote economic development and general welfare. In addition to these familiar implications, this study shows how these policies also have political consequences for democracy in India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) is a part of China’s experiment in scaling up economic corridors across vast swathes of diverse economic geographies. China’s involvement in a large number of ongoing transport corridor projects has encouraged it to embark on the most ambitious of them all till date. The heterogeneity among the economic capacities and integrations of various regions constituting the MSRI, particularly in efficiency of infrastructure and ability to trade, is noticeable. This article underscores these variations as important determinants of competitiveness of the constituent regions and countries. India’s perceptions of the MSRI are significantly shaped by its lack of quality maritime infrastructure capacities that make it relatively uncompetitive vis-à-vis China, Europe and most of Southeast Asia; and the impression of the MSRI’s “China-centrality” emanating from lack of mention of non-China regional forums in the Chinese government’s vision statement; and absence of proactive measures from the Chinese leadership in establishing the MSRI’s multi-country character. The article argues that it is important for India to appreciate the geopolitical character of this unprecedented infrastructure initiative, which, while emphasizing Chinese interests, might not be inimical to India’s economic ambitions, provided India is able to address its domestic infrastructure imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When do politicians prompt bureaucrats to provide effective services? Leveraging the uneven overlap of jurisdictions in India, we compare bureaucrats supervised by a single political principal with those supervised by multiple politicians. With an original dataset of nearly half a million villages, we find that implementation of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the largest employment program in the world, is substantially better where bureaucrats answer to a single politician. Regression discontinuity estimates help increase confidence that this result is causal. Our findings suggest that politicians face strong incentives to motivate bureaucrats as long as they internalize the benefits from doing so. In contrast to a large literature on the deleterious effects of political interventions, our results show that political influence may be more favorable to development than is commonly assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent commentary on India–Australia relations has defined the relationship as ‘natural’ and based on ‘shared values’ and ‘shared history’. The relationship has simultaneously been considered ‘neglected’. The paradoxical juxtaposition of a natural/neglected partnership is yet to be adequately explained. We consider the historical construction of liberalism in both states as a facet of state identity to argue that, far from creating a natural relationship, differing liberal identities have served to keep these two states apart. This is illustrated through case studies of divergent opinions over the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and the rise of China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on the nature of governance reform in India, focusing on the gradual model of its growth and welfare. The author explores topics including globalization and deregulation within the country, the political economy of the well-being of its citizens, and the state of its economic development and the power of disruptive forces.

Quotas for women and ethnic minorities are implemented to increase diversity in political institutions, but, as they usually target only one group at a time, they may end up increasing the inclusion of one under-represented group at the cost of another. Recent work has emphasized the institutional underpinnings of the variation in such outcomes. In this article I show how the intersectional effects of quotas may also vary within the same institutional context, as changes in the pressure to include excluded groups interact with the informal opportunity structures within political parties. Looking at the nomination of female candidates across India over time, I show that, as the efforts to include more women in politics intensified, much of the increase in female candidates occurred in constituencies reserved for ethnic minorities. This pattern may in part be the result of parties resisting changes to existing power hierarchies by nominating women at the cost of the least powerful male politicians, but can also be seen as evidence that minority quotas have created a political space that is more accessible to women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the nexus between the middle class and neoliberal politics in the remaking of Ahmedabad as a ‘Megacity’. The middle class is deeply invested in the discursive and material processes of producing Ahmedabad as a ‘Megacity’ in ways that advance largely exclusionary economic and political agendas. The Megacity project offers the middle class more direct and vociferous opportunities to realize its political interests without depending on electoral democracy. It argues that through the processes ofcrisis, participation, celebration, andcapturethe middle class has successfully mediated its aspirations and interests vis-à-vis the broader agenda of neoliberal urbanism. Ethnographic and other evidence is used to examine these processes and the enlistment of seemingly neutral discourses of development, nostalgia and community. By championing the ‘Megacity’ the middle class has proved to be a key ally in the official promotion of the ‘Gujarat model’ both in Gujarat and beyond the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The concept of governmentality has a textual and philosophical basis as well as being concerned with what might be called the practices of government. This article discusses and develops the governmentality argument with respect to the guru-led movements. It outlines the basics of Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, its analytical frame, the fact that governmentality moves beyond only the practices of the state and its nuances in a neoliberal frame of reference, drawing on Zygmunt Bauman and others. It then discusses the governmentality of guru-led movements through: (1) the political acts and powers of the gurus; (2) the supplementary and complementary efforts to aid the state by the guru-led movements; (3) instances of resistance and taking on the state, and (4) the flipside of governmentality, which manifests as hegemony, Hindutva politics and Hindu nationalism. Through the governmentality argument, aspects of the surveillance, discipline, control, interactivity and competition of the guru-led movements emerge. What is discussed is a post-disciplinary model of governance which devolves power downwards from crumbling state institutions to new agencies of control, in this case, the gurus and their institutions. This devolution, however, is not without its tensions and the article also argues that guru governmentality betrays traces of hybridity and non-linearity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways in which the Arthasastra (The Science of Wealth or The Science of Power), an ancient text rediscovered in 1905, was interpreted by Indian politicians and commentators. It seeks to explain why the text's popularity changed so drastically over time, and why, despite the excitement about it in the first 20 years following its reappearance, it was largely ignored in the Gandhian and Nehruvian eras, until a striking revival of interest from the late 1980s onwards. It argues that these changes in the text's fortunes can be explained partly as a result of significant shifts in elite Indian political culture. It also suggests that we need to reassess our analysis of the fundamental fault-lines in Indian politics, questioning Chatterjee's and Nandy's argument on the centrality of tensions between Gandhian ‘indigenous’ thought and Nehruvian ‘Western’ modernity, and arguing for the importance of the conflict between a moral politics, endorsed by both Gandhi and Nehru, and a ‘pragmatic’ politics justified by the Arthasastra. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since independence in 1947 of India and Pakistan, Kashmir has remained a bone of contention between Pakistan and India. They have fought three wars so far on the dispute and continue to be a source of irritant in their relations. It is also a flash point between the two nuclear powers of South Asia. In this article, an effort has been made to discuss some of the important problems involved in the dispute, politics of the region, history and its dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In principle, the global development discourse increasingly views people as 'agents of change' rather than 'recipients of services'. In practice, however, people's participation has been limited to project implementation and has been pursued without building people's critical consciousness about their problems, and the means of solving them. This becomes particularly relevant for marginalized communities, such as sex workers and sexual minorities in India, who face further problems of discrimination and widespread stigma. Although global policy-making spaces have sought participation to ensure representation, there seems to be a strong tendency among dominant stakeholders to maintain systems and processes that legitimize and perpetuate the exclusion of marginalized groups. This article explores how these communities have seized opportunities offered by an HIV prevention programme and a global, post-2015 participatory research process to move from addressing symptoms of their problems towards tackling root causes, while using contextual knowledge to influence global policy making. When given an opportunity, community members have demonstrated the ability to deliberate, negotiate and advocate for their own agenda in meaningful ways and to challenge beliefs held by policy makers. This article makes the case for a shift in development practice and research, such that it provides people living on the margins the space and opportunity to analyse their own situations and consider alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Center versus periphery distributional conflict is the standard explanation for separatist war. However, many separatists face strong opposition from other groups in their area. The likelihood of separatist war depends on the center's political relationships with competing groups in the periphery. This article demonstrates two patterns in separatist war onset worldwide at the ethnic group level. Groups with a political advantage in the capital relative to their regional neighbors are less likely to have grievances about local political and economic institutions and have a lower probability of separatist war. On the other hand, ethnic groups that share territory with the most powerful ethnic group in their country are deterred from separatist violence. The center's commitment to defend the regional status quo is particularly credible. Given the importance of within-periphery rivalries to separatist war, policy interventions designed to resolve center/periphery resource conflict may be ineffective against violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposition that voters reward incumbent governments that perform well economically is considered received wisdom in many democracies. We examine this hypothesis in India, a developing democracy where scholars have found limited evidence of economic voting. Using a unique state-level panel dataset covering the years 1980–2012, we find that there is no relationship between growth and electoral performance in the aggregate. However, since 2000, there do appear to be increasing electoral returns to governments that deliver higher rates of economic growth. The positive returns to growth are much larger than those to improved law and order, while inflation has no clear impact. The results suggest a significant shift in Indian voter behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends virtually eliminating trans fat from the global food supply. Although several high-income countries have successfully reduced trans fat levels in foods, low- and middle-income countries such as India face additional challenges to its removal from the food supply. This study provides a systems analysis of the Indian food chain to assess intervention options for reducing trans fat intake in low-income consumers. Methods: Data were collected at the manufacturer, retailer and consumer levels. Qualitative interviews were conducted with vanaspati manufacturers (n = 13) and local food vendors (n = 44). Laboratory analyses (n = 39) of street foods/snacks sold by the vendors were also conducted. Trans fat and snack intakes were also examined in low-income consumers in two rural villages (n = 260) and an urban slum (n = 261). Results: Manufacturers of vanaspati described reducing trans fat levels as feasible but identified challenges in using healthier oils. The fat content of sampled oils from street vendors contained high levels of saturated fat (24.7-69.3 % of total fat) and trans fat (0.1-29.9 % of total fat). Households were consuming snacks high in trans fat as part of daily diets (31 % village and 84.3 % of slum households) and 4 % of rural and 13 % of urban households exceeded WHO recommendations for trans fat intakes. Conclusions: A multisectoral food chain approach to reducing trans fat is needed in India and likely in other low- and middle-income countries worldwide. This will require investment in development of competitively priced bakery shortenings and economic incentives for manufacturing foods using healthier oils. Increased production of healthier oils will also be required alongside these investments, which will become increasingly important as more and more countries begin investing in palm oil production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]