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Know Your Publishing Space: Institutional Repositories

Institutional repositories(IRs), if established in various universities, would help bring out the contributions by Indian researchers on the world map, especially in the field of Arts, Humanities, and...

by Shubhada Nagarkar | On 19 Feb 2021

Employment Generation in Difficult Times: Reflections on Kerala Budget

Despite high educational attaintments, educated unemployment is a worrying feature of Kerala. Some of the suggestions made by the Kerala Finance Minister are discussed below. The note suggests that tu...

by Rakkee Thimothy | On 02 Feb 2021

ADB’s Comprehensive Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has become a major global crisis that requires country, regional, and global intervention, as well as collaboration to mitigate damage to economies and peop...

by Asian Development Bank | On 25 Jan 2021

Grand Challenges for the Humanities in India:

In January 2019, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) tasked Professors Nirmala Menon (IIT Indore) and Sumathi Ramaswamy (Duke University) with the following: To identify 10 grand challen...

by | On 18 Jan 2021

Redressing Violence Against Women in COVID 19: Experience of Hospital-based Centres in Mumbai, India

The pandemic has brought a sharp focus on the issue of domestic violence. Over the last few months while COVID 19 has in general led to deaths and disruption of lives, it has, in particular, been an e...

by Sangeeta Rege | On 24 Nov 2020

Prakriti Karyshala: Case Studies Ecomanagement: Mapping and Securing Commons

Prakriti Karyashala, launched in 2012 through the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), to respond to the rising needs of rural communities to respond to ecological change. It trains a cadre of f...

by Anjali P Iyer | On 20 Nov 2020

eSS Sunday Edit: Languages of COVID’s Cultural Imaginary

Paintings depicting the great plagues in Europe have remained cultural texts for centuries, documenting not just people’s suffering but also social attitudes, official responses and theological-eschat...

by Pramod K. Nayar | On 30 Aug 2020

The Sunday Edit: How Will Latin America Weather the Covid-19 Storm?

With most of their fiscal firepower spent and with their political capital draining away, Latin American governments are grappling with the challenge of gradually opening up their economies even befor...

by | On 21 Jun 2020

Pulse of the Pandemic: A Sudden Surge in Scientific Attitude During COVID-19 Crisis: A Preliminary Survey Report

The present study used surely research methods to gauge the extent of knowledge regarding the SARS-CoV-2virus and the disease it causes, COVID19, among a section of the Indian population. Some 3500 pe...

by Gauhar Raza | On 16 Jun 2020

The Covid-19 Lockdown in India: Gender and Caste Dimensions of the First Job Losses

Based on national-level panel data from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) database, this paper investigates the first effects of Covid-19 induced...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 09 Jun 2020

The Sunday Edit: Challenges of the Pandemic: Confronting Harsh Realities

Measures to control/mitigate the spread of the disease appear to be surprisingly ill informed about the living and working conditions of the urban millions who support the life and work of the city’s...

by Udaya S. Mishra | On 07 Jun 2020

A New Approach to Social Sciences, Humanities in a Time of Crisis

Can use the COVID-19 time to slow down, take stock and develop fresh approaches for the social sciences and humanities?

by | On 22 May 2020

Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science

This article explores the psychological, social, and neuroscientific effects of COVID-19 and set out the immediate priorities and longer-term strategies for mental health science research. These prior...

by | On 21 May 2020

Containment Strategies and Support for Vulnerable Households

Policymakers across the developing world are facing the need to make rapid decisions on their COVID-19 response with little available data or guidance. Policies that help deal with the economic cri...

by Jonathan Leape | On 18 May 2020

The COVID-19, Migration and Livelihood in India

Sudden eruption of migration crisis resulting from the out-break of COVID-19 again reminds us the urgency of the matter. This policy paper presents how our understanding of migration and livelihood...

by R. B. Bhagat | On 08 May 2020

Economic Policies for COVID-19

This note describes some of the early policy developments in the UK and the way in which the framing and understanding of a novel economic problem evolved to include a focus on livelihoods combining...

by Paul Anand | On 01 May 2020

Class Struggle, Environment and the Corona Virus Pandemic

Unless militant actions are undertaken, workers will find more and more of their rights trampled in the name of fighting the Corona virus. Parties, trade unions, and social movement organisations and...

by Kunal Chattopadhyay | On 25 Apr 2020

Shared Responsibility, Gobal Solidarity : Responding to the Socio-Economic Impacts of COVID-19

The current global health crisis is unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations — one that is killing people, spreading human suffering, and upending people’s lives. But this is much more...

by United Nations (UN) | On 24 Apr 2020

Tribute: Vidya Bal (January 12, 1937 to January 30, 2020)

Vidya Bal was a veteran feminist journalist, author and editor based in Pune. She was also a well-known social activist in the women’s liberation movement in India who dedicated her life to fighting f...

by Vibhuti Patel | On 24 Apr 2020

Impact of Changes in Fiscal Federalism and Fourteenth Finance Commission Recommendations Scenarios on States Autonomy and Social Sector Priorities

This paper compares the additional gains from higher tax devolution in the post 14th FC period, with the additional burden due to the withdrawal of certain central schemes and the changes in the shar...

by Amarnath H. K. | On 30 Mar 2019

India's Universal Basic Income: Bedeviled by the Details

The idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI)-—periodic and uncon- ditional cash payments to all citizens—has gained renewed attention amid growing concerns about technological unemployment in advanced e...

by | On 28 Mar 2019

The case of the spurious drug kingpin: Shifting pills in Chennai

The public lecture by Dr. Sarah Hodges, organised by the Forum for Medical Ethics Society with the Centre for Law and Society, School of Law, and Constitutional Governance, Centre for Public Health, S...

by Sarah Hodges | On 22 Mar 2019

Readiness of National Statistical Systems in Asia and the Pacific for Leveraging Big Data to Monitor the SDGs

In September 2015, the world committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have broad and interconnected social, economic, social, econo...

by Jose Ramon Albert | On 20 Mar 2019

The Anomaly of Women’s Work and Education in India

This paper utilizes a large cross-section of data sets such as the ILOSTAT, NSSO Quinquennial Employment and Unemployment Survey, Labour Bureau Annual Employment and Unemployment Survey, National Fami...

by Surbhi Ghai | On 03 Feb 2019

Trends and Patterns of Corporate Social Responsibility Expenditure: A Study of Manufacturing Firms in India

This paper analysed the trends and pattern of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure of manufacturing firms in India in both voluntary and mandatory period. For the analysis, this study use...

by P. Kavitha | On 01 Feb 2019

Globalization and the Re-Articulations of the Local: A Case Study from Kerala’s Midlands

This paper is a preliminary attempt to understand globalisation and social transformation in the rural Kerala. It addresses the socioeconomic changes in a village in the mid-land region of Kerala name...

by Mijo Luke | On 31 Jan 2019

Wage Inequalities in India

This paper examines the dimension of inequality since our earlier work on poverty and deprivation suggest that social inequality seems to overwhelm all other inequalities in a whole range of indicator...

by K.P. Kannan | On 31 Jan 2019

How Do We Prevent a Food Crisis in the Midst of Climate Change?

The current global warming trends are extremely likely to be the result of human social and economic activity since the middle of the 20th century (NASA 2018). Evidence of rapid climate change varies...

by Kunmin Kim | On 21 Nov 2018

Social Funding of Green Financing: An Application of Distributed Ledger Technologies

This paper contributes to the literature in two ways: First, it delineates a concrete application of DLTs in the field of green financing, which offers the potential to increase social welfare. Second...

by Naoyuki Yoshino | On 20 Nov 2018

Indian Banks and the Prevention of Corruption Act: Freedom and Discipline

Selfless activists like Mr. Pai teach us the importance of continuously interrogating the functioning of our democracy. The NPA issue has persisted for almost a decade. It has eroded the profitability...

by Ashima Goyal | On 29 Oct 2018

Does Regional Integration Matter for Inclusive Growth? Evidence from the Multidimensional Regional Integration Index

This paper employs a multidimensional approach to gauge the degree of regional integration and analyze impact on growth, inequality, and poverty. It constructs a multidimensional regional integration...

by Cyn-Young Park | On 26 Oct 2018

Fiscal Challenges to Financing Social Protection to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals: A Case of Three Countries

This working paper summarizes the findings from three of the countries chosen by the study—Mongolia, Myanmar, and Timor-Leste—to represent the range of challenges countries face and need to contend wi...

by Sri Wening Handayani | On 27 Sep 2018

Women’s Land Title Ownership and Empowerment: Evidence from India

This paper examines how women’s participation in family decision-making is affected by land rights in rural areas in India. The 2005 Hindu Succession Act was legislated to protect women’s rights to an...

by Harold Glenn A. Valera | On 26 Sep 2018

Aging and Implications for Elderly Care Services in the People’s Republic of China

Aging can be harmful to an economy over the long run, as an increase in the share of the elderly population reduces both the labor force and output per adult, and increases the social security burden....

by Hiroko Uchimura-Shiroshi | On 10 Sep 2018

Strengthening India’s External Intelligence Infrastructure: An Assessment .

This paper outlines a number of points, which would help to develop a more superior external intelligence infrastructure. In absence of a national security strategy (NSS), the task of intelligence age...

by Shantanu K. Bansal | On 04 Sep 2018

Misallocation in the Market for Inputs: Enforcement and the Organization of Production

The strength of contract enforcement determines how firms source inputs and organize production. Using microdata on Indian manufacturing plants, it shows that production and sourcing decisions appear...

by Johannes Boehm | On 03 Sep 2018

Public–Private Partnership Development in Southeast Asia

Infrastructure development in Southeast Asia has been financed mainly by public funds, which leave wide gaps in majority of countries. Governments have tried to attract the private sector by offering...

by Fauziah Zen | On 16 Aug 2018

Drivers of Student Performance: Evidence from Higher Secondary Public Schools in Delhi

The role of teachers and students in the formation of test scores at the higher secondary level (grade 12) in public schools in Delhi, India is analysed. Using the value added approach, we find subs...

by Deepti Goel | On 01 Aug 2018

An Overview of Islamic Banking and Finance in Asia

The Islamic finance industry has grown substantially in Asia over the last 2 decades. The Muslim populations in different Asian countries, especially in Southeast Asia, are increasing. Rapid Muslim po...

by Akbar Komijani | On 27 Jul 2018

Documenting Heritage of Localities around Hyderabad Issues and Challenges

The story of irrevocable erasure and thoroughgoing transformation is part of the story of ‘development’ around Hyderabad as it is elsewhere. A case study of the transformation affecting the villages i...

by Aloka Parasher Sen | On 26 Jul 2018

Assessment of the BUB Program: Improving Access of Local Communities to Basic Services and Strengthening Social Capital

The Aquino administration through the Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cluster (HDPRC) and Good Governance and Anti-Corruption Cluster (GGACC) launched the Bottom-up Budgeting (BUB) exercise in...

by Rosario G. Manasan | On 05 Jul 2018

Assessment of Implementation Issues and Livelihood Success on the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) of the DSWD

The study aims to assess the sustainable livelihood program (SLP) implementation processes based on recent policy enhancements and indicators of program success. The analysis is based on focus group d...

by Marife M. Ballesteros | On 05 Jul 2018

The Structure of Origin-Based Social Network and Its Influence on Migration Diffusion: The Case of a Migrant-Sending Village in the Philippines

This study seeks to examine the structure of migration networks in a migrant-sending in the Philippines and to relate this to the diffusion of migration behavior in the village over time. Such socio-h...

by Aubrey D. Tabuga | On 29 Jun 2018

Activist to Entrepreneur – The Role of Social Enterprise in Supporting Women’s Empowerment in Pakistan

This report sets out to establish how well social enterprise really does address gender inequality and women's empowerment in Pakistan. It is part of a series of reports commissioned by the British Co...

by Mark Richardson | On 28 Jun 2018

Assessing Public Expenditure Efficiency at Indian States

This paper attempts to understand what drives the public expenditure efficiency among the States. For this, it looks at the role of economic growth as well as quality of governance. The results of inp...

by Ranjan Kumar Mohanty | On 20 Jun 2018

The Morbidity Cost of Air Pollution: Evidence from Consumer Spending in China

This paper provides knowledge the first analysis of the morbidity cost of PM2.5 for the entire population of a developing country. To address potential endogeneity in pollution exposure, it constructs...

by Panle Jia Barwick | On 12 Jun 2018

Income Inequality and Depression: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Association and a Scoping Review of Mechanisms

Most countries have witnessed a dramatic increase of income inequality in the past three decades. This paper addresses the question of whether income inequality is associated with the population prev...

by | On 31 May 2018

Does India Need a Caste-based Quota in Cricket? Drawing Parallels from South Africa

In India’s 85-year-long Test history, only four of the 289 male Test cricketers have reportedly been Dalits. While concrete steps have been taken to address a similar under-representation of non-white...

by | On 29 May 2018

Caste-Gender Intersectionalities and the Curious Case of Child Nutrition: A Methodological Exposition

A growing body of research has addressed the issue of intersectionality since the last three decades, mostly adopting qualitative methodologies. Quantitative attempts to capture intersectionality h...

by Simantini Mukhopadhyay | On 28 May 2018

Social Sector Expenditure of States Pre & Post Fourteenth Finance Commission ( 2014 - 15 & 2015 - 16 )

This paper seeks to analyze the change in total central transfers to the States and its impact on expenditure on Social Sector in 2015-16(post FFC period) in comparison with 2014-15(pre-FFC pe...

by | On 28 May 2018

The World Development Report 2018 —LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise

The World Development Report 2018 (WDR 2018)—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the timing is excellent: education has long been critical to h...

by World Bank [WB] | On 04 May 2018

World Happiness Report 2018

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. The World Happiness Report 2018, ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of...

by | On 04 May 2018

Labour Regulations in India: Improving the Social Security Framework

An important segment of labour regulations concerns the protection aspects of social security. These regulations provide safety nets or fall back mechanisms to enable workers to cope with crises that...

by Anwarul Hoda | On 30 Apr 2018

Understanding Well-Being: An Indian Experience

Book Review of Sociology of Well-Being: Lession from India. by Steve Derne Sage India, 2017, Rs.850 INR, (Harcover) Pp.xv+327, ISBN: 9789385985720

by Kishor Podh | On 24 Apr 2018

Revisiting Rates of Return to Agricultural R&D Investment

This study proposes the use of partial least squares to determine the key parameters of the perpetual inventory method model of capital stock as a new approach to calculate research and development (R...

by Alejandro Nin Pratt | On 13 Apr 2018

Demographic Changes Of Nepal: Trends and Policy Implications

This timely report about Nepal’s changing demography reveals the unique position of the country vis-à-vis its demographic transition.

by National Planning (NPC) | On 13 Apr 2018

Social Interactions and Stigmatized Behavior: “Donating” Blood Plasma in Rural China

Despite the resultant disutility, some people, in particular, the poor, are engaged in behaviors that carry social stigma. Empirical studies on stigmatized behavior are rare, largely due to the form...

by Xi Chen | On 12 Apr 2018

Developing and Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs at Scale: A Reference Guide for Program Managers and Policy Makers

Recently, a renewed interest in large-scale community health worker (CHW) programs has been seen globally. This renewal provides an opportune moment to take stock of issues and challenges such progr...

by Steve Hodgins | On 12 Apr 2018

Explaining the Growth of CSR within OECD Countries: The Role of Institutional Legitimacy in Resolving the Institutional Mirror vs. Substitute Debate

The study has developed three hypotheses based on two (rationalist and constructivist/sociological) strands of institutional theory. Based on a new dataset comprising the corporate membership in busin...

by Daniel Kinderman | On 12 Apr 2018

Human Trafficking in Taiwan’s Fisheries Sector

Taiwan has one of the world’s largest DWFs, with over 1,800 vessels flying the Taiwanese flag operating across the world and hundreds of Taiwanese-owned vessels flying other flags.

by Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) | On 09 Apr 2018

People, Policy and Partnership for Disaster Resilience Development: Proceedings

The report says that the Bunkar Samiti was establised to create a common platform for sustainable livelihoods.

by National Alliance Risk Reduction (NAADRR) | On 05 Apr 2018

Community Disaster Resilience Fund (CDRF): Operational Guidelines - Draft

The report says that the goal is to promote community leadership in strengthening capabilities and resource mobilization.

by National Alliance Risk Reduction (NAADRR) | On 05 Apr 2018

Climate Policy under Cooperation and Competition between Regions with Spatial Heat Transport

The paper builds a novel stochastic dynamic regional integrated assessment model (IAM) of the climate and economic system including a number of important climate science elements that are missing in m...

by Yongyang Cai | On 04 Apr 2018

Changing Task Contents of Jobs in India: Implications and Way Forward

In this paper, we analyse the evolution of the task content of jobs in India between 1983 and 2011. Following standard literature, we calculated five task intensities by combining NSS data with O-Ne...

by | On 28 Mar 2018

National Policy On Fishing & Fishermen

The policy says that the fishery has been one of the most ancient but important source of livelihood for a large population.

by Bharatiya Party | On 26 Mar 2018

An Ethnographic Study of the Mathru Poorna Yojana (One Full Meal) Pilot Project for Pregnant and Lactating Mothers in Two Blocks of Two Districts in Karnataka

The present study was undertaken to review the pilot implementation of the programme and its uptake by beneficiaries, in order to provide data to the DWCD, before scaling up the programme to all distr...

by Centre for Budget and Policy Studies CBPS | On 23 Mar 2018

Continuing Caste inequalities in Rural Uttar Pradesh

A continuous mixed opinion on the relevance of caste based reservations and caste as a factor of socioeconomic disparity in the recent period demands update of evidence on socioeconomic inequalities...

by Srinivas Goli | On 16 Mar 2018

Rehabilitation of Child Labour in India Lessons Learnt from the Evaluation of NCLPs

The paper says that the children continue to form a sizeable section of the labour force in several fields of employment around the world.

by | On 13 Mar 2018

State of Child Workers in India: Mapping Trends

The present report begins with a background on child labour, with a discussion on different terms associated with ‘child labour’, followed by child labour policies and legislation implemented by the g...

by Ellina Samantroy | On 12 Mar 2018

Women and Land in the Muslim World: Pathways to Increase Access to Land for the Realization of Development, Peace and Human Rights

This report looks at global normative work, regional frameworks, and good country level practices, it provides an analysis of the most important aspects to be taken into consideration to successfully...

by Ombretta Tempra | On 09 Mar 2018

Population Pressure on Land in Kerala

The paper examines how Kerala, a demographically and socially well advanced state in India, responded to the high population pressure during the 30 year period from 1975-76 to 2005-06.

by N. Ajith Kumar | On 07 Mar 2018

Female Labour Force Participation in India and Beyond

The participation of women in the labour market varies greatly across countries, reflecting differences in economic development, education levels, fertility rates, access to childcare and other suppo...

by | On 07 Mar 2018

The Beautiful Project- A Visual Documentation

Two students Gretchen Barretto and Shubhankar Shah created this video where they worked on a social project where they wanted to see how people react when they are called beautiful.

by Gretchen Barretto | On 05 Mar 2018

Labour Dynamics and Social Security in Leather-based Enterprises in Mumbai and ShanghaiA Preliminary Background Study

The advent of Globalization has led to profound transformation in the global economy in terms of policy paradigms, growth trajectories and developmental strategies of governance, in the advanced eco...

by | On 26 Feb 2018

Education, Patriarchy, Gendering and Resistance: A Case Study of Adolescent Girls at KGBV, Ranipur

The research was important to see how the scheme is seen by the girls at KGBV, how the teachings shape them, and how does power play come to control them.

by Maitreya Jha | On 23 Feb 2018

Fieldnotes on Caste Practices among Muslims of Nohsa Panchayat

The paper says that the commonly held view is that the caste based stratification is a feature of the Hindu model of social organization.

by Khursheed Akbar | On 22 Feb 2018

Women Rights in Conflict Zones: A Focus on India

Through these studies it has been shown how often the plight of women and the impact of war on their lives had been ignored.

by Sona Drahonovská | On 22 Feb 2018

Social Rewards and the Design of Voluntary Incentive Mechanism for Biodiversity Protection on Farmland

The paper examines how endogenous social preferences could affect economic incentive design to encourage biodiversity protection on private land. A 'green' farmer may enjoy esteem from leading by exam...

by Rupayan Pal | On 22 Feb 2018

Focus: Women, Gender and Armed Conflict

The end of the Cold War in 1989 did not, as had been expected, bring about a reduction in armed conflicts. More than two thirds of the poorest countries in the world are in conflict regions. The natur...

by Austrian Development Agency (ADA) | On 21 Feb 2018

War on the Female Body: Rape and Sexual Violence during Conflict

This article focuses on rape as a weapon of war, the sociological impacts of which can be widespread and long-lasting. This is especially due to the ensuing terror and disruption to livelihoods, relat...

by AMSA Global Health | On 21 Feb 2018

Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: Understanding the Motivations

The paper talks about the unequal power relations, discrimination and misogyny in patriarchal societies are exacerbated by the promotion of aggression and violence during war.

by E.J. Wood | On 21 Feb 2018

The Contribution of Gender-Based Violence and Network Trauma to Gender Differences in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The paper narrates that the two common domains of trauma, network trauma and gender based violence (GBV), may contribute to this gender difference in PTSD rates.

by Derrick Silove | On 21 Feb 2018

Sexual Violence in the “People’s War” – The Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Girls in Nepal

The report described the level and cases of gender based sexual violence during the armed conflict and proved that both the warring parties were involved in such heinous acts. It also showed the letha...

by Institute of Human Rights Communication, Nepal (IHRICON | On 21 Feb 2018

Higher Education and Development in Kerala

The paper says that despite high levels of literacy, near universal enrolment in elementary education, high levels of social and human development, why could Kerala not transform itself into a prosper...

by Jandhyala Tilak | On 14 Feb 2018

The 2018 Budget Speech: Malaysia

Budget speech by Finance Minister of Malaysia.

by Minister of Finance Malaysia | On 09 Feb 2018

A Shift from Crime to Terrorism: Assessing D-Company

This paper offers an analysis of the causes behind the changing philosophy and practices of one of the well-known crime organizations from India to move closer towards terrorism to support its crimina...

by Ajey Lele | On 09 Feb 2018

Budget 2018: Highlights of the Draft FY2018 Japan Budget

FY2018 budget, the budget for final year of the intensive reform period set in the Fiscal Consolidation Plan, continues to pursue both economic revitalization and fiscal consolidation.

by | On 09 Feb 2018

Divisive Politics in Tamizh Nadu

While the Dravidian movement is surely a necessary counter to historical and even contemporary oppressive politics played by Brahmins and other upper castes, their militant politics and intellectual...

by Shyam Sundar | On 08 Feb 2018

Enhancing Climate Resilience of India’s Coastal Communities

The project aims to enhance the resilience of the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable populations, particularly women, in the coastal areas of India to climate change and extreme events.

by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | On 08 Feb 2018

Does Gender Diversity Improve Firm Performance?: Evidence from India

This report explores how fostering gender diversity at the firm level can be good for business.

by Ruchika Joshi | On 08 Feb 2018

Proceedings of the Workshop: State of the Art of Local Governance - Challenges for the Next Decade

The discussions in the workshop ranged from scrutinizing overall models of governance via technical and administrative applications to philosophical debates about the core values of democracy

by Bent Jörgensen | On 07 Feb 2018

Choice, Recognition and the Democracy Effects of Decentralization

The report says that many democratic decentralization reforms are well-crafted.

by James Manor | On 07 Feb 2018

Assessing Poverty Alleviation Strategies for Their Impact on Poor Women: Study with Special Reference to India

This paper is concerned with the way macro-economic strategies can affect the incidence of poverty, especially among women, and also with the effectiveness of various forms of government interventio...

by Jayati Ghosh | On 05 Feb 2018

Of Hits and Misses: An Analysis of Union Budget 2018-19

The report presents a comprehensive analysis of the budgetary provisions for important social sectors and the vulnerable sections of the population. It also presents an overview of the fiscal indicat...

by Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability CBGA | On 05 Feb 2018

Economic Survey 2017: Volume II, Chapter 10: Social Infrastructure, Employment and Human Development

The report says that investment in human capital is a prerequisite for a healthy and productive population for nation building.

by Arun Jaitley | On 31 Jan 2018

Social Infrastructure: Way Forward

The tenth chapter of Economic Survey 2018 has sown that investments in social infrastructure and human development has paid off well. The policies and schemes have also been mentioned in detail. The g...

by Lakshmi Priya | On 31 Jan 2018

A New, Exciting Bird’s-Eye View of the Indian Economy Through the GST

Data on the international exports of states (the first in India’s history) suggests a strong correlation between export performance and states’ standard of living. India’s exports are unusual in tha...

by Arun Jaitley | On 30 Jan 2018

Determinants and Consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from the Revision of the Company Act in India

The paper also indicate that the revision is effective to increase the eligible firms' profits by 3.5 percent, compared to the ineligible firms.

by Lee Woong | On 30 Jan 2018

Baloch Insurgency and Challenges to the Islamic Republic of Iran

The tension between insurgents and the regime in Iran till today does exist without any positive development. In order to challenge the problem the present paper deals with several solutions.

by Ahmad Taheri | On 23 Jan 2018

Forward and Backward Linkages of Migrants to Slums in Delhi

Linkages with the native place as well as integration within the city constitute backward and forward linkages of slum dwellers. Remittances are important part of these linkages. The paper explores t...

by | On 18 Jan 2018

A Guide to Using Budget Analysis

Budget analysis entails analysis and assessment of budget from the lens of marginalised sections of population with the objective of prioritisation of public expenditures and collection of revenues...

by Happy Pant | On 17 Jan 2018

People, Policy and Partnership for Disaster Resilience Development

The paper narrates about the proceedings that were centered on a wide range of community level risk reduction efforts that are effectively reducing vulnerabilities as well as influencing development p...

by National Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction NADRR | On 10 Jan 2018

One Year Later.... Community Disaster Resilience Fund (CDRF), Learning From the Pilot Initiative in India

The paper says that the Community Disaster Resilience Fund (CDRF) is viewed as a mechanism to direct resources for DRR to at risk and vulnerable communities in the context of local implementation of t...

by National Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction NADRR | On 10 Jan 2018

Mapping Spaces For Democratic Participation In South Aceh Indonesia

The paper explored participatory aspects of local democracy in Aceh and some major challenges in South Aceh for people’s participation in local decision-making processes.

by Leena Avonius | On 08 Jan 2018

India’s National Policy on Urban Street Vendors

This Briefing Note describes the process by which India’s National Policy on Urban Street Vendors was developed, the content of the policy, and the ongoing story of its implementation.

by Shalini Sinha | On 05 Jan 2018

Informal Economy Budget Analysis in Pakistan and Ravi Town, Lahore

The papers says that the informal sector in developing countries seems not only to be growing but also contributing to economic growth and linked with the formal sector of the economy.

by Khawar Mumtaz | On 04 Jan 2018

Social Protection, Citizenship and the Employment Relationship

This paper addresses the issues of social protection, citizenship and the employment relationship, through the lens of South Africa.

by Francie Lund | On 02 Jan 2018

Exploring Components and Elements of Sui Generis Systems for Plant Variety Protection and Traditional Knowledge in Asia

The main objective of this paper is to outline components and elements of sui generis Plant Variety Protection (PVP) systems and measures to protect traditional knowledge (TK) based on recent experien...

by Daniel Robinson | On 27 Dec 2017

How Regulation and Standards Can Support Social and Environmental Dynamics in Global Value Chains

This paper explores the policy measures that will best lead to the most positive outcomes as standards diffuse through global value chains.

by Raphael Kaplinsky | On 26 Dec 2017

Evolution of the Infant Health Production Function

This article provides a systematic review of the published literature to date on infant health production and how it has evolved over the past 3-4 decades as data have become more available, computing...

by Hope Corman | On 19 Dec 2017

Effective Public Investments to Improve Food Security

This paper focuses on public investments to improve food security can be placed into five broad categories.

by Livia Bizikova | On 18 Dec 2017

Mechanics of Replacing Benefit Systems with a Basic Income: Comparative Results from a Microsimulation Approach

Recent debates of basic income (BI) proposals shine a useful spotlight on the challenges that traditional forms of income support are increasingly facing, and highlight gaps in social provisions that...

by James Browne | On 15 Dec 2017

Intersecting Weather Variability And Chronic Food Poverty

The report says that despite the government’s various poverty reduction and social protection programs, poverty remains a social problem the country needs to hurdle.

by Connie Bayudan-Dacuycuy | On 13 Dec 2017

Evaluation and Assessment of the Effectiveness of the DSWD Internal and External Convergence as Operationalized by the Regional, Provincial, and City/Municipality Action Teams

This study aims to describe and examine organizational structures, business processes, and capacity development, as they relate to the design of DSWD’s Convergence Strategy.

by Jose Ramon G. Albert | On 11 Dec 2017

Globalisation, Democratic Decentralisation and Social Secutiy in India

This paper examines the role of democratic decentralisation in promoting inclusive governance (responsive, efficient equitable) and social security in the context of globalisation. Firstly, the paper...

by | On 07 Dec 2017

Scheduled Castes, Legitimacy and Local Governance: Continuing Social Exclusion in Panchayats

People of the Scheduled Castes have a long history of being discriminated against, exploited, and placed at the bottom of caste society. The panchayati raj, after the enactment of the 73rd Constitutio...

by | On 07 Dec 2017

Toward A Common Framework For Informal Employment Across Developed And Developing Countries

This paper addresses the importance of developing a common framework for defining informal employment in developed countries, and highlights issues that arise when applying the definition of informal...

by Françoise Carré | On 06 Dec 2017

How Does Socio-Economic Factors Force Children into Child Labour? A case study of Sahiwal district, Punjab, Pakistan

This study analyzes the socio-economic factors that force children into child labour. In order to find out the key factors of child labour, the techniques of univariate analysis and bivariate analysis...

by Syed Kazm | On 01 Dec 2017

Spillovers in Education Choice

This paper examines how skills are shaped by social interactions in families. The paper shows that older siblings causally affect younger sibling’s education choices and early career earnings. The pap...

by Juanna Schrøter Joensen | On 01 Dec 2017

Labour Regulations in India: Improving the Social Security Framework

An important segment of labour regulations concerns the protection aspects of social security. These regulations provide safety nets or fall back mechanisms to enable workers to cope with crises that...

by | On 30 Nov 2017

Socio-economic and Cultural Factors of Violence against Women in Pakistan

This study discusses the socio-economic, cultural, religious and institutional factors that sustain abuse conducted against women.

by Ayesha Qaisrani | On 24 Nov 2017

The Determinants of Virtue: Modelling Changes in the CSR Ratings of Chinese Firms

Most empirical studies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) use cross-sectional data or case studies, making causality hard to establish. The paper overcomes this limitation by using panel data on...

by Shuangqi Wu | On 23 Nov 2017

Does Information Empower the Poor? Evidence from Indonesia’s Social Security Card

In 2013, the Government of Indonesia conducted one of the largest information interventions in history, in an attempt to further alleviate poverty and as a complement to the Social Protection Card (KP...

by Achmad Tohari | On 20 Nov 2017

Knowledge attitude and practice survey on social protection schemes in selective districts

The study focus on the existing social assistance schemes targeted towards the extreme poor.

by Rabia Tabassum | On 16 Nov 2017

Targetting of Social Transfers: Are India's Elderly Poor Left Behind ?

Whether social transfers should be targeted or universal is an unsolved debate that is particularly relevant for the implementation of social protection schemes in developing countries. While the limi...

by | On 15 Nov 2017

Socially Disadvantaged Groups and Microfinance in India

About two-thirds of microfinance clients in India are reported to be in Self-Help Groups (SHGs). These mostly women’s groups have been promoted by nationalized banks since the early nineties to improv...

by | On 08 Nov 2017

Socially Disadvantaged Groups and Micro-finance in India

About two-thirds of microfinance clients in India are reported to be in Self-Help Groups (SHGs). These mostly women’s groups have been promoted by nationalized banks since the early nineties to improv...

by Jean-Marie Baland | On 06 Nov 2017

Stigma or Red Tape? Roadblocks in the Use of Affirmative Action

This paper examines whether and to what extent, additional stigmatization adversely affects the use of reservations for higher education or jobs. The quantitative analysis is based on a primary survey...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 03 Nov 2017

Educational Achievement Through the Lens of Social Inequality : A Study in a Tribal Belt of Madhya Pradesh

The connection between social inequality and the actual level of learning is not as well understood in India as the patterns of inequality in enrolment. A study was conducted of 23 neighbouring and si...

by | On 02 Nov 2017

Marginality, Suffering, Justice: Questions of Dalit Dignity in Cultural Texts

Dalit dignity is organized around caste-determined labour that fits them into hierarchies of social dignity but which, in savage irony, renders them undignified as humans through social death. Second,...

by Pramod K. Nayar | On 31 Oct 2017

Corporate Social Irresponsibility: Companies & PC&PNDT Act

Female foeticide because of preference for boys over girls for a host of reasons is gigantic in India. According to the estimates of Asian Centre for Human Rights, during 1991 to 2011, a total of 25,4...

by Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) | On 26 Oct 2017

Subjective Probability Does Not Exist

The report shows that the rationality arguments used to establish the existence of subjective probabilities depend essentially on the identification of acting-as-ifyou-believe and actually believing.

by Asad Zaman | On 26 Oct 2017

Migration, Agriculture And Rural Development: Addressing the root causes of migration and harnessing its potential for development

The report says that conflicts, violence and natural disasters are among the root causes of migration and forced displacement.

by Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] | On 16 Oct 2017

Learning: To Realize Education's Promise

The report narrates that for societies, it spurs innovation, strengthens institutions, and fosters social cohesion.

by World Bank [WB] | On 04 Oct 2017

The Macroeconomic Benefits of Tax Enforcement in Pakistan

The benefits of improved tax enforcement in Pakistan through simulations of a model of the Pakistani economy is studied. We begin by documenting that the effective tax rate facing firms is increasin...

by Ethan Ilzetzki | On 04 Oct 2017

DRRM's Design and Implementation Need to Be Beefed Up

This, according to researchers Sonny Domingo and Ma. Divina Olaguera from the state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), is the problem the government needs to address to re...

by Philippine Institute Studies (PIDS) | On 03 Oct 2017

Measure and determinants of chronic and transient poverty in the Philippines

This Policy Note addresses this lack of a measure of chronic and transient poverty in the Philippines.

by Connie Bayudan-Dacuycuy | On 29 Sep 2017

Women in Politics and the Subject of Reservations

This paper, however, demonstrates that the effective history of thinking about political representation in the form of reservations for women is as old as the women’s movement itself. Feminist enga...

by Mary E. John | On 28 Sep 2017

The Impact of State Medical Marijuana Laws on Social Security Disability Insurance and Workers' Compensation Benefit Claiming

The authors study the effect of state medical marijuana laws (MMLs) on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Workers' Compensation (WC) claiming. The paper uses data on benefit claiming draw...

by Johanna Catherine Maclean | On 25 Sep 2017

Contributory Pension Schemes for the Poor: Issues and Ways Forward

The issue of old-age income security in India assumes significance in view of the expected rise in the elderly population in the years to come, problems of poverty and vulnerability among them and the...

by D Rajasekhar | On 14 Sep 2017

Health Experience of Women: A Gender Perspective

This review paper examines the ill-health experience of women, and whether it has been adequately explored in a socio-cultural context from a gender perspective. A deeper understanding of the wide ran...

by Annapuranam Karuppannan | On 14 Sep 2017

The Political Historiography of Modern Gujarat

The focus of this paper is on the political history of modern Gujarat, which has been an intriguing one. The paper identifies and discusses in the broad landscape of Gujarat’s politics three notable d...

by Tannen Neil Lincoln | On 14 Sep 2017

Chronic Food Poverty in the Philippines

This paper finds that deviation of rainfall from its normal values and other key variables such as education, employment, assets, and armed conflict affect chronic food poverty.

by Connie Bayudan-Dacuycuy | On 05 Sep 2017

India’s Phytonutrient Report - A Snapshot of Fruits and Vegetables Consumption, Availability and Implications for Phytonutrient Intake

The objective of the study is to understand the ‘actual’ consumption patterns of fruits and vegetables in India and compare this to the World Health Organization (WHO) ‘recommended’ quantity for an ad...

by Arpita Mukherjee | On 31 Aug 2017

Gandhian Economic Thought and Modern Economic Development

The report says that a fresh wave of globalisation since the early 1990s has created both hope and despair.

by Sudarshan Iyengar | On 23 Aug 2017

Negotiating Placeness: Tribal Communities in Western Ghats

By way of this contact, communities have re-constituted their relation with the forest, their identity and relations with others.

by M. Suresh | On 22 Aug 2017

Extreme Heat And Migration

The impacts of climate change on global temperatures profoundly affect people’s ability to sustain their livelihoods as well as their health; both of these dimensions in turn influence the migration o...

by International Organisation for Migration | On 18 Aug 2017

From Hills to Plains: Some Missing Aspects of Socio-Cultural Life of the Displaced Population of Sardar Sarovar Project, Gujarat

This paper describes the process of displacement of tribals from the hills to resettlement in the plains.

by Arjun Patel | On 17 Aug 2017

Training of Trainers Module on Sustainable Development Goals and Gram Panchayats

The report narrates that ensure access to social protection measures for the poor and the vulnerable.

by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | On 16 Aug 2017

Human Development Report 2016 - Human Development for Everyone

The Report explores who has been left out in the progress in human development and why.

by Selim Jahan | On 16 Aug 2017

Positive Peace Report 2016

This report introduces new thinking and evidence about Positive Peace.

by Institute for Economics and Peace | On 04 Aug 2017

Can Social Protection and Labour Programmes Contribute to Social Inclusion? Evidence from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Nepal

Discussions around the post-2015 development goals and the proposed ‘leave no-one behind’ principle have revived global interest in inequality and the role of social protection in promoting social...

by | On 04 Aug 2017

Gender, Islam, and law

This paper considers arguments about Islam and women’s welfare, and, at greater length, how legal systems with Islamic elements treat women, with a focus on how women fare in Islamic family courts. Ke...

by John R. Bowen | On 02 Aug 2017

SG 50 and Beyond: Protecting the Public Space in the New Era of Singaporean Pluralism

Over the last ten years or so it have begun to see public lobbying over moral and cultural issues such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) rights, Sanctity of Life issues including aborti...

by Johannis Bin Abdul Aziz | On 02 Aug 2017

Mapping the cotton value chain in Pakistan: A preliminary assessment for identification of climate vulnerabilities & pathways to adaptation

This approach was chosen to understand the consequences of climate risks as well as the adaptation measures needed to cope with adverse impacts in order to ensure the resilience of all actors involved...

by Samavia Batool | On 01 Aug 2017

Jati, Local Public Goods and Village Governance: Private Actions and Public Outcomes

This paper purports to understand whether voting along narrow parochial lines in socially and ethnically fragmented societies has measurable gains. Using data from rural India, we establish that ident...

by Raghbendra Jha | On 31 Jul 2017

A Case for Institutional Demand as Effective Social Protection: Supporting Smallholders Through Procurement and Food Assistance Programmes

This paper focuses on the rationale for state-based market interventions to support smallholder production along with some case studies that follow the evolution and impact of what we call ‘institutio...

by Ryan Nehring | On 28 Jul 2017

Energy, Poverty and Development: A Primer for the Sustainable Development Goals

The seventh goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is dedicated to ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030. While energy was implicit in the Mi...

by Hannah Goozee | On 28 Jul 2017

Handbook on Assessment of Labour Provisons in Trade and Investment Arrangements

Labour provisions have become more commonplace in trade agreements and increasingly comprehensive in their scope. The Handbook provides practical information in a format geared towards non-specialist...

by International Organisation | On 28 Jul 2017

The Corporate Social Responsibility Act in India: An Early Assessment

This paper aims at providing an early assessment of the response by firms to this Act. It examines the extent to which the CSR Act has led firms to comply and increase the share of profits being spent...

by Sangeeta Bansal | On 27 Jul 2017

Village Transportation Infrastructure and Women’s Non-agricultural Employment in India: The Conditioning Role of Community Gender Context

Previous studies have examined how demographic characteristics, education, culture, and labor policy suppress Indian women’s labor supply. However, not enough attention has been paid to the role of po...

by Lei Lei | On 27 Jul 2017

Localising the gender equality goal through urban planning tools in South Asia

This paper also highlights the need for a coordinated approach to SDG implementation by demonstrating the case of gender equality and urban planning.

by Shrimoyee Bhattacharya | On 26 Jul 2017

Book Review: Notes from the 'Other' Side

Book review of Reporting Pakistan By Meena Menon; Penguin Random House, Pp. 340, Rs 599.

by Amrit B L S | On 24 Jul 2017

Making Money Work: Financing a Sustainable Future in Asia and the Pacific

This report explores some of the ways forward. It highlights not just the need to inject more money into investments that contribute to sustainable development, but also to attract funds toward them—t...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 21 Jul 2017

Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2017 Supplement: Cautious Optimism for Asia's Outlook

With export demand stronger than expected in the first quarter of 2017, the region’s GDP is forecast to expand somewhat faster than forecast in April in Asian Development Outlook 2017.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 20 Jul 2017

Reforming the Financing System for the Road Sector in the People’s Republic of China

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) implemented a Fuel Tax Reform in 2009 that made significant changes to the way the country funds and delivers its ‘ordinary road’ program.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 17 Jul 2017

Maldives: Overcoming the Challenges of a Small Island State

This report provides support to the Maldivian government in formulating its high-priority policies by identifying the critical constraints to achieving inclusive growth. The report also provides polic...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 12 Jul 2017

Asia Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Finance Monitor 2014

This publication reviews various country aspects of SME finance covering the banking sector, nonbank sector, and capital markets. It is expected to support evidence-based policy making and regulations...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 11 Jul 2017

Innovative Strategies in Technical and Vocational Education and Training for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Bangladesh

This publication is complemented by critical analyses to determine key issues, challenges, and opportunities for innovative strategies toward global competitiveness, increased productivity, and inclus...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 10 Jul 2017

Sustainable Energy for All Status Report: Tracking Progress in Asia and the Pacific - A Summary Report

This report summarizes the initial activities of the Regional Hub, and contextualizes the challenges in Asia and the Pacific with the global efforts to reach the 2030 targets.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 06 Jul 2017

Cambodia: Addressing the Skills Gap

The report says that Cambodia’s growth in the last 20 years has been remarkable and the lives of its people have improved substantially. But low-cost labor advantages on a narrow economic base have dr...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 30 Jun 2017

Innovative Strategies in Technical and Vocational Education and Training for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Sri Lanka

This publication is part of a series of six country reports on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Each report presents cur...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 29 Jun 2017

Fiji: Building Inclusive Institutions for Sustained Growth

This study, using an inclusive growth framework, has identified the critical constraints that Fiji needs to address to strengthen investor sentiment even further and achieve inclusive growth.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 27 Jun 2017

Fiji: Creating Quality Jobs - Employment Diagnostic Study

This report, a joint effort of the Asian Development Bank and the International Labour Organization, seeks to foster a deeper understanding of the context, constraints, and opportunities for increasin...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 21 Jun 2017

Transitions to K–12 Education Systems: Experiences from Five Case Countries

The paper says that preparing and implementing a K–12 transition absorbs considerable financial and human resources. It follows that the reasons for restructuring must be compelling.

by Jouko Sarvi | On 21 Jun 2017

Human Capital Development in the People’s Republic of China and India: Achievements, Prospects, and Policy Challenges

This report draws lessons from how Asian economic giants India and the People’s Republic of China leveraged education and skills development to advance economic growth.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 20 Jun 2017

Innovative Strategies in Higher Education for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Bangladesh

The report also includes critical analyses to determine key issues, challenges, and opportunities for innovative strategies toward global competitiveness, increased productivity, and inclusive growth.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 20 Jun 2017

Sri Lanka: Development Effectiveness Brief

The paper says that Sri Lanka has emerged in recent years as one of the most dynamic countries in South Asia. With a rich cultural heritage, an increasingly sophisticated work force, and a strategic l...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 19 Jun 2017

Innovative Strategies in Higher Education for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Nepal

The report herein provide in-depth analysis of the state of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education in Nepal.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 19 Jun 2017

Toward Mainstreaming and Sustaining CDD in Indonesia: Understanding Local Initiatives and the Transition from PNPM-Rural to the Villlage Law

The report summarizes important lessons learned and policy implications from the first year of Village Law implementation.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 16 Jun 2017

Southwest Area Integrated Water Resources Planning and Management Project in Bangladesh: Sharing Knowledge on Community-Driven Development

This report describes how applying community-driven development principles to managing the water resource can both expand livelihood opportunities available to beneficiaries at no additional cost to t...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 16 Jun 2017

Achieving Skill Mobility in the ASEAN Economic Community: Challenges, Opportunities, and Policy Implications

This report examines the challenges ASEAN member states face in achieving the goal of greater mobility for the highly skilled, including hurdles in recognizing professional qualifications, opening up...

by Demetrios G. Papademetriou | On 16 Jun 2017

Impact of the Draft Central Labour Codes 2017 on CHWs in India

Ashas, the lowest rung of contracted full-time community health workers, face irregular pay and lack social security. Will the draft Central Code on Labour enable their regularization and a fixed wa...

by Kavita Bhatia | On 14 Jun 2017

Book Review : Other Women, Other Lives

Book Review of We Are All Revolutionaries Here: Militarism, Political Islam and Gender in Pakistan, By Aneela Zeb Babar; Sage Yoda Press, Pp.196, Rs 695.

by Meena Menon | On 12 Jun 2017

Trade and Transport Facilitation Monitoring Mechanism: Baseline Study in Bangladesh

This report reviews trade and transport procedures in Bangladesh, highlights the importance of monitoring trade and transport facilitation, and lays a foundation for future studies and establishment o...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 12 Jun 2017

Disaster-Resilient Microfinance: Learning from Communities Affected by Typhoon Haiyan

The report sets out the experience, analysis and conclusions of VisionFund International and their Philippine microfinance operation Community Economic Ventures Incorporated (CEVI). This analysis foll...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 09 Jun 2017

Gender Equality Results Case Study: Nepal Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women Project

This report presents the case study of that project, whose special features include responsiveness to local contexts and to conditions created by conflict, a well-coordinated system for women collecti...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 06 Jun 2017

Innovative Strategies in Higher Education for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Sri Lanka

This report presents current arrangements and initiatives in the country’s skills development strategies. These are complemented by critical analyses to determine key issues, challenges, and opportuni...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 06 Jun 2017

Incentives for Reducing Disaster Risk in Urban Areas

The rapid growth of urban areas has often resulted in the siting of poorly designed infrastructure and assets in hazard-prone areas, increasing disaster risk.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 05 Jun 2017

Myanmar Transport Sector Policy Note: How to Reform Transport Institutions

Myanmar's transport sector institutions are currently ill adapted to the new situation. Although government reform attempts have been in the right direction, more is needed to shape a strong basis for...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 02 Jun 2017

Myanmar Transport Sector Policy Note: Road Safety

Myanmar is at a critical point in terms of road safety. In 2014, road-related deaths reached 4,300, which is twice as many as in 2009. Substantial and decisive action is needed, including early fundin...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 31 May 2017

Myanmar Transport Sector Policy Note: River Transport

Myanmar has an extensive river network that is well positioned to serve the country’s main transport corridors, including the link between Yangon and Mandalay. However, main rivers are difficult to na...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 31 May 2017

Safety and Intelligent Transport Systems Development in the People’s Republic of China

This report identifies factors which contribute to collisions that can be addressed by intelligent transport systems technologies in the People’s Republic of China. It examines opportunities for estab...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 24 May 2017

Tajikistan: Promoting Export Diversification and Growth

Tajikistan has sustained high economic growth since its civil war ended in 1997. Real gross domestic product (GDP) during 1997–2015 grew at an average 7.2% a year, driven mainly by agriculture and ser...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 24 May 2017

Draft Labour Code on Social Security & Welfare

In line with the recommendations of the 2nd National Commission on Labour, Ministry of Labour & Employment has taken steps for simplification, amalgamation and rationalization of Central Labour Laws a...

by | On 23 May 2017

A Comparative Analysis of Tax Administration in Asia and the Pacific: 2016

The analysis and practical guidance provided in this report are based on surveys of revenue bodies conducted in 2014 and 2015, along with accompanying research of revenue bodies’ corporate documents,...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 22 May 2017

Risk Financing for Rural Climate Resilience in the Greater Mekong Subregion

This report presents the findings of a climate risk financing study conducted by the GMS Core Environment Program in 28 rural communities in Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Viet Na...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 22 May 2017

ASEAN+3 Bond Market Guide 2016: Thailand

The paper says that the government has continued to issue bonds since then with the primary objectives being to finance the annual budget deficit, support social and economic development, and restruct...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 16 May 2017

Identity for Development in Asia and the Pacific

The objective of this report is to help governments and multilateral institutions assess and integrate ID systems into their development activities. The intended audience includes government policy ma...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 15 May 2017

Mapping Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations in Asia and the Pacific: The ADB Experience

ADB recognizes four types of fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCAS)—conflict-affected, fragile,transitional, and subnational—and each situation has its own unique set of characteristics, and...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 12 May 2017

Mongolia: Development Effectiveness Brief

The paper mentions that over the 25 years that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has partnered with Mongolia, the country continues to be defined to a certain extent by its transition to free market re...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 10 May 2017

Firing Up Regional Brain Networks: The Promise of Brain Circulation in the ASEAN Economic Community

The reports in this series draw on the insights of 387 regional and international experts and practitioners through their participation in focus group discussions, meetings, and surveys. Contributors...

by Jeanne Batalova | On 08 May 2017

LED Street Lighting Best Practices - Lessons Learned from the Pilot LED Municipal Streetlight and PLN Substation Retrofit Project (Pilot LED Project) in Indonesia

The Pilot LED Project was successful in demonstrating significant savings and in developing new specifications for LED luminaires that focused on luminaire performance, quality of delivered illuminati...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 07 May 2017

Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Goals Outlook

The Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Goals Outlook report aims to develop a shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges confronting the region. This report provides a goalby-goal sn...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 04 May 2017

Eradicating Poverty and Promoting Prosperity in a Changing Asia-Pacific

This report explores three entry points to the theme of poverty and prosperity: (i) managing urbanization for inclusive development, (ii) strengthening responses to rural poverty in the context of t...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 04 May 2017

Promoting Youth Employment Through Activation Strategies

This paper reviews the issues, theory, actual policies and empirical evidence pertaining to activation strategies related to young individuals. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: Sect...

by | On 27 Apr 2017

Towards a Better Future for Women and Work: Voices of Women and Men

Decent work, the core mandate of the ILO, is defined as productive work for women and men in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.Decent work involves opportunities for work that:...

by International Labour Organization [ILO] | On 17 Apr 2017

Global Wage Report 2016/17: Wage Inequality in the Workplace

This new ILO Global Wage Report – the fifth in a series that now spans over a decade – contributes to this agenda by making comparative data and information on recent wage trends available to governme...

by International Labour Organization [ILO] | On 14 Apr 2017

Haryana Budget : 2017-18

Haryana Budget presented by Hon'ble Minister Capt. Abhimanyu.

by Haryana Government | On 07 Mar 2017

Kerala Budget 2017-18

Kerala budget presented by Hon.Finance Minister Thomas Issac.

by T.M. Thomas Issac | On 06 Mar 2017

The Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017

This Report, and the System Initiative on Economic Growth and Social Inclusion of which it is part, exemplify the World Economic Forum’s ambition to serve as a platform to enable closer cooperation be...

by | On 27 Feb 2017

Identity and Marginality in North East India: Challenges for Social Science Research

Conceptualising the Northeast as a singular territory is problematic. But this construction determines the way the region is governed by the Indian state that propagates the idea of a shared identity...

by N. Atungbo | On 21 Feb 2017

Caste Connections and Government Transfers: The Mahadalits of Bihar

The category of Scheduled Castes, created for the purpose of affirmative action in India, is large, heterogeneous and unequal. In 2007, the state of Bihar classified the most disadvantaged among thi...

by Hemanshu Kumar | On 16 Feb 2017

Educational Inequality in India: An Analysis of Gender Differences in Reading and Mathematics

This paper analyzes gender differences in reading and mathematics among Indian children ages 8-11 using data from the 2005 India Human Development Survey. Employing descriptive statistics and ordered...

by | On 15 Feb 2017

Family, Community, and Educational Outcomes in South Asia

In this article, we review research on the economics and sociology of education to assess the relationships between family and community variables and children’s educational outcomes in South Asia. At...

by | On 14 Feb 2017

Union Budget: A Window of Opportunity for Our Children?

In the context of social sector and particularly for children, the Union Budgets have disappointed the marginalized community and the Union Budget 2017-18 further pushed its children to the peripher...

by HAQ Centre for Child Rights HAQCRC | On 06 Feb 2017

What Do the Numbers Tell? An Analysis of Union Budget 2017-18

Budget 2017-18 is placed at an important juncture when there has been a thrust by the government for a digitised and a consequent cashless economy with the demonetisation of high value currency note...

by Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability CBGA | On 03 Feb 2017

Economic Survey 2016-17

This year has been marked by several historic economic policy developments. On the domestic side, a constitutional amendment paved the way for the long-awaited and transformational goods and services...

by Arun Jaitley | On 31 Jan 2017

Safety of Women in Public Spaces in Delhi: Governance and Budgetary Challenges

The study attempts to highlight some of the major hurdles in Delhi’s governance and fiscal policy in ensuring the safety of women in public spaces. Though violence against women is widespread and oc...

by Kanika Kaul | On 27 Jan 2017

Climate Change: Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Adaptation in Developing Countries

Developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts because they have fewer resources to adapt: socially, technologically and financially. Climate change is anticipated to have far...

by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific | On 23 Jan 2017

Rural - Urban Linkages in South Asia: Contemporary Themes and Policy Directions

The early literature on migrant urban communities emphasized the conditions and employment patterns of squatter residents who have emerged on the urban landscape. Only recently has attention shifted t...

by | On 23 Jan 2017

Theorising Translation At the Level of Discourse Rather Than the Word

To translate Premchand into Tamil (or Tamil into Telugu) is not to translate into a neutral language in the manner of simply exalting, or improving, or diversifying, or nationally integrating. Rather...

by Nikhil Govind | On 12 Jan 2017

The Power of Social Pensions

This paper examines the impacts of social pension provision among people of different ages. Utilizing the county-by-county rollout of the New Rural Pension Scheme in rural China, we find that, among t...

by | On 10 Jan 2017

Local Institutional Structure and Clientelistic Access to Employment: The Case of MGNREGS in Three States of India

This work is a contribution, first, toward measuring and characterizing some features of rural clientelistic institutions and then toward exploring its impact on household access to an employment sc...

by Anindya Bhattacharya | On 30 Dec 2016

The Problem of Inequality

The paper examines consumption, income, regional, social and gender inequalities in India. Income inequalities are much higher that of consumption. It also looks at inequalities in opportunities like...

by S.Mahendra Dev | On 19 Dec 2016

Identity, Household Work, and Subjective Well-Being among Rural Women in Bangladesh

Despite increases in women’s employment, significant gender disparity exists in the time men and women spend on household and care work. Understanding how social expectations govern gender roles and c...

by Greg Seymour | On 15 Dec 2016

The Changing Contours of Inter group Disparities and the Role of Preferential Policies in a Globalizing World: Evidence from India

How persistent are traditional socioeconomic hierarchies in the face of marketization, significant structural shifts in the economy, and increased political representation of lower-ranked groups, and...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 15 Dec 2016

Amma Deivamanar (Amma became Goddess)

A benevolent dictator but one who sincerely loved the masses. She is unforgivably not a leader who believed in the collectivity of a Party to afford democracy. But she did what was needed. She display...

by Shyam Sundar | On 14 Dec 2016

Resilient and Responsive Health Systems for a Changing World

A health system should be responsive, resilient, self-regulating. It should be able to respond to health emergencies and changing development scenarios. Governments all over the world should see to it...

by Rajeev B.R. | On 14 Dec 2016

India and the Global Economy

Drawing attention to a high dropout rate in upper primary schools, Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam today said schools are facing the “biggest crisis” in India. Delivering the f...

by Tharman Shanmugaratnam | On 08 Dec 2016

Religious Denominations of Kerala

This paper discusses the demographic and socio-economic profile of religious communities (Castes among the Hindus, Sects among the Muslims and Denominations among the Christians) in Kerala’s three ...

by K. C. Zachariah | On 06 Dec 2016

E-governance, Accountability, and Leakage in Public Programs: Experimental Evidence from a Financial Management Reform in India

In collaboration with the Government of Bihar, India, a large-scale experiment is conducted to evaluate whether transparency in fiscal transfer systems can increase accountability and reduce corrupt...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 02 Dec 2016

Social Progress Index 2016

Economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and improved the lives of many more over the last half-century. Yet it is increasingly evident that a model of development based solely o...

by | On 29 Nov 2016

Seen but Unheard – A Case-Study of Low-Waged Tamil Migrant Workers in Singapore

Low-waged Tamil migrant workers have long been contributing to Singapore. Despite labouring for three decades and being connected to the existing Tamil diasporic community there, they have been left o...

by | On 24 Nov 2016

Strategies to Tackle the Issue of Black Money in India

Economists and social scientists have shown considerable interest in recent years to measure the gap between the observable economic activity and the actual economic activity. This has led to the conc...

by | On 09 Nov 2016

State of State Finances

Finances of states have been changing due to (i) increased devolution of central taxes, (ii) rationalisation of the Centrally Sponsored Schemes, (iii) the introduction of the UDAY scheme, and (iv) the...

by Arvind Gayam | On 09 Nov 2016

Household Income Mobility in India: 1993-2011

Using nationally representative longitudinal survey, the paper examines the income mobility among rural (urban) Indian households over 1993-2004 and 2004-2011 (2004-2011). The paper finds mobility est...

by Mehtabul Azam | On 03 Nov 2016

The Elephant That Became a Tiger 20 Years of Economic Reform in India

A foreign exchange crisis in 1991 induced India to abandon decades of inward-looking socialism and adopt economic reforms that have converted the once-lumbering elephant into the latest Asian tiger. I...

by | On 28 Oct 2016

Lower in Rank, but Happier: The Complex Relationship between Status and Happiness

Case studies across the social sciences have established a positive relationship between social status and happiness. In observational data, however, identification challenges remain severe. This st...

by Bert Van Landeghem | On 25 Oct 2016

Rail Revolution-2025

This policy brief proposes reorganisation of current industry structure and proposes a new organizational structure for the railways to meet the needs of the 21st century . [CPPR Policy Brief Series...

by Centre for Public Policy Research CPPR | On 21 Oct 2016

New knowledge on Children and Young People: A Synthesis of Evidence

This report synthesises insights on children and young people (CYP) from research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) J...

by | On 20 Oct 2016

Women Workforce Participation in India- A Study

India has experienced rapid economic growth, a decline in fertility rate, introduction of employment generation programs and policy shifts towards women empowerment in recent years. Yet, a striking fe...

by | On 19 Oct 2016

Men, Masculinities & Climate Change: A Discussion Paper

“Men, Masculinities and Climate Change: A Discussion Paper” aims to establish a rationale for understanding boys’ and men’s multiple roles in climate change by conducting an analysis of masculinities...

by | On 13 Oct 2016

Refugee Compacts: An Initial Framework

This brief outlines a particular iteration of a compact approach that incorporates critical components—such as shared outcomes for refugees, host country ownership and focus on longer-term transition,...

by Cindy Huang | On 10 Oct 2016

Growth and Distribution: Understanding Developmental Regimes in Indian States

Economic and political processes differ widely across states in India. Some states have seen rapid economic growth and development while others are facing economic stagnation. The differences in outco...

by | On 07 Oct 2016

Knowing Differently: Innovation and Sustainable Development

If the production and transmission of new knowledge is to have a genuine innovative edge, it must be recognised that this is intrinsically a political act: inherently critical and subversive. There mu...

by Raghav Rajagopalan | On 06 Oct 2016

Poor Women in Urban India: Issues and Strategies

It is generally recognised that poverty is experienced differently according to their gender, age, caste, class and ethnicity and within households. Income levels, food security and indeed life choice...

by | On 05 Oct 2016

Why Musahars Vote ?

The most popular imagery that the 16th Lok Sabha election campaign projected was of good governance and development. What does this mean for communities that lie on the margins of body politics? Are...

by Shilp Shikha Singh | On 05 Oct 2016

Identity, Perceptions and Institutions: Caste Differences in Earnings from Self-Employment in India

Using data from two rounds of the Employment-Unemployment Survey of the National Sample Survey for 2004-5 and 2009-10, we investigate the relationship between social identity, specifically caste ident...

by | On 05 Oct 2016

Recent Changes in the Fiscal Architecture in India and Implications for Financing Climate Change Interventions

The recent changes in the institutional and fiscal architecture of the country following the constitution of NITI Aayog and release of report of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, have implications...

by Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability CBGA | On 04 Oct 2016

Integrated Model of Computable General Equilibrium and Social Cost Benefit Analysis of an Indian Oil Refinery: Future Projections and Macroeconomic Effects

Social Cost Benefit Analysis has long been used as a useful tool to appraise the value of a range of investment projects. Various aspects of this method have been subject to scrutiny over the decade...

by Shovan Ray | On 30 Sep 2016

Reinventing India as an Innovation Nation

Innovation has become a tool for competitiveness as well as accelerated inclusive growth.An often used definition of innovation is that it is a process that translates knowledge into economic growth a...

by IMI Konnect | On 29 Sep 2016

Stories of Harassment, Violence and Discrimination: Migrant Experiences between India, Nepal and Bangladesh

This Project Briefing explores the experiences of these people as they migrate, drawing on findings from a baseline study on their vulnerabilities, particularly to HIV and AIDS, as they move between t...

by | On 29 Sep 2016

Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the United States

This paper comprehensively examines the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty, with particular attention to the role of the social safety net in mitigating the adverse effects of shocks to e...

by Marianne Bitler | On 26 Sep 2016

World Social Science Report

Economic inequalities in income and wealth, social inequalities in health, education and access to welfare services, gender and racial inequalities, cultural and religious discrimination, barriers to...

by | On 22 Sep 2016

Does Government Spending on Social Sector Impacts Growth? An Analysis Across Indian States for the Last Two Decades

This paper attempts to examine the impact of government expenditure in social sector on economic growth at the state level for 15 major states. The study reveals that the share of social sector expend...

by | On 07 Sep 2016

You Can Silence Me, But You cannot Silence the Truth

Discrimination against dalits and minority communities has only become more brazen and open. Freedoms – of thought and expression, of scientific enquiry and of rational dissent – continue to be stifle...

by Newsclick Newsclick | On 06 Sep 2016

Picking the Winner: Measuring Urban Sustainability in India

This study provides a snapshot of the sustainability of selected Indian cities by employing 57 indicators in four dimensions to develop an overall city sustainability index. In recent years, its comp...

by B.Sudhakara Reddy | On 29 Aug 2016

India’s Economic Growth and Market Potential: Benchmarked Against China

This paper addresses some aspects related to these two important research questions, and thus builds on the base of knowledge. The paper is organized as follows. First, we discuss the economic growth...

by | On 24 Aug 2016

Seeds of Adaptation: Climate Change, Crop Diversification, and the Role of Women Farmers

Women farmers around the world are taking the lead in putting crop and varietal conservation and diversification strategies into practice as a way to strengthen local climate change adaptation capacit...

by | On 17 Aug 2016

The State of Food and Agriculture: Social Protection and Agriculture: Breaking the Cycle of Rural Poverty

This edition of The State of Food and Agriculture 2015 reviews the effectiveness of social protection interventions in reducing poverty, raising food consumption, relieving household food insecurity a...

by Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] | On 16 Aug 2016

Epigenetics as an Interplay between Nutrition and Cardiometabolic Disorders

There is growing unaddressed burden of cardiometabolic disorders particularly in the developing countries that is attributable to urbanization. One of the major life style factors that changes drastic...

by | On 11 Aug 2016

Signing away Sovereignty: How Investment Agreements Threaten Regulation of the Mining Industry in the Philippines

In the last decade, the resource-rich Philippines has bet heavily on the mining industry as a development strategy, an approach that has come under growing scrutiny. With 47 large-scale mines in oper...

by Cecilia Olivet | On 10 Aug 2016

Social Development of SIDS, Health and NCDs, Youth and Women

SIDS underscore social development as one of the three dimensions of sustainable development key to ensuring results are achieved for most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Small island developing states...

by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNDESA | On 09 Aug 2016

Analyzing the Impact of the World’s Largest Public Works Project on Crime

India started the implementation of a rural public works program in 2006, covering all districts of the country within three years. The program guarantees 100 days of employment per year at minimum wa...

by Satadru Das | On 09 Aug 2016

China and Socialist Countries: Role Change and Role Continuity

This paper analyses changes in China’s relations with socialist countries. It uses Chinese academic publications to add an inside-out perspective to the interpretation of Chinese foreign policy and ou...

by | On 05 Aug 2016

Corporate Social Responsibility in India: Potential to Contribute Towards Inclusive Social Development

Over the past few years CSR, as a concept, has been the focus of many deliberations and research. It has grown in importance both academically as well as in the business sense. It captures a spectrum...

by Ernst and Young | On 04 Aug 2016

Utilisation and Impact of Referral Transport System on Institutional Deliveries in Delhi

This paper highlights the major hindrances in providing a robust referral transport service in Delhi, under the Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakaram.The study analyses the socio-economic parameters and...

by Suresh Sharma | On 03 Aug 2016

Informality in South Asia: A Review

Labour markets in South Asia have been characterized as dualistic, with a relatively small, well-protected formal sector and a large unprotected informal sector. Indeed, the formal workforce is very s...

by | On 29 Jul 2016

Contemporary India and the Discourse of Social Justice: Examining the Colonial Legacy

Contemporary Indian society has witnessed a pervasiveness of claims for and debates about social justice with two enduring aspects to it: on the one hand, injustice and discrimination has become an ov...

by | On 28 Jul 2016

Empowering India with Gender Equality

Achieving gender equality has become a development challenge for India. Women are entitled to live with dignity in society and enjoy freedom from humiliation, fear, exploitation and every type of viol...

by Sanghamitra Deobhanj | On 28 Jul 2016

Analysis of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation's Individually Paying Program and Employed Program

The provision of social health insurance has been an increasingly popular mechanism for addressing financial barriers to health care in developing countries. In the Philippines, the social health insu...

by | On 27 Jul 2016

Labour Migration, Employment, and Poverty Alleviation in South Asia

Labor migration presents both challenges and opportunities in today’s global world. As the scale, scope, and complexity of the phenomenon have grown, states and other stakeholders have become aware of...

by Sridhar K. Khatri | On 27 Jul 2016

New Evidence on Trust and Well-Being

This paper reports existing and fresh evidence on some of the direct and indirect linkages between trust and subjective well-being. This paper first uses data from three large international surveys –...

by John Helliwell | On 26 Jul 2016

Gender and Migration

The identification of gendered ramifications of migratory processes has meant greater attention has been paid by policymakers and scholars alike than has been done previously. There are a number of re...

by | On 25 Jul 2016

Female Migrants: Bridging the Gaps Throughout the Life Cycle

Female migrants face different challenges and opportunities than men as they integrate into their host communities and become development agents for both their countries of destination and origin. And...

by | On 25 Jul 2016

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana: India’s New Safety Net for Farmers

India’s latest crop insurance scheme, announced by the Narendra Modi Government earlier this year, is designed to overcome the many problems encountered in the implementation of previous programmes. T...

by Vinod Rai | On 21 Jul 2016

The Financial Literacy of Indians

While a lot of experimentation has been done in the realm of financial literacy, it is difficult to point to one standardised method or approach that works best in all scenarios with all kinds of targ...

by | On 20 Jul 2016

Distributional Effects of Means Testing Social Security: Income Versus Wealth

This paper compares Social Security means tests that would reduce benefits for recipients who fall in the top quarter of the income distribution with means tests aimed at those in the top quarter of t...

by Alan Gustman | On 20 Jul 2016

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2016

The agenda is a road map for people that will build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals and ensure sustainable social and economic progress worldwide. It seeks not only to eradicate ex...

by United Nations (UN) | On 20 Jul 2016

Economic Reform and Social Sector Expenditures: A Study of Fifteen Indian States

This paper examines social sector expenditures in fifteen Indian states between 1980/81 and 1999/2000 to find out whether the far-reaching economic reforms that began in 1991 had any significant impac...

by | On 19 Jul 2016

Social Sector in India: Issues and Challenges

The social sector is usually defined as dealing with social and economic activities carried out for the purposes of benefiting society, and in the main nonprofit, not-for-profit, philanthropic and mis...

by Padmaja Mishra | On 19 Jul 2016

Gender Specific Barriers to Female Entrepreneurs in Pakistan: A Study in Urban Areas of Pakistan

The paper shows that the female entrepreneurs in Pakistan are very important to economic and social development but they are facing serious troubles. Women’s entrepreneurship, properly exploited, has...

by Salman Khalid | On 12 Jul 2016

Livelihood of Local Communities and Forest Degradation in India: Issues for REDD+

The enforcement of The Forest Conservation Act, 1980 enabled the regulation of widespread diversions of forestland for non-forest uses, and hence put a check on deforestation. The changing priorities...

by | On 12 Jul 2016

Old-Age Pension and Extended Families: How is Adult Children’s Internal Migration Affected?

This paper makes use of the most recent social pension reform in rural China to examine whether receipt of the pension payment equips adult children of pensioners to migrate. Employing a regression di...

by Xi Chen | On 11 Jul 2016

International Migration and Development

This new era has created challenges and opportunities for societies throughout the world. It also has served to underscore the clear linkage between migration and development, as well as the opportuni...

by United Nations (UN) | On 07 Jul 2016

A Study on Community Engagement with Schools in Five States: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh

The study sought to gauge the extent of decentralisation and devolution of power to community-based bodies in relation to schools, and see if there is any disconnect between what is envisaged and what...

by Jyotsna Jha | On 01 Jul 2016

Cyclicality of Social Sector Expenditures: Evidence from Indian States

This paper attempts to study the cyclical behaviour of social sector spending including that on education and health for the 17 non-special category states covering the period 2000-01 to 2012-13. It f...

by | On 30 Jun 2016

Water Resource Management and Sustainable Development

All living beings on earth need water for their daily life. As it is becoming scarce and the demand is increasing proper management of water is needed.

by Aakriti Singh | On 30 Jun 2016

Qualitative Methods for Gender Research in Agricultural Development

The rise of mixed methods approaches to development-oriented research has brought new attention to qualitative research methods. This paper describes the use of qualitative approaches to illuminate ge...

by | On 29 Jun 2016

Malnutrition: Unanswered Questions from Attapadi

India claims to have achieved financial growth of 7% but despite this high growth rate, poverty and inequality has also grown exponentially and social security, standard of life, security of labor ha...

by Child Rights and You CRY | On 27 Jun 2016

The Kalikayatna Approach towards Primary Education: A Study of the Learning Initiative of Prajayatna

This paper attempts to study and evaluate the strengths and limitations of an alternative approach to learning -the Kalikayatna approach -that has been implemented in selected clusters in five distric...

by Jyotsna Jha | On 27 Jun 2016

Factors Determining the Roles Board Members Play in Firms

This paper studies how the directors play an important role in influencing board’s action and its effectiveness. This paper attempts to contribute to the existing literature. In this paper, propositio...

by Chitra Singla | On 27 Jun 2016

Can War Foster Cooperation?

In the past decade, nearly 20 studies have found a strong, persistent pattern in surveys and behavioral experiments from over 40 countries: individual exposure to war violence tends to increase social...

by Michal Bauer | On 24 Jun 2016

Choosing a Partner for Social Exchange: Charitable Giving as a Signal of Trustworthiness

People benefit from being perceived as trustworthy. Examples include sellers trying to attract buyers, or candidates in elections trying to attract voters. In a laboratory experiment using exchange ga...

by Sebastian Fehrler | On 24 Jun 2016

Empathetic Climate Resilient Frugal Innovations for Sustainable Communities

This study is to scout, spawn and sustain grassroots green innovations and outstanding traditional knowledge. It studies the creative and innovative coping strategies of knowledge rich-economically po...

by Anil K Gupta | On 24 Jun 2016

Ability Tracking and Social Capital in China’s Rural Secondary School System

The goal of this paper is to describe and analyze the relationship between ability tracking and student social capital, in the context of poor students in developing countries. Drawing on the results...

by Fan Li | On 23 Jun 2016

Factors Influencing Outcome Expectations and Self-Efficacy in Driving Internet Use in Rural India

This study uses the theory of social capital and social cognition to understand the drivers of Internet use from the perspective of outcome expectations and self-efficacy. The primary research questi...

by Rekha Jain | On 21 Jun 2016

Draft National Forest Policy, 2016

There was a felt to revise the National Forest Policy, 1988 to integrate the vision of sustainable forest management based on the principles of ecosystem approach, landscape level planning and the...

by Indian Institute of Forest Management IIFM | On 21 Jun 2016

Book Review: Depoliticising Social Change and the Celebration of Inequality in Rural India

Review of Inside-Outside: Two Views of Social Change in Rural India. Edited by B. S. Baviskar and D. W. Attwood, Sage Publications, New Delh, 2014.

by | On 20 Jun 2016

Desertification and Land Degradation: Atlas of India

Land degradation and desertification pose an ever - increasing global environmental threat. Human activities such as over cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation and poor irrigation practices, along...

by Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO | On 17 Jun 2016

Income Mobility among Social Groups in Indian Rural Households: Findings from the Indian Human Development Survey

The paper analyses income mobility across different social groups in India using data from the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS) collected in 2004–05 and 2011–12. Indices signifying different n...

by Thiagu Ranganathan | On 16 Jun 2016

Migrant Workers and the Welfare State

There is wide concern that migration flows may undermine the financial viability of generous welfare arrangements. The discussion focuses on welfare arrangements as attractors of migrants, suggesting...

by | On 14 Jun 2016

Defending the Commons, Territories and the Right to Food and Water

Almost a billion people around the world are now suffering from hunger and malnutrition - a dramatic rise in number since the soaring food prices over the last three years. Of these, about half ar...

by Focus on the Global South FGS | On 10 Jun 2016

Campaigns, Digital Media and Mobilization in India

Early research in western contexts finds evidence of online participation leading to political engagement. The paper tests this hypothesis in a non-western campaign context, and discusses India’s comp...

by | On 07 Jun 2016

Education Through the Lens of Sustainable Human Development

If human development is defined as a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process aiming to improve the well-being of populations and individuals, then the one element that can serve...

by Gianna Alessandra Sanchez Moretti | On 06 Jun 2016

Water: Facts and Trends

This working document provides an overview of some basic facts and societal challenges related to water. The emphasis in this initial document is on water availability and people’s use of water for ag...

by | On 06 Jun 2016

Honor and Stigma in Mechanisms for Environmental Protection

Honor and stigma play a role in environmental protection. Environmental honors are bestowed on people and firms who go out of their way to do right by the environment. Similarly, environmental stigm...

by Prasenjit Banerjee | On 03 Jun 2016

Righting the Wrong Strengthening Local Humanitarian Leadership to Save Lives and Strengthen Communities

The international humanitarian system—the vast UN-led network in which Oxfam and other international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, and others play key rol...

by Oxfam India | On 02 Jun 2016

Social Studies of Social Science: A Working Bibliography

The social sciences are currently going through a reflexive phase, one marked by the appearance of a wave of studies which approach their disciplines’ own methods and research practices as their emp...

by Michael Mair | On 01 Jun 2016

Earmarked Tobacco Taxes: Lessons Learnt from Nine Countries

This publication looks at the experience of nine countries that have an experience in earmarking tobacco tax revenues for health purposes. It describes the challenges, setbacks and achievements of tho...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 31 May 2016

UNICEF’s Strategic Plan 2014-2017

UNICEF’s Strategic Plan 2014-2017 is a road map for the realization of the rights of every child. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates...

by United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF | On 31 May 2016

Golden Wheat Becomes More Golden Extending SRI to Wheat

People’s Science Institute carried out the first trials of the System of Wheat Intensification (SWI) during rabi 2006- 07. Starting with systematic research trials on farmers’ fields, SWI practice...

by Ravi Chopra | On 27 May 2016

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015

An Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to children alleged and found to be in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection by catering to their basic needs through proper ca...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 27 May 2016

Impact of Social Risks on Indian Businesses

This report has tried identifying the various social risks associated with and caused by businesses and other players, that may have negative social impacts on the stakeholders associated with the fu...

by Oxfam India | On 27 May 2016

Dalits with Disabilities: The Neglected Dimension of Social Exclusion

This working paper studies broader areas of Dalits and Disability in India and explores in-depth consequences of inter-relation between the two. It draws corollary between the two concepts that is phy...

by Gobinda Pal | On 26 May 2016

Social Protection in East and South East Asia: A Regional Review

The paper starts with a discussion of the general context of growth and poverty across the region, exposure to risk or crisis, and the nature of vulnerability facing individuals, households and commu...

by | On 25 May 2016

Organised Forest-Farm Producers Mitigate Climate Change Through Adaptive Resilience

Climate mitigation programmes and finance mechanisms like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) must engage millions of forest farmers if they are to halt deforestation...

by Jeffrey Campbell | On 25 May 2016

Achieving More Together: Empowered Forest and Farm Producer Organizations

Getting organized puts smallholders in charge. Through farmers groups, cooperatives and networks, forest and farm producers can help each other not only through marketing advantages and access to fina...

by Jeffrey Campbell | On 25 May 2016

Stop Stunting in South Asia: A Common Narrative on Maternal and Child Nutrition

Governments in South Asia are progressively acknowledging that child stunting is both a marker and a maker of poor development. UNICEF regional and country offices in South Asia work with regional bo...

by United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF | On 24 May 2016

Innovation (and Upgrading) in the Automobile Industry: The Case of India

This paper focuses on the automobile industry and examines the nature of global value chains in it with reference to the case of India. The aim is to explore the relation between lead firms, particula...

by Saon Ray | On 23 May 2016

Re-inventing the Congress

Congress should have long goals, energy, media strategy, good governance to come back to power.

by T.N. Ninan | On 21 May 2016

India State Hunger Index: Comparisons of Hunger across States

The results of the India State Hunger Index 2008 highlight the continued overall severity of the hunger situation in India, while revealing the variation in hunger across states within India. It is in...

by Purnima Menon | On 20 May 2016

Women’s Labour Migration from Asia and the Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges

In an era of unprecedented human mobility, migration from and within the Asia-Pacific region has assumed gendered dimensions, with implications for migration flows, trends and patterns. Gender roles,...

by | On 19 May 2016

World Employment and Social Outlook 2016 – Transforming Jobs to End Poverty

This edition of the World Employment and Social Outlook (WESO) examines the relationship between decent work and poverty reduction. It starts by documenting trends in poverty around the world while pa...

by International Labour Organisation ILO | On 19 May 2016

National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP)

The NBAP draws from the principle that National Enviroment Policy (NEP) that human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development and they are entitled to a healthy and productive li...

by Ministry of Environment and Forests GOI | On 18 May 2016

Does Size Matter? The Productivity of Government Expenditures and the Size of States: Evidence from India

Some politicians argue for the splitting and combining of states to increase government productivity, but there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the optimal size of a state. Using data from Indian...

by Cornelis Haasnoot | On 18 May 2016

For Whom Does the Phone (not) Ring? Discrimination in the Rental Housing Market in Delhi, India

Using an audit experiment carried out on of India’s largest real estate websites, this study documents striking variations between landlords’ treatment of upper-caste Hindus, Other Backward Castes, Sc...

by Saugato Datta | On 18 May 2016

Quality of Social Science Research in India

There is a growing recognition of the importance of academic research in India and is being monitored by public institutions. However the focus in these assessments has remained largely confined to...

by Amit S. Ray | On 16 May 2016

Politics, While Young

Attempts to reconstruct a young voters' bloc have been crucial to campaigns around the globe. But caste and class fissures run wide and deep among that demographic, and India's youth might converge mo...

by Anish Nair | On 13 May 2016

The Global Risks Report 2016: 11th Edition

Now in its 11th edition, The Global Risks Report 2016 draws attention to ways that global risks could evolve and interact in the next decade. The year 2016 marks a forceful departure from past finding...

by [WEF] World Economic Forum | On 11 May 2016

Advancing the Interests of Bangladesh’s Migrant Workers: Issues of Financial Inclusion and Social Protection

The study is expected to contribute to stimulating debate around the broader issues of safeguarding the interests of migrant workers through financial mainstreaming of their income, raising efficacy o...

by | On 11 May 2016

Quality Control in Non-Staple Food Markets: Evidence from India

Using original data collected about growers, traders, processors, markets, and village communities, the situation in four states – Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Orissa is compared. The w...

by Marcel Fafchamps | On 06 May 2016

Combatting Climate Change: Involving Indigenous Communities

Climate change combat is often in the hands of policy-makers, researchers and governments. However it is the marginalised and indigenous communities that feel the full force of climate change effect...

by Serina Rahman | On 03 May 2016

Educational Attainment of Young Adults in India: Measures, Trends & Determinants

Given the fact that education of young adults plays crucial role from both economic and social point of view, the objective of the study is to analyse the pattern of improvements in their education an...

by Runu Bhakta | On 02 May 2016

Social and Economic Impact Analysis of Vadinar Refinery of Essar Oil: The Case of a Mega Refinery

The paper is a case study of Vadinar refinery in Gujarat. It examines the costs and benefits associated with one of the world's mega refinery projects highlighting the welfare impacts on society. The...

by Sumana Chaudhuri | On 02 May 2016

A Survey on Impact of Social Media on Election System

Social media is the primary resource for the information retrieval. Using the text mining field; huge amount of unstructured textual data collected by social media can be converted and displayled as u...

by Nilesh Alone | On 28 Apr 2016

Land, Labour and Caste Politics in Rural Tamil Nadu in the 20th Century: Iruvelpattu (1916-2008)

The “Slater” villages of Tamil Nadu that were first surveyed by the University of Madras economist, Gilbert Slater, and his students in 1916, were resurveyed in the 1930s, 1960s and the 1980s. This pa...

by John Harriss | On 27 Apr 2016

Tamil Nadu: Census Report

The Census of India is a very large administrative exercise, possibly the largest such operation in the entire world. In addition to bringing out the population figures, it is the most credible source...

by Census India | On 27 Apr 2016

Tamil Nadu: Monitorable Indicators and Performance

This study aims to provide a mid term appraisal of the Tamil Nadu of the Eleventh Five Year Plan. For this purpose, it reviews the trends in the following state specific monitorable indicators since...

by | On 27 Apr 2016

Elderly in India

Population ageing has profound social, economic and political implications for a country. The increasing number of older persons put a strain on health care and social care systems in the country. O...

by Ministry of Statistics and Prog Implementation (MOSPI) | On 25 Apr 2016

World Debt Figures : 2015

Since the 1980s, public debt, both in the Third World countries and in the industrialised nations, has been systematically used to impose austerity policies in the name of structural adjustment. Acc...

by Eric Toussaint | On 22 Apr 2016

Multidimensional Measurement of Household Water Poverty in a Mumbai Slum: Looking Beyond Water Quality

In addition to negatively affecting health, the qualitative findings reveal that water service delivery failures have a constellation of other adverse life impacts—on household economy, employment,...

by Ramnath Subbaraman | On 12 Apr 2016

The Redistributive Effects of Political Reservation for Minorities: Evidence from India

We examine the impact of political reservation for disadvantaged minority groups on poverty. To address the concern that political reservation is endogenous in the relationship between poverty and res...

by Nishith Prakash | On 11 Apr 2016

Youth in India: Challenges of Employment and Employability

Using the NSSO Employment and Unemployment Survey Rounds as the basis, this paper examines questions of unemployment, employment and human capital formation among Indian youth belonging to various s...

by Rajendra P. Mamgain | On 05 Apr 2016

Inclusive Migration in India: A Study on Domestic Migration and Issues in Electoral Participation

The study compiled information from academic papers, government and non-government reports on the subject of domestic migration, with a specific emphasis on their political inclusion. In order to cond...

by | On 05 Apr 2016

Education in India: NSS 71st Round

The report gives a detailed account of the education system in India.

by Ministry of Statistics and Prog Implementation (MOSPI) | On 05 Apr 2016

Global Food Policy Report 2016

IFPRI’s Flagship Report puts into perspective the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2015 and highlights challenges and opportunities for 2016. This year’s report takes an in-dep...

by International Food Policy Research Institute | On 04 Apr 2016

The New Biosociality

The term ‘biosociality’ was coined in 1996 to describe social identities and sociality founded on genomic diagnosis, but may be extended to include social relationships based on a sharing of knowledge...

by Pramod K. Nayar | On 01 Apr 2016

Human Development in Telangana State: District Profiles

Telangana emerged as the 29th state of the Indian Union from undivided Andhra Pradesh after a prolonged struggle for statehood for nearly six decades. The social structure in Telangana is uniquely sk...

by Center for Economic and Social Studies CESS | On 31 Mar 2016

Adolescent Boys and Young Men

This study of Adolescent Boys and Young Men highlights the importance of engaging adolescent boys and young men in sexual and reproductive health and rights (srhr) and gender equality. not only is thi...

by United Nations Population Fund UNFPA | On 29 Mar 2016

How the Collapse of ‘Chimerica’ Will Affect South Asia

India and Pakistan, the two large countries in South Asia, must work for the region’s collective good rather than moving closer to the United States and China, respectively, and promoting the interest...

by Shahid Javed Burki | On 28 Mar 2016

India-APEC Products Trade: Importance of Trade in Intermediate Products and the Challenges Ahead

India’s principal trade partners are countries/economies in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) region, and over the last decade the share of APEC in India’s trade has been growing. Specifica...

by Deeparghya Mukherjee | On 28 Mar 2016

The Economic Impact of Child Labour

The paper contains a theoretical discussion and a literature survey on the economic impact of child labour. Three main categories of economic impact of child labour are analysed: 1) the effects of chi...

by Rossana Galli | On 21 Mar 2016

Impacts of Rural-Urban Cleavages and Cultural Orientations on Attitudes toward Elements of Democracy: A Cross-National, Within Nation Analysis

This paper follows the lead in substituting variable names for national social systems from the project on “Democratization and Value Change in East Asia.” Specifically, it investigates the associatio...

by Robert Albritton | On 21 Mar 2016

Budget Speech Odisha Part II: 2016-17

Part II of the Budget speech of the finance minister.

by Pradip Kumar Amat | On 21 Mar 2016

The Caste Gender System - A Necessary Analytic of Experience?

This paper formulates a conceptual category called the caste-gender system and tends to follow how the institution of caste operates in systematic complicity with discriminatory gender norms. It talks...

by Ritu Sen Chaudhuri | On 21 Mar 2016

The Conceit of Reason the Cunning of History versus - Modernity and Caste in India

This paper addresses the central question as to how and why caste still survives under conditions of democracy and modernity and what do we make of it. I try to explain this phenomenon by viewing it i...

by Sanjeeb Mukherjee | On 21 Mar 2016

Psychosocial Well-being in Vidarbha A Study of Communities in Distress

This study was undertaken under the aegis of the Sukhi Baliraja Initiative (SBI), funded by Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT) in six high distress districts, which has holi...

by Surinder Jaswal | On 21 Mar 2016

Living the ‘Absence’ The Rajbanshis of North Bengal

While often it describe the modern era - framed by the Post-Enlightenment narrative - as one marked by an unprecedented concern for identity and identification, it often lose sight of the parallel pro...

by Samir Kumar Das | On 21 Mar 2016

Performing Modernity Musicophilia in Bombay/Mumbai

This paper outlines the place of Hindustani art music in the metropolis of Bombay/Mumbai, and its role in the fashioning of public spaces from the late 19th century to the 1960s. This music began to t...

by Tejaswini Niranjana | On 21 Mar 2016

Structural Transformation in the North-Eastern Region of India: Charting out an agriculture-based development policy

In this paper we attempt to explore the process of structural transformation in the North Eastern States of India, positing it in the paradigm of agriculture led development. The paper tries to examin...

by Alwin D’souza | On 16 Mar 2016

The Rise of the “Just-in-Time Workforce”: On-demand Work, Crowdwork and Labour Protection in the “Gig-Economy”

The so-called “gig-economy” has been growing exponentially in numbers and importance in recent years but its impact on labour rights has been largely overlooked. Forms of work in the “gig-economy” inc...

by | On 15 Mar 2016

Gender mainstreaming Case Study - North East Coastal Community Development Project and Tsunami Affected Areas Rebuilding Project

This case study covers two related projects funded by the Asian Development Bank: the North East Coastal Community Development Project (NECCDP), which aimed to improve sustainable livelihood and natur...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 15 Mar 2016

Disaster Risk Management in Asia and the Pacific

The study considers key trends, in terms of disaster incidence, sources of vulnerability, and social and economic impacts. This is followed by discussions of some of the major issues: compound disaste...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 15 Mar 2016

Porous Borders The Study of Illegal Markets from a Sociological Perspective

State concerns about crime and security issues have strongly affected conceptions of economic action outside the law, a traditional field of research in sociology. This increasing encroachment by poli...

by Matías Dewey | On 14 Mar 2016

The Methodology of Polanyi's Great Transformation

The goal in this article is to articulate the methodology used in this book to bring out the several dimensions on which it differs from current approaches to social science. Among the key differences...

by Asad Zaman | On 14 Mar 2016

Towards Rules of the Monetary Game

There are few areas of robust growth around the world, with the IMF repeatedly reducing its growth forecasts in recent quarters. This period of slow growth is particularly dangerous because both ind...

by Raghuram G. Rajan | On 14 Mar 2016

Group Inequalities and ‘Scanlan’s Rule’: Two Apparent Conundrums and How We Might Address Them

In situations where an adverse social outcome affects disadvantaged and advantaged groups in society differently, the rates at which those groups experience favorable or adverse outcomes tend to be sy...

by Peter Lambert | On 13 Mar 2016

The Promise of a Protocol

Uruguay’s ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights marked an important milestone in its protection in international law. The Optional...

by | On 12 Mar 2016

Arctic Ambitions: China, India, and the Arctic Council

May 14-15, 2013, the Arctic Council will decide on whether to admit India and China as observers to the organization.India and China consider the Arctic as a region of increasing global importance, an...

by | On 12 Mar 2016

Tensions in Cyberspace: Toward a Code of Conduct

The row between the United States and China, caused by the indictment of five Chinese military officers on account of cyberespionage against private companies in the U.S., illustrates the importance o...

by | On 12 Mar 2016

An Analysis of Bangladesh Today: A Prognosis of its Polity

The paper, written in the context of the recent deportation of 27 Bangladeshi workers from Singapore, argues that what is required is a united front, a closing of ranks of the disparate political and...

by Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury | On 11 Mar 2016

Tariff Reduction and Income Distribution: A CGE-based Analysis for Urban and Rural Households in Pakistan

This paper intends to explore functional and households personal income distribution across four different income groups in both the urban and rural areas. Using Social Accounting framework, Siddiqui...

by A. R. Kemal | On 10 Mar 2016

Salient Features of Social Accounting Matrix of Pakistan for 1989-90: Disaggregation of the Households Sector

In the present SAM, the input-output industry classifications have been condensed into five main production accounts namely agriculture, industry, health, education and other sectors. The SAM 1989-90...

by Rizwana Siddiqui | On 10 Mar 2016

Spatial Differences and Socio-economic Determinants of Health Poverty

This study has three objectives: first, to construct a health poverty index (HPI) for Pakistan using household data from Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) survey 2012-13; second,...

by Nasir Iqbal | On 10 Mar 2016

Migration and Health Outcomes: The Case of a High Migration District in South Punjab

Given the importance of health in overall living standard of people, the present study has attempted to probe into the role of migration in affecting health status and outcomes of population. The heal...

by Shujaat Farooq | On 10 Mar 2016

In Search of a Better Match: Qualification Mismatches in Developing Asia

This paper empirically tests the role of search frictions in driving qualification mismatches in the labor market. Using new data from several low-income economies in urban Asia we find that overeduca...

by Kenn Chua | On 10 Mar 2016

The Social Order of Markets

This article develops a proposal for the theoretical vantage point of the sociology of markets, focusing on the problem of the social order of markets. The initial premise is that markets are highly d...

by Jens Beckert | On 09 Mar 2016

Epistemic Communities and Social Movements Transnational Dynamics in the Case of Creative Commons

While the existence of transnational communities is increasingly recognized in globalization studies, very little is yet known about their impact on global governance. Studies investigating the role o...

by Sigrid Quack | On 09 Mar 2016

Blurring the Lines: Strategic Deception and Self-Deception in Markets

Building on the results of a participant observation in a Chinese IT-sector company located in the northern part of China, this paper aims to clarify the nature of deception in markets. Contrary to th...

by | On 09 Mar 2016

Taking Capitalism Seriously: Toward an Institutionalist Approach to Contemporary Political Economy

This paper outlines an institutionalist political economy approach to capitalism as a specific type of social order. Social science institutionalism considers social systems to be structured by sancti...

by Wolfgang Streeck | On 09 Mar 2016

Towards a Comprehensive Welfare State in South Korea: Institutional Features, A New Socio-Economic and Political Pressures, and the Possibility of the Welfare State

The paper analyse the institutional designs for welfare system in Korea and their possible effects on the establishment of a welfare state. The paper also discusses some possible effects of the recent...

by Yeon-Myung KIM | On 09 Mar 2016

Producing a Rationale for Dowry? Gender in the Negotiation of Exchange at Marriage in Kerala, South India

The allocation of scarce budgetary resources away from ‘alternative’ channels of social security underscores interlocking concerns: a) the financial drain that marriages of girls pose to families and...

by Praveena Kodoth | On 09 Mar 2016

Contrarian Lives: Christians and Contemporary Protest in Jharkhand

This paper is a preliminary attempt to assess the impact of Christian social activists on issues facing adivasis in the state of Jharkhand in contemporary India. This has been prompted by a few factor...

by Sushil J. Aaron | On 09 Mar 2016

Determinants and Challenges of Sustainable Forest Governance in India: An Analysis in Retrospect and Prospect

This paper looks into the role of community based natural resource management focussing on the Joint Forest Management (JFM) in India. The analysis presented is the result of triangulation of critical...

by Madhusudan Bandi | On 09 Mar 2016

Class Gains in Fisheries Management in India: Reflections from Two States

The debate on common property resource centres on issues of a particular strategy for managing it in order to cater to the growing demand for communities that depend on it and the economy at large tha...

by Jharna Pathak | On 09 Mar 2016

Is There a Closure Penalty? Cohesive Network Structures, Diversity, and Gender Inequalities in Career Advancement

That social capital matters is an established fact in the social sciences. How different forms of social capital affect gender disadvantages in career advancement is less clear, however. Qualitative r...

by | On 08 Mar 2016

Capitalist Dynamics Fictional Expectations and the Openness of the Future

Capitalism is an economic and social order oriented toward the future. In this paper, I describe the unfolding of the temporal order of capitalism and relate it to the restless dynamism of capitalism...

by | On 08 Mar 2016

Bringing Power Back In: A Review of the Literature on the Role of Business in Welfare State Politics

What is the impact of business interest groups on the formulation of public social policies? This paper reviews the literature in political science, history, and sociology on this question. It identif...

by | On 08 Mar 2016

Organizational Identities and Institutions: Dynamics of the Organizational Core as a Question of Path Dependence

Organizational identity is a mechanism that mediates between external pressures and internal demands on continuity. The concept of organizational identity is considered to be central to solving the re...

by | On 08 Mar 2016

Are We Still Modern? Inheritance Law and the Broken Promise of the Enlightenment

The regulation of the transfer of property mortis causa has been a major concern of social reformers since the Enlightenment. Today, by contrast, the issue of the bequest of wealth from generation to...

by | On 08 Mar 2016

Questioning Three Fundamental Assumptions in Financial Inclusion

Financial inclusion has rapidly ascended global development policy agendas. Between 2 billion and 2.5 billion adults worldwide do not use formal financial services, which a multifaceted coalition of a...

by Philip Mader | On 08 Mar 2016

Water Woes and Food Security

This NTS-Alert examines the nexus between water management and food security in Asia and how climate change exacerbates the adverse impacts that result from poor water management. It then highlights t...

by S. Rajaratnam International Studies | On 05 Mar 2016

Maritime Predations in Southeast Asia: Three Case Studies

While piracy in Southeast Asia has been addressed better over time, maritime predations continue to occur in the region. These predations, on small traders and maritime communities, afflict these grou...

by S. Rajaratnam International Studies | On 05 Mar 2016

Middle Class is among the Better Off, They Need to Pay More

When the state is unable to provide adequately for the bottom half of the population, should it be giving tax benefits to the well-off?

by T.N. Ninan | On 05 Mar 2016

Transnational Organised Crime In Southeast Asia: Threat Assessment

Transnational organised crime is considered one of the major threats to human security, impeding the social, economic, political and cultural development of societies. Much attention has been given...

by S. Rajaratnam International Studies | On 04 Mar 2016

India Budget 2016: Old Economics, New Politics

India’s latest Budget focuses on the rural sector and the economically vulnerable sections and makes large allocations for agriculture and social sector programmes without compromising on fiscal disci...

by Amitendu Palit | On 04 Mar 2016

Coastal Zones and Climate Change

The papers by the experts from the region furnish close studies of crucial issues and actors. They examine climate impacts on coastal ecosystems, explore adaptation strategies, and illuminate the poli...

by Amit Pandya | On 02 Mar 2016

Situation of Children in Bhutan An Anthropological Perspective

The field study has comprised of survey visits covering all districts except Samtse and Dagana; while visits of longer duration and repeated revisits, have been made in Paro; Punakha; Phobjikha and Ru...

by | On 02 Mar 2016

Traditional Forms of Volunteerism in Bhutan

Volunteerism in Bhutan is deeply grounded in its traditional belief systems and community practices in which much emphasis is placed on the principles of national self-reliance, community participatio...

by | On 02 Mar 2016

Trafficking In Persons: Singapore’s Evolving Responses

For a long time, sending countries have been the focus of efforts to combat trafficking in persons (TIP). However, in recent years, destination countries such as Singapore have also stepped up their e...

by Pau Hangzo | On 01 Mar 2016

Back to the Future: Is Rio+20 A 1992 Redux or Is There Cause for Optimism?

Rio+20, set for June 2012, offers an opportunity to review the current state of global environmental summitry. What can be expected of this latest round of global dialogue on sustainable development?...

by J. Ewing | On 01 Mar 2016

Financing Social Policy in the Presence of Informality

We present a framework for the analysis of tax and benefit policy in countries with significant informality. Our framework allows us to jointly analyse the e!ects of various taxes and benefits on ince...

by Ehtisham Ahmad | On 01 Mar 2016

Developments in education in Palanpur, a village in Uttar Pradesh

This paper examines developments in literacy and education in Palanpur. We consider schooling facilities and other related services available in this village and its neighbourhood. Schooling levels ar...

by Ruth Kattumuri | On 01 Mar 2016

An Enquiry Into Migration and Homelessness - A Developmental Discourse: Evidence From Mumbai City

Existence of structural and social inequality with growing poverty and shrinking livelihoods and other factors forced to people or entire families to migrate towards cities in search of means of survi...

by | On 01 Mar 2016

Can the New Intergovernmental Structure Work in Pakistan in the Presence of Governance Challenges? Learning from China

The reform of the tax administration has been recognized as a priority since the early 1980s and the report of the Tax Reforms Commission headed by Qamar-ul Islam, which had called the then Central Bo...

by Ehtisham Ahmad | On 29 Feb 2016

Making Agroecology Viable For Small Farmers: Experiences From The Fields

Agroecological farming weaves in the essentials so that there is profit for each-soil, seeds, traditional knowledge of communities, food security and food sovereignty.

by | On 29 Feb 2016

Keeping Land Local: Reclaiming Governance from the Market

Land struggles in countries like Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines

by Focus on the Global South FGS | On 29 Feb 2016

Understanding Land Grabbing, Land Rights in the 21st Century

Issues or problems associated with land have become more multi-layered in the 21st century. In the Philippines, a number of “pro-poor” land laws were enacted after the Marcos dictatorship. These laws...

by Focus on the Global South FGS | On 29 Feb 2016

Asia-Pacific Migration Report 2015 Migrants' Contributions to Development

The Report assesses the development impacts of migrants in the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and provides guidance on the steps countries, regional organizations, civil society actors and other...

by United Nations Economic and Social Commission (UNESCAP) | On 29 Feb 2016

Prevalence of Micro - Nutrient Deficiency

The present survey was carried out to assess the prevalence of common micronutrient deficiencies such as vitamin A deficiency (Bitot spots) among the preschool children (1-<5 years), Iodine deficienc...

by National Institute of Nutrition | On 29 Feb 2016

Highlights of the Draft Budget of Japan for FY2016

Highlights of the budget of Japan for the year 2016.

by Ministry of Finance, Japan MOF, Japan | On 29 Feb 2016

20 Years of Human Security: A Special Focus on Political Security

Security used to be defined in military terms with the state as the referent of security. From this state-centric lens, political security means the stability of the state’s political regime and socia...

by S. Rajaratnam International Studies | On 27 Feb 2016

Adapting to Emerging Challenges of Food Insecurity Post-2015

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) defines food security as a “situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to suf...

by S. Rajaratnam International Studies | On 27 Feb 2016

Social Security Schemes: A Case for Universalisation

Prime minister’s recent introduction of new social security schemes to ensure insurance and pension for all remains a laudable step. These schemes were launched on May 9, 2015 and are expected to enha...

by Charan Singh | On 27 Feb 2016

The OIC’s Journey to Enlightenment

Reflecting on the speeches made at the 34th meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) held in Islamabad recently, one could suggest that nothing new was mentione...

by Sofiah Jamil | On 26 Feb 2016

Diasporas Transforming Homelands: Nuancing ‘Collective Remittance’ Practices in a Western Indian Village

Diasporic communities that advance their ancestral homelands through forging links with it can be best examined in the context of the history of migration of these communities and the culture of devel...

by Sudeep Basu | On 26 Feb 2016

Governance and Institutions: The role of multilevel fiscal institutions in generating sustainable and inclusive growth

Differences in political ideology might lead to different views about the role of the state in the provision of public services across countries, or even in the same country over time.2 At the same ti...

by Ehtisham Ahmad | On 26 Feb 2016

Involving the Private Sector and PPPs in Financing Public Investments: Some Opportunities and Challenges

Given that public investment requirements far exceed available resources in most developing countries, there is a need to both channel public resources wisely and also best leverage the opportunities...

by Ehtisham Ahmad | On 26 Feb 2016

Social Innovation: A Guide to Achieving Corporate and Societal Value

As a central effort in the Global Challenge Initiative on Economic Growth and Social Inclusion, this is a “how to guide” for companies to create social and business value. Drawn from a series of works...

by World Economic Forum [WEF] | On 26 Feb 2016

Estimation and Determinants of Chronic Poverty in India: An Alternative Approach

The paper conceptualizes chronic poverty by using the spaces of income and nutrition and estimates its incidence among states and social groups. It also aims to improve our understanding of the determ...

by C.H. Hanumantha Rao | On 25 Feb 2016

Mapping the Discipline of the Olympic Games An AuthorCocitation Analysis

An established method for identifying the different components of a discipline is author cocitation analysis (ACA). ACA is a bibiometric technique that enables a map of the discipline, over a finite t...

by Peter Warning | On 25 Feb 2016

Options for Supporting Rice Farmers under a Post-QR Regime: Review and Assessment

Under the World Trade Organization, the Philippines has maintained special treatment for rice, which expires on July 2017. Tariffication will involve greater competition from imports and the decline o...

by Roehlano M. Briones | On 25 Feb 2016

Power and Piety: Religion, State and Society in Muslim Countries

There is the logical possibility of the creation of a Muslim society that is characterised by high levels of trust in and esteem for the State, and in which there is also a high level of trust in reli...

by Riaz Hassan | On 25 Feb 2016

National Treatment on Internal Taxation: Revisiting GATT Article III:2

The principle of non-discrimination which comprises national treatment and most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment is an important pillar of the multilateral trading system. The World Trade Organization (...

by Sherzod Shadikhodjaev | On 25 Feb 2016

Trade Policy at the Cross-Roads

It is now widely agreed that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is in trouble, struggling to deliver the national rewards available from liberalising through multilateral negotiations. Prime Minister...

by Bill Carmichael | On 25 Feb 2016

Prospects of Wheat and Sugar Trade between India and Pakistan: A Simple Welfare Analysis

Due to a long history of strained political relations between India and Pakistan, trade possibilities between the two neighbouring countries have rarely been studied [Nabi and Nasim (2001), Mukherji (...

by Abid Burki | On 24 Feb 2016

Lifting the Lid Off Xinjiang’s Insecurities

The recent riots and attacks in China’s western province of Xinjiang have brought to the forefront the long simmering tensions between the Han Chinese and Uyghur communities. What have often been capt...

by | On 24 Feb 2016

The Hong Kong Declaration and Agriculture: Implications for Bangladesh

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), established in 1993, is a civil society initiative to promote an ongoing dialogue between the principal partners in the decision-making and implementing process....

by Uttam Kumar Deb | On 24 Feb 2016

Asean-China Trade Relations :15 Years of Development and Prospects",The Gioi Publishers,2008 Recent Development of China-ASEAN Trade and Economic Relations: From Regional Perspective

Abstract: The development of China-ASEAN trade and economic relations within the recent 15 years has of great significance not only for both sides but also for the whole East-Asia region. This paper i...

by Zhao Jianglin | On 24 Feb 2016

Impact of Management Practices on Employee Effectiveness in South Asia

South Asian organizations in countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are trying to professionalize management practices in recent years. Inspite of such efforts, employees indiscipli...

by Zafar Qureshi | On 24 Feb 2016

Operationalising Regimes and Recognising Actors: Responding to Crises in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia as a region has a unique history, and the evolving relationships between its communities, states, regional organisations and the international community reflect this. Given this context...

by Alistair Cook | On 24 Feb 2016

Social Protection in Apec in Pursuit of Inclusive Growth

The paper seeks to take stock of some of the key APEC documents/reports relevant to social protection and safety net programs, and also of the experience of APEC member-economies, with special focus o...

by Janet S. Cuenca | On 24 Feb 2016

Urban Nomads: The Masan Jogis Based on the Field Work Experiences in Mumbai

This paper is based on field work experiences with Masan Jogi community living in Mumbai city, which is a De-Notified Tribe. There is lack of awareness and knowledge about these communities.

by . Anjana | On 24 Feb 2016

Because the Personal is Political - A Documentation of the Work of the Special Cell for Women and Children 1984-1994

The documentation demonstrates the challenges waiting for the professional academic institutions to reach out beyond their walls to identify emerging issues and to develop new models of practice or st...

by Tata Institue of Social Sciences TISS | On 24 Feb 2016

The Puzzle of Small Farming in Japan

Japan’s small farming represents a puzzle. Currently nearly three-quarters of farmland is operated by farmers whose farm size is well under optimal size. Being too small is the main reason for the hig...

by Yoshihisa Godo | On 24 Feb 2016

Financial Sector Reform: Longer-Run Policy Responses to the Asian Crisis

The Asian financial crisis of 1997 involved significant economic and social costs for the affected economies, but also highlighted fundamental weaknesses in the structure and operations of their finan...

by Kevin Davis | On 24 Feb 2016

Industrial Growth And Environmental Industrial Growth And Environmental Industrial Growth And Environmental Degradation: Degradation: Degradation: A Case Study Of Tiruppur Textile Cluster A Case Study Of Tiruppur Textile Cluster A Case Study Of Tiruppur Textile Cluster

The rapid economic growth achieved after globalization by most of the developing countries, has imposed considerable social costs and has become a major threat to sustainable development. However it i...

by Prakash Nelliyat | On 23 Feb 2016

Arsenic Poisoning of Water in Bangladesh

Arsenic poisoning of water is a serious problem in Bangladesh. It has significantly negative physical and social impact. There is an urgent need for the government to take effective steps to salvage t...

by | On 23 Feb 2016

Water Regime Resilience and Community Rights to Resource Access in the Face of Climate Change

This paper begins by arguing that an analysis of social vulnerability seeking to enhance social resilience must take into account the social construction of vulnerability, namely, the economic, instit...

by | On 23 Feb 2016

The Lure of Lahore: Need for India-Pakistan Détente

India and Pakistan must learn that Pathankot and Peshawar were mindless acts of terror, to prevent whose recurrence, there is the need to enhance cooperation, not diminish it. Pakistan must continue t...

by Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury | On 22 Feb 2016

Tamil Nadu Interim Budget Speech 2016-2017

Budget speech by the Hon’ble Minister for Finance and Public Works, Government of Tamil Nadu

by O Panneerselvam | On 22 Feb 2016

Changing Population In Japan And A Life-Long Active Society To Cope With It

Japan's ageing population also has a sort of depth. By “depth,” I mean that within the older population itself the proportion of very old people aged 75 years old and over is increasing particularly r...

by Atsushi Seike | On 21 Feb 2016

Improving Education Outcomes in South Asia Findings from a Decade of Impact Evaluations

There have been many initiatives to improve education outcomes in South Asia. Still, outcomes remain stubbornly resistant to improvements, at least when considered across the region. To collect and sy...

by Salman Asim | On 21 Feb 2016

The People’s Republic of China and Global Imbalances from a View of Sectorial Reforms

This paper examines the impact of sectorial reforms on current account imbalances, with a special focus on the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In particular, we investigate to what extent reforms pe...

by Hiro Ito | On 21 Feb 2016

Climate Change and Migration in Southeast Asia: Responding to a New Security Challenge

Migration and displacement are among the range of pressures on people and their communities likely to arise from the economic, social and environmental consequences of climate change. Despite fragment...

by Lorraine Elliot | On 20 Feb 2016

Burmese Refugee Women and the Gendered Politics of Exile, Reconstruction and Human Rights

This research paper examines the predicament of Burmese women refugees in India and explores the complexities of the female refugee experience. Combining theoretical perspectives with personal narrati...

by | On 20 Feb 2016

Urban Informality – Marginal or Mainstream?

In this lecture, Janice Perlman discusses urban informality against the background of 40 years of research in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The lecture lays particular emphasis on how the changes ove...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

Workshop Report: National Planning for Phase 1 of the CCAC Paddy Rice Component in Vietnam

This workshop was conducted as part of the mitigation strategies in rice production project, implemented with support from the agriculture initiative of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. The projec...

by B. Sander | On 18 Feb 2016

Disaster Risk Governance: Strengthening Collaboration with Non-State Actors

The increasing use of disaster risk governance today suggests that there is a deeper problem with how disasters are being managed. It does not mean governments have been ineffective. But they do have...

by | On 17 Feb 2016

Networked Resilience: Moving the Asia-Pacific Forward

As the United Nations moves towards cementing a Post-2015 agenda with the Sustainable Development Goals, how can Asia-Pacific states best achieve these? It is time to recognise our resources from acro...

by | On 17 Feb 2016

Nuclear Energy in Southeast Asia: Public Engagement before Policies

Three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster several Southeast Asian governments have revived their nuclear plans, with Vietnam leading the way for six nuclear plants. The moves have been galvanis...

by | On 17 Feb 2016

A Social Accounting Matrix for Pakistan, 2001-02: Methodology and Results

This paper describes the structure and construction of a social accounting matrix (SAM) for Pakistan for 001-02. A SAM is an internally consistent extended set of national accounts that disaggregates...

by Paul Dorosh | On 17 Feb 2016

Power, Violence, Citizenship and Agency: A Review of the Literature

This Working Paper comprises a literature review that was carried out to inform the formulation of a research project on power, violence, citizenship and agency, which addresses how social actors reac...

by | On 17 Feb 2016

Nepal Earthquake: Enhancing International Humanitarian Cooperation

The powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal on 25 April 2015 is the worst since 1934 and is once again a painful reminder of how vulnerable communities are to the destructive force of nature....

by | On 16 Feb 2016

Citizen-Led Accountability and Inclusivity in Pakistan

This ‘theory in practice’ paper examines the experiences of citizens groups seeking to hold Pakistan’s elected representatives and governance institutions accountable. A sustained period of democracy,...

by | On 16 Feb 2016

Health Care Services and Government Spending in Pakistan

The study has been carried out to measure the incidence of government spending on health in Pakistan at provincial, both rural and urban level; using the primary data of the Pakistan Social Standard L...

by Muhammad Akram | On 16 Feb 2016

National Finance Commission Awards in Pakistan: A Historical Perspective

This study explores the evolution of fiscal resource distribution in Pakistan. Pakistan is a federation comprising four provinces, federally administered areas, and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Be...

by Iftikhar Ahmed | On 16 Feb 2016

The Emerging “Post-Doha” Agenda and the New Regionalism in the Asia-Pacific

This paper considers emerging commercial policy challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region in light of the impasse reached at the Eighth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in December 2...

by Michael Plummer | On 16 Feb 2016

Financial Inclusion, Financial Education, and Financial Regulation: A Story from Indonesia

Many reforms have taken place in Indonesia following the Asian financial crisis of 1997– 1998. The government has embarked upon institutional transformation, making the country one of the region’s mos...

by Georg Inderst | On 16 Feb 2016

Dynamic Effects of Agriculture Trade in the Context of Domestic and Global Liberalisation: A CGE Analysis for Pakistan

This paper studies dynamic effects of agriculture trade in the context of domestic and global liberalisation. Being the largest sector of the economy, the agriculture sector contributes substantially...

by Rizwana Siddiqui | On 15 Feb 2016

Mainstreaming Children in the Union Budget 2016-17: The ‘Mantra’ of Inclusive Development

in order to ensure the inclusion and social security of children, the Central government must pay attention to the concerns raised by Sates and the upcoming Union Budget must include some of the point...

by Kumar Shailabh | On 15 Feb 2016

Public Provision of Education and Government Spending in Pakistan

The study has been carried out to measure the incidence of government spending on education in Pakistan at the provincial (both rural and urban) level, using the primary data of the Pakistan Social St...

by Muhammad Akram | On 14 Feb 2016

Pension and Social Security Schemes in Pakistan: Some Policy Options

An examination of the public pension and social security schemes in Pakistan reveals that the provision of regular pensions is limited to formal sector employees only. A number of social security sche...

by Naushin Mahmood | On 14 Feb 2016

Income, Public Social Services, and Capability Development: A Cross-district Analysis of Pakistan

Is household income enough for human development or should government direct resources towards the provision of social services to improve capabilities of individuals? The former is emphasised by the...

by Rizwana Siddiqui | On 14 Feb 2016

Pakistan Seeks Control of Its Afghanistan Endgame

Encouraging Taliban attacks on NATO, leaders of the Pakistan military and its intelligence service are impatient for the US to abandon the war in Afghanistan. The Pakistani goal is to prevent a pro-In...

by Bruce Riedel | On 14 Feb 2016

Maximizing Chances for Success in Afghanistan and Pakistan

The following is a Campaign 2012 policy brief by Bruce Riedel and Michael O’Hanlon proposing ideas for the next president on America’s foreign policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. Vanda Felbab-Brow...

by Bruce Riedel | On 14 Feb 2016

Let Them Fly - A Multi-Agency Response to Child Marriages in Haryana

The Prohibition of Child Marriages Act (PCMA), 2006 came into effect on 1 November, 2007 replacing the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929. PCMA is a social re-engineering mechanism which mandates St...

by Trupti Jhaveri Panchal | On 14 Feb 2016

Living Arrangement: How does it relate to the Health of the Elderly in India?

India has the second largest population of elderly people after China. The living arrangement of the elderly is seen as a parameter of great importance in understanding their plight in developing coun...

by Mitali Sen | On 14 Feb 2016

Public Health in india: Challenges Ahead

As the world’s largest democracy and the second most populous country in the world, India has experienced sea change since its independence in various facets of development. However as per public heal...

by Anuj Sabharwal | On 13 Feb 2016

Women’s Empowerment at the Frontline of Adaptation: Emerging Issues, Adaptive Practices, and Priorities in Nepal

The findings of the study reveal that, across Nepal, there has been an increase in rural women’s workload rendering multiple effects on women’s health, income, safety, nutrition, violence against wome...

by Dibya Devi Gurung | On 13 Feb 2016

Segmented Schooling: Inequalities in Primary Education

This paper utilizes a newly collected nationally representative survey data from over 41,550 households to examine social inequality in children’s educational outcomes. The focus is on 8 to11 year old...

by Sonalde Desai | On 13 Feb 2016

Social Capital in India: Networks, Organizations, and Confidence

Using original data from a newly collected nationally representative survey for 40,000 households in India, we examine associations of various dimensions of social capital with each other and with con...

by Reeve Vanneman | On 13 Feb 2016

Social Networks in India: Caste, Tribe and Religious Variation

Using original data from a newly collected nationwide survey for 40,000 households in India, we examine variation in social capital in India across caste, tribe, and religion. Our primary measure uses...

by Reeve Vanneman | On 13 Feb 2016

Can Conditional Cash Transfers Improve Education and Nutrition Outcomes for Poor Children in Bangladesh?

This paper uses panel data from a pilot project and evaluates the impact of conditional cash transfers on consumption, education, and nutrition outcomes among poor rural families in Bangladesh. Given...

by Céline Ferré | On 12 Feb 2016

Corporate Responsibility and Anti-Corruption: The Missing Link

At their best, corporate responsibility initiatives are an attempt to address the great environmental, social and ethical challenges of our times. As these programmes continue to evolve, the challenge...

by Transparency International TI | On 12 Feb 2016

Designing for Action: Principles of Effective Sustainability Measurement

This report from the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Measuring Sustainability calls for more robust and operational approaches to addressing the challenges of climate change. Called D...

by | On 11 Feb 2016

Unemployment: Rising to the Global Challenge: An agenda for Policy-makers and Social Partners

This Report produced by the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Employment analyses the need for the global economy to grow in order to create jobs, and the need for jobs in order to susta...

by World Economic Forum [WEF] | On 11 Feb 2016

New Perspectives on Ethnic Segregation over Time and Space: A Domains Approach

The term segregation has a strong connotation with residential neighbourhoods, and most studies investigating ethnic segregation focus on the urban mosaic of ethnic concentrations in residential neigh...

by | On 11 Feb 2016

Mapping Prevailing Ideas on Intellectual Property: Preliminary Findings from a Survey

Mapping Prevailing Ideas on Intellectual Property by Professor Jean-Frédéric Morin, Universitélibre de Bruxelles, examines an overlooked yet critical dimension of global IP governance: where do IP ide...

by | On 10 Feb 2016

Protecting Shared Traditional Knowledge: Issues, Challenges and Options

Shared and widely distributed traditional knowledge, among communities and across national borders is often the norm rather than the exception. However, it remains an area for which policy and legal s...

by | On 10 Feb 2016

Women’s Frequently Asked Labour Rights Questions

From 2012 to 2016, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the WageIndicator Foundation and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) are running the Labour Rights for Wom...

by | On 10 Feb 2016

India and its Neighbors: Development Scenarios 2009–2029

This report aims to provide an analysis of India’s potential future trajectories during 2009-2029. It will base its arguments on both long-term evolutionary trends, the various strength of the driving...

by | On 09 Feb 2016

Addressing Health Inequities through Community-led Advocacy in Bangalore: Experiences, Successes and Challenges

Like other cities, Bangalore suffers from fragmentation of government health services, with institutions and outreach services run by BBMP, the State Health Department, the State Medical Education d...

by Sudha Nagavarapu | On 09 Feb 2016

The Challenges in Urban Planning to Overcome Health Inequities in India

India has 8,928 urban areas or towns as per the Census 2011, 53 are cities or metros having more than 1 million population. Till date, we had taken for granted that several health indicators were wors...

by Dhruv Mankad | On 09 Feb 2016

Notes on Rohith Vemula and the Movement After

This article offers observations to Gopal Guru’s article which highlights the endemic caste discrimination in places of higher learning in India in the wake of the Rohith Vemula suicide in Hyderabad....

by Anveshi Research Centre for Women's Studies | On 09 Feb 2016

Ensuring Identity and Entitlements of India’s Urban Poor

Can we create awareness among the urban poor and create documents for them? What are the steps to be followed for that?

by K.R. Antony | On 09 Feb 2016

A Tragic Exit from Social Death

In spite of his continuous victimization, Rohith Vemula did live a life of the mind that militated against the caste of the mind.

by Gopal Guru | On 09 Feb 2016

Women and Urban Health Governance: A Study of Empowerment and Entitlement

The ‘theory and practice of change’ that the UHRC has been fortunate to learn from first hand is that organized slum women who are trained, mentored, and supported have a greater capacity to access go...

by Siddharth Agarwal | On 09 Feb 2016

Industrial Relations Today: Reining in Flexibility

The paper was presented as a keynote lecture at the 10th anniversary of the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) in April 2008. It surveys the trajectory of scholarly work on labor a...

by | On 08 Feb 2016

An Index of Fiscal Democracy

Over the past four decades, the accumulation of policy legacies and public debt has led to a decline in fiscal flexibility in Germany and the United States. By applying an index of fiscal democracy to...

by | On 08 Feb 2016

Organizational Identities and Institutions

Organizational identity is a mechanism that mediates between external pressures and internal demands on continuity. The concept of organizational identity is considered to be central to solving the re...

by | On 08 Feb 2016

Can Welfare Conditionality Combat High School Dropout?

Based on administrative data, we analyze empirically the effects of stricter conditionality for social assistance receipt on welfare dependency and high school completion rates among Norwegian youths....

by Øystein Hernæs | On 07 Feb 2016

Subjective Well-being in China, 2005-2010: The Role of Relative Income, Gender and Location

We use data from two rounds of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) to study the determinants of subjective well-being in China over the period 2005-2010 during which self-reported happiness score...

by M. Niaz Asadullah | On 07 Feb 2016

Qualitative Research on the Impacts of Social Protection Programmes on Decent Rural Employment: A Research Guide

The Social Protection and Decent Rural Employment research programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has grown out of the Social Protection Division’s research pla...

by Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] | On 07 Feb 2016

Algebraic Representation of Social Capital Matrix

This paper proposes a mathematical model based on a Boolean algebra involving a 4×4 social capital matrix [Shah (2008)], that emerges through interaction within and across individuals, communities, in...

by Tariq Shah | On 06 Feb 2016

Working to Improve Price Indices Development in Pakistan

Given the importance of Consumer Price Index (CPI), there has been long debate on its measurement issues. It is the best and most well-known indicator of inflation, which is further used for evaluatin...

by Mahmood Khalid | On 06 Feb 2016

Non-State Provision of Skills Development in South Asia

Development practitioners increasingly see skills development as a way to improve the employment and incomes of the poor. However, findings on the effectiveness of such trainings are typically mixed....

by Emilie Combaz | On 05 Feb 2016

Reservation in Employment, Education and Legislature — Status and Emerging Issues

This Working paper studies the reservation policy of the Government of India with regard to – employment in government services, admission in educational institutions, and representation in legislativ...

by | On 05 Feb 2016

The Effectiveness of Jobs Reservation: Caste, Religion and Economic Status in India

This article investigates the effect of jobs reservation on improving the economic opportunities of persons belonging to India's Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). Using employment data...

by Sriya Iyer | On 05 Feb 2016

The Power of Technology and the Technologies of Power

This paper will try to address the nature of the WikiLeaks phenomenon, and its implications. It will attempt to throw light on WikiLeaks as idea, institution, practice and imaginary. In doing so, it w...

by | On 04 Feb 2016

Transparency in Corporate Reporting: Assessing the World’s Largest Telecommunications Companies 2015

With currently more than 7 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide and 3.2 billion internet users, the growth of the telecoms sector has enabled unprecedented opportunities for social and economic deve...

by Transparency International | On 03 Feb 2016

Trade Integration and Labour Market Trends in India: an Unresolved Unemployment Problem

This paper focuses on the Indian pre-crisis strategy of liberalization and integration into the world economy and its impact on labour market trends. It then examines the specific ways in which the cr...

by International Centre for Sustainable Trade and Development | On 03 Feb 2016

Building Genuine Islamic Financial Institutions

Since the spirit of Islam is in stark and violent conflict with the spirit of Capitalism, the form taken by institutions designed to express this spirit must also be different. Capitalist financial in...

by Asad Zaman | On 03 Feb 2016

Wealth as an Indicator of Socio-Economic Welfare: Islamic Views

According to western views, wealth is unambiguously good, and so human welfare is positive when wealth is in excess of needs, and negative if it is less. Islam has a substantially more sophisticated v...

by Asad Zaman | On 03 Feb 2016

Islam Versus Economics

The paper shows that fundamental Islamic principles regarding organisation of economic affairs are directly and strongly in conflict with teachings of conventional economic theories.

by Asad Zaman | On 03 Feb 2016

Employment Strategy and Equitable Growth: A Social Capital Perspective for KPK

Although labour force participation in Pakistan has improved from 50.33 percent in 2006-07 to 57.24 percent in 2010-111 as well as employment has increased from 47.65 million to 53.84 million, however...

by Syed Akther Shah | On 02 Feb 2016

Financial Incentives to Industry

This paper provides details of the decisions made by the Environment Standards Committee (ESC) on Financial Incentives to industry. It also documents the progress made so far in the implementation of...

by Abdul Khan | On 02 Feb 2016

Apostasy and the Freedom of Belief: A New Islamic Perspective

This paper offers a novel perspective on the concept of freedom of conscience in Islam and the rules of apostasy in which the author, YehyaJad revises the notion of the death penalty for the apostate....

by | On 02 Feb 2016

Children Affected by Armed Conflict in South Asia: A Review of Trends and Issues Identified Through Secondary Research

‘Armed conflict’ is defined in this report as the use of armed violence to resolve local, national and/or international disputes between individuals and groups that have a political, economic, cultura...

by | On 02 Feb 2016

Pushing the Debate on Public Health

In honour of Krishna Raj, the legendary editor of Economic and Political Weekly, the Anusandhan Trust established the Krishna Raj Memorial Lecture series on Health and Social Sciences. This year’s lec...

by Padma Prakash | On 02 Feb 2016

Social Insurance with Competitive Insurance Markets and Risk Misperception

This paper considers an economy where individuals differ in productivity and in risk. Rochet (1991) has shown that when private insurance markets offer full coverage at fair rates, social insurance is...

by | On 02 Feb 2016

Does It Pay to Care? Prosocial Engagement and Employment Opportunities

We investigate whether, why and when prosocial engagement has a causal effect on individual employment opportunities. To this end, a field experiment is conducted in which volunteering activities are...

by Suncica Vujic | On 02 Feb 2016

The Contribution of Palestinian Civil Society Organisations toward Achieving National Reconciliation in Palestine, 2007-2010

This study is an attempt to comprehensively examine the contribution of Palestinian Civil Society organizations toward ending Palestinian division and achieving national reconciliation. To this end, a...

by | On 01 Feb 2016

Making it Safer to Cross Waterways in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has about 120,000 engineered rural waterway crossings (such as bridges) and another 250,000 non-engineered crossings built and maintained by communities. Because of a lack of financial and h...

by Granie Jayalath | On 01 Feb 2016

The Ottoman Tanzimats and the Constitution

This study is rooted in the various contexts in which the Ottomans adopted the Tanzimat, a series of reforms in the 19th century, which later gave rise to a constitution. The philosophy behind the Ott...

by | On 01 Feb 2016

The Armed Syrian Opposition: Common Aim but No Vision

In response to the dearth of academic studies written on the Syrian opposition, this study reviews the various Syrian military organizations that are currently active against the Syrian regime, and di...

by | On 01 Feb 2016

Foreign Labor and Questions of Identity in the Arabian Gulf

Numerous studies have concluded that the large presence of foreign labor in the Gulf could eventually lead to a loss of national identity. Large concentrations of foreigners, composed of numerous ethn...

by | On 01 Feb 2016

The Story of Primary Health Care : from Alma Ata to the Present Day

The idea of primary health care (PHC) emerged in the 1960s, in recognition of the shortcomings of the health systems inherited by developing countries after independence. The urban, centralised and cu...

by Institute of Development Studies IDS | On 01 Feb 2016

People, Policy, and Partnership for Disaster Resilient Development

The National Alliance of Disaster Risk Reduction (NADRR) was launched at a two-day workshop held in New Delhi on November 3rd and 4th, 2007. The workshop brought together over 150 participants represe...

by National Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction NADRR | On 01 Feb 2016

Pensions at a Glance: Asia/ Pacific

This study combines rigorous analysis with clear, easy-to-understand presentation of empirical results. It does not advocate any particular kind of pension system or type of reform. The goal is to inf...

by OECD Development Centre | On 01 Feb 2016

Youth and Development: Towards a More Inclusive Future

The report examines the pivotal role of Sri Lankan youth. You and Development: Towards a More inclusive Future considers the opportunities and challenges youth face as the nation progresses through th...

by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | On 01 Feb 2016

A Taste of Success: Examples of the Budget Work of NGOs

This report is a compilation of examples of the budget work undertaken by nongovernmental organizations from around the world. Although many of these organizations are new to budget analysis, they h...

by International Budget Partnership IBP | On 01 Feb 2016

Global Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Women A Human Rights Perspective

A gender analysis of the human rights situation is therefore necessary in order to understand the impact of the crisis on women and their livelihoods. In South Asia, there is an urgent need for engagi...

by Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural PWESCR | On 31 Jan 2016

Off-shoring, Insecurity and the Protectionist Threat

The financial crash of 2008 threatens economic insecurity in industrialized countries to an extent not experienced since the Great Depression. But as discussed in the World Economic and Social Survey...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

The Potential of Financial Transaction Taxes for Development Financing

Difficulties in raising sufficient resources to finance internationally agreed development goals and global objectives, such as combating climate change, have led the quest for new and innovative sour...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

An Integrated Strategy for Sustainable Cities

The multiple challenges that cities face also represent a strategic opportunity to build sustainable cities and reap the benefits of rapid urbanization. Urban development should be understood as a bal...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

Achieving Sustainable Development: The Energy Investment Challenge

There is an emerging consensus holding that sustainable development requires a radical transformation of the world’s energy system. This brief suggests that countries will need to manage large and com...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

Promoting Empowerment of People in Achieving Poverty Eradication, Social Integration and Full Employment Integration and Full Employment and Decent Work for All

The responses collected from the online survey on people’s empowerment contained in this report represent a collaborative effort, made possible by the answers received from people across the world on...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

State Capacity and Inclusive Development: New Challenges and Directions.

This paper takes stock of recent advancements in the literature on state capacity and connects them tothe study of inclusive development. Specifically, four particular lines of argument are presented....

by Matthias Hau | On 30 Jan 2016

Improving the International Governance of Food Security and Trade

This paper critically examines the recent global initiatives to improve various elements of the international governance of food security and the institutional context of policymaking on trade and foo...

by | On 30 Jan 2016

Agricultural Domestic Support and Sustainable Development in China

China's fast-growing farm subsidies have generated new interest in whether these programmes can help achieve public policy goals, without distorting trade and production. This study, by NI Hongxing, f...

by | On 30 Jan 2016

Organizational and Institutional Issues in Climate Change Adaptation and Risk Management

This report provides some reflections and insights on the level of awareness, practices, and organizational and institutional issues being faced by countries as they adapt to climate change, based on...

by Catherine Ragasa | On 30 Jan 2016

Expansion and Evaluation of Social Science Disciplines in Public Sector Universities of Pakistan from 1947 to 2013

The purpose of this research study was to examine the expansion and to evaluate the social sciences in Pakistan. The sample consisted of 60 departments of social sciences from five disciplines (Econom...

by Muhammad Arslan Haider | On 30 Jan 2016

Social Work Intervention at Police Stations

This handbook on “Social Work Intervention in Police Stations” attempts to document the experiences of Prayas social workers in handling cases relating to women, children, youth, mentally or emotiona...

by Prayas NGO | On 30 Jan 2016

Initiating Work with Children of Prisoners

This Handbook on “Work with Children of Prisoners” attempts to document the experience of working with children of prisoners staying with their mothers inside as well as those left outside. These chil...

by Prayas NGO | On 30 Jan 2016

Initiating Work In Prison Settings

This Handbook on “Social Work Intervention in the Prison Setting” attempts to document the intervention strategies in working with various groups found in prison e.g. male and female prisoners, under...

by Prayas NGO | On 30 Jan 2016

Palestinian Public Opinion: Attitudes towards Peace Negotiations and National Reconciliation

This report presents selected results of the 2014 Arab Opinion Index from Palestine (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). The Arab Opinion Index is the largest opinion poll of its kind in the Arab regio...

by | On 29 Jan 2016

Recognition of Forest Rights and Livelihoods of Tribal Communities: A Study of Western Ghats Region, Kerala State

The study tries to examine the implementation process of the Forest Rights Act 2006 in Kerala, in terms of providing individual holding land rights and community rights over forest products. The stu...

by Jyothis Sathyapalan | On 29 Jan 2016

Climate Variability and Change in the Himalayas: Community Perceptions and Responses

Mountain communities in the developing world are often marginalised from political influence and economic opportunities and generally face high levels of poverty. The ecosystems they dwell in are amon...

by Mirjam Macchi | On 28 Jan 2016

Scientific Framework for ICIMOD’s Regional Programme on Adaptation to Change

This document elaborates the scientific framework of the Adaptation to Change Programme in an attempt to improve the connections between science, policy, practice, and stakeholders and to tackle chall...

by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Devel ICIMOD | On 28 Jan 2016

Subcontracted Women Workers in the Garment Industry in India

This paper analyse the situation of the women working in subcontracting arrangements in the industry. In the analysis of value chains we found that women workers in all segments were not the direct...

by Jeemol Unni | On 28 Jan 2016

Earnings and Education among Ethnic Groups in Rural India

In rural India social and cultural norms are deep rooted in society. Access to productive assets, employment opportunities and consequently incomes are to a large extent influenced by these social fac...

by Jeemol Unni | On 28 Jan 2016

Economic Rationale, Subsidy and Cost Sharing for Watershed Projects: Imperatives for Institutions and Market Development

This paper seeks to examine the experiences with respect to subsidies and cost-sharing in the light of the various watershed programmes supported by the state as well as donor agencies and other non-g...

by Amita Shah | On 28 Jan 2016

Urban Health: Policy and Polity

This note examines selected issues in urban health from social perspective. In particular, it brings out the key challenges in targeting and planning for the urban poor; their mobilisation and partici...

by Meera Chatterjee | On 28 Jan 2016

Internal Migration in Developing Economies: An Overview

An overview is provided of the state of knowledge on internal migration in developing economies, with particular emphasis on recent contributions to the literature. The overview is divided into five s...

by | On 28 Jan 2016

Inequality and the Imperative for Inclusive Growth in Asia

Developing Asia’s rapid growth rates that have contributed to a remarkable decline in the incidence of poverty have also been accompanied by rising income and expenditure inequalities and persistenc...

by | On 28 Jan 2016

What’s in a Country Average? Wealth, Gender, and Regional Inequalities in Immunization in India

Recent attention to Millennium Development Goals by the international development community has led to the formation of targets to measure country-level achievements, including achievements on health...

by Abdo Yazbeck | On 28 Jan 2016

Report of the National Consultation on "Children and Governance: In the Context of Federalism and Devolution"

Economists and experts have been batting for bringing the fiscal federalism, the activist fora has been criticizing the newly brought in fiscal arrangements between Centre and States. This contradict...

by HAQ Centre for Child Rights HAQCRC | On 28 Jan 2016

Financial Inclusion and Livelihood Promotion of Rickshaw Pullers in India

The research study highlights the financial inclusion needs of cycle rickshaw pullers in India. These include access to service sectors; improvement of asset base; employment of their women; increase...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

Health of Internal Labor Migrants In India: Some Reflections on the Current Situation and Way Forward

Social and development policies have not been successful so far in mainstreaming health issues of internal labour migrants in India. This opinion paper reflects on the current situation of migrants an...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

Focus on Children Under Six

This report is the outcome of a collective effort to bring children under six closer to the centre of attention in public debates and democratic politics. The report builds on a field survey of the In...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

Social Safety Nets for Food and Nutritional Security in India

This paper brings together existing literature on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNRGEA) and the Public Distribution System (PDS) in India, offering a narrative review of...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

Civil Unrest and Government Transfers in India

This paper investigates empirically the role of government expenditure on social services in mitigating and preventing civil unrest (riots) in India. The empirical analysis makes use of a unique longi...

by | On 26 Jan 2016

Where Next for Social Protection?

The rapid ascendancy of social protection up the development policy agenda in the past ten to 15 years raises questions about whether its current prominence will be sustained, or whether it will turn...

by | On 26 Jan 2016

The Relationship Between Services Trade And Government Procurement Commitments: Insights From Relevant WTO Agreements And Recent RTAS

To date, government procurement has been effectively carved out of the main multilateral rules of the WTO system. This paper examines the systemic and other ramifications of this exclusion, from both...

by Robert Anderson | On 26 Jan 2016

Infrastructure Provision , Trade And Development Prospects: Potential Role And Relevance Of The WTO Agreement On Government Procurement (GPA)

The paper, nonetheless, acknowledges that delivering these benefits would involve significant practical and political challenges. It concludes that if the challenges can be overcome and the mutual ben...

by Kodjo Osei-Lah | On 26 Jan 2016

Trade Policy Uncertainty as Barrier to Trade

This paper studies the effects of trade policy uncertainty on the extensive and the intensive margins of trade for a sample of 149 exporters at the HS6 digit level. We measure trade policy uncertainty...

by Nadia Rocha | On 26 Jan 2016

Addressing the Unequal Burden of Malnutrition

The poor are not uniformly disadvantaged. For the most health indicators, the status of ‘excluded groups’ such as scheduled caste and scheduled tribes, and Muslims is significantly worse than that of...

by Sukhade Thorat | On 26 Jan 2016

Al Qaeda Today: Transitions and Trajectories

Since the May 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden by the US Seal Team Six in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the composition and character of the aforementioned terrorist group has undergone several changes. Three...

by | On 25 Jan 2016

China in Afghanistan: Balancing Power Projection and Minimal Intervention

As it was foreseen, the initial months following the start of the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) withdrawal from Afghanistan were harsh for the Afghan government and civilians. 2 In Ap...

by | On 25 Jan 2016

Ageing in Emerging Markets

This report describes the outcomes of a 2015 symposium on Ageing in Emerging Markets convened by the Emerging Markets Symposium at Green Templeton College, Oxford. It focusses on the causes and conseq...

by | On 25 Jan 2016

Gender Justice And Social Norms – Processes Of Change For Adolescent Girls

This note proposes an analytical framework for the current phase of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) programme of research on discriminatory social norms affecting adolescent girls. The curren...

by Caroline Harper | On 24 Jan 2016

Climate Change and Vulnerability in Bangladesh

It is predicted that climate change will aggravate the presence of sudden (e.g. cyclones, floods etc.) and chronic (e.g. drought, erosion) hazards to agrarian communities in Bangladesh. According to t...

by Md Maniruzzaman | On 23 Jan 2016

Political Risks in India-North Korea Ties

North Korea’s latest expression of interest in humanitarian help from India has brought into new focus the whole issue of economic engagement between the two countries. India may well have to weigh th...

by | On 23 Jan 2016

Rethinking Social Protection Using a Gender Lens

This synthesis paper presents the findings from a multi-country research project which assesses the extent to which gender has been incorporated into the design and implementation of a wide range of s...

by Rebecca Holmes | On 23 Jan 2016

Ensuring Access for the Climate Vulnerable in Bangladesh

Drawing on secondary literature and interviews and discussions with community members, local government officials, and various experts, the report proposes a mechanism through which LGIs could provide...

by International Centre for Climate Change and Develo ICCCAD | On 23 Jan 2016

Can Targeted Transition Services for Young Offenders Foster Pro-Social Attitudes and Behaviours in Urban Settings? Evidence from the Evaluation of the Kherwadi Social Welfare Association’s Yuva Parivartan Programme

In Maharashtra, state-sponsored programmes that support school dropouts and young offenders in finding employment and integrating into society are severely limited by a lack of resources and capacity....

by Jaideep Gupte | On 23 Jan 2016

Do Government Transfers Reduce Conflict?

Social conflicts have been solved through fiscal policy and the provision of public goods and services over the centuries. Data from India, too, show government expenditure on social services has had...

by Institute of Development Studies IDS | On 23 Jan 2016

Infant-Feeding Patterns and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Young Adulthood: Data From Five Cohorts in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding from birth to 6 months, the introduction of nutritious complementary foods at 6 months and continued breastfeeding for 52 years.1...

by Karthikeya Naraparaju | On 22 Jan 2016

The Impact of Digital Content: Opportunities and Risks of Creating and Sharing Information Online

The Global Agenda Council on Social Media white paper to be launched at the Forum's Annual Meeting 2016, The Impact of Digital Content: Opportunities and Risks of Creating and Sharing Information Onli...

by World Economic Forum [WEF] | On 22 Jan 2016

Strategic Trade Policy for Network Goods Oligopolies

The paper analyzes strategic trade policy for differentiated network goods oligopolies under alternative scenarios, when there is export-rivalry between two countries. We show that, under price compet...

by Anomita Ghosh | On 22 Jan 2016

India’s Right to Food Act: A Novel Approach to Food Security

The India Health Report: Nutrition 2015 surveys the trends in maternal and child undernutrition in India. It looks at trends and disparities in these outcomes across geographical regions, socio-econom...

by | On 22 Jan 2016

India's Energy System Transition-Survival Of The Greenest

The transition to a clean and green energy system is an economic and social transformation that is exciting as well as challenging. The world today faces a formidable challenge in transforming its eco...

by A. Ganesh-Kumar | On 22 Jan 2016

India and APEC An Appraisal

This Study surveys the progress that APEC has made towards promoting regional economic cooperation and integration. It examines the desirability of India joining APEC and looks at possible benefits an...

by V. S. Seshadri | On 21 Jan 2016

Political Commitment In India’s Social Policy Implementation: Shaping The Performance of MGNREGA

This paper contributes to the empirical understanding of the concept of commitment and the role it plays in shaping India’s social policy implementation. Taking the case of the landmark policy, the Ma...

by Deepta Chopra | On 21 Jan 2016

China’s Dams & Regional Security Implications An Indian Perspective

This brief provides a historical-cum-ongoing account as well as an assessment of the future of China’s dam-building exercise, its rationale and consequences at all levels – geographically, environment...

by Dhanasree Jayaram | On 21 Jan 2016

Synthetic Biology in India: Issues in Risk, Power and Governance

In this discussion paper, the status of synthetic biology in India and debates in India on synthetic biology are discussed and the discourses on synthetic biology in India are also analysed. The paper...

by Krishna Ravi Srinivas | On 21 Jan 2016

Migration and Social Protection: A Concept Paper

This paper attempts to locate ‘migration’ within a social protection framework both theoretically and empirically. We add to the dominant theoretical discourse around social protection by introducing...

by | On 20 Jan 2016

Social Policies and Water Sector Reform

Increasing coverage and maintaining infrastructure are two of the biggest challenges confronting the water supply sector in both industrialized and developing countries. The last two decades have witn...

by | On 19 Jan 2016

A Critical Review of Selected Time Use Surveys

This paper was prepared as part of the preparatory phase for the UNRISD research project on Political and Social Economy of Care. The overall aim of the project is to examine the way in which care is...

by | On 19 Jan 2016

Gender and Education: A Review of Issues for Social Policy

This paper provides an overview of key issues relating to the achievement of gender equity in education, laying out some of the contradictions and tensions in donor discourse and policy efforts, and p...

by Ramya Subrahmanian | On 19 Jan 2016

Examining the Catalytic Effect of Aid on Domestic Resource Mobilization for Social Transfers in Low-Income Countries

Social transfers, a non-contributory form of social protection, present a great potential to tackle poverty and inequality, and support inclusive socioeconomic development. Yet, they also represent a...

by | On 19 Jan 2016

Methods of Measuring the Impacts of Social Policy in Political, Economic and Social Dimensions

This paper reviews current impact assessment methods and builds on Amartya Sen’s framework of comprehensive and culmination outcomes to identify elements of a comprehensive framework that enables a sy...

by | On 19 Jan 2016

Social Inclusion, Poverty Eradication and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

This paper refers to social inclusion as a goal, process and outcome. As a universal goal, social inclusion aims to achieve an inclusive society that entails respect for human rights, cultural diversi...

by | On 19 Jan 2016

Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia: Results from a Pilot Project in Vietnam

Human trafficking is one of the most widely spread and fastest growing crimes in the world. However, despite the scope of the problem, the important human rights issues at stake and the professed inte...

by Ngan Dinh | On 19 Jan 2016

Colonial Origins of Maoist Insurgency in India: Long Term Effects of Indirect Rule

This dissertation tries to answer the puzzle of why the Maoist insurgency in India, which is considered to be the most important internal security threat to the world’s largest democracy, occurs in ce...

by Shivaji Mukherjee | On 19 Jan 2016

Complaining to the State: Grievance Redress and India’s Social Welfare Programs

Poor implementation of social welfare programs is a chronic challenge in developing countries such as India. Yet, despite the large number of people affected and the serious consequences of implementa...

by Nicholas Robinson | On 18 Jan 2016

Reappraising the Greed and Grievance Explanations for Violent Internal Conflict

Two phenomena have been recently utilised to explain conflict onset among rational choice analysts: greed and grievance. The former reflects elite competition over valuable natural resource rents. The...

by | On 18 Jan 2016

Follow-Up Study Report On Cases Worked On By Koshish Chembur Beggars’ Home, Mumbai (Male And Female Section) January – December 2012

There have been very serious linkages between destitution and beggary; both with helpless people getting into beggary as well as state punishing working poor on charges of beggary under legislations l...

by Tata Institue of Social Sciences TISS | On 18 Jan 2016

Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching

A novel dataset is used to study the impact of male scarcity on marital assortative matching and other marriage market outcomes using the large shock that WWI caused to the number of French men. Using...

by | On 18 Jan 2016

India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement: Follow-up Concerns Need a Fair Approach

The recent success of India and Bangladesh in settling the complicated issue of political enclaves in each other’s territories could be traced to the spirit displayed by the leaders of the two countri...

by | On 18 Jan 2016

The Global Risks Report 2016

The Global Risks Report 2016 features perspectives from nearly 750 experts on the perceived impact and likelihood of 29 prevalent global risks over a 10-year timeframe. The risks are divided into five...

by World Economic Forum [WEF] | On 18 Jan 2016

Dominant Development and Peoples' Alternatives: Play and Interplay in Chhattisgarh

This text of Ilina Sen’s presentation, the Second Anusandhan Trust’s Krishna Raj Memorial Lecture on Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Sciences, is a lucid account of the contradictions sett...

by Ilina Sen | On 18 Jan 2016

International Migration, Transfers of Norms and Home Country Fertility

This paper examines the relationship between international migration and source country fertility. The impact of international migration on source country fertility may have a number of causes, includ...

by Maurice Schiff | On 15 Jan 2016

Housing Policies in China: Issues and Options

This article consists in three parts. The first part deals with theory. We evaluate the pros and cons of government involvement in urban housing and of renting versus ownership. In the second part, we...

by Yves Zenou | On 14 Jan 2016

Gender Dynamics In A Changing Climate: How Gender and Adaptive Capacity Affect Resilience

This learning brief synthesises lessons drawn from CARE’s Adaptation Learning Programme for Africa (ALP), which has been supporting vulnerable communities in sub-Saharan Africa to adapt to the impacts...

by Webb J. | On 13 Jan 2016

Job Search Processes for Tribal People from Jharkhand and West Bengal

Millions of job seekers in South Asia, including many tribals, are forced by lack of local employment opportunities to migrate towards urban areas. This fieldwork-based study aims to understand specif...

by Rajib Dhar | On 13 Jan 2016

Female Migrants and their Health in India: A Study of Kerala Women Working in Mumbai

In this paper, an attempt has been made to understand the general, reproductive, and mental health status of migrant women from Kerala who stay in the working women’s hostels. The present study is bas...

by R. S. Reshmi | On 13 Jan 2016

Development

The study of international organizations inevitably leads to consideration of the role of several that have been at the heart of international efforts to promote development after World War II, primar...

by David Malone | On 13 Jan 2016

Elementary Education in India: Progress, Setbacks, and Challenges

This paper provides a stocktaking of progress and shortcomings in India’s march towards universalisation of elementary education (UEE), whilst addressing concerns of equity, inclusion, and quality fro...

by | On 13 Jan 2016

Broken Lives and Deserted Homes: Report on Exodus of Muslim Families from Atali

The following is a report based on PUDR’s repeated visits to Atali and its interactions with Muslim and Jat families over the last four months.

by PUDR Peoples Union for Democratic Rights | On 13 Jan 2016

Measuring Subnational Budget Transparency, Participation, and Accountability: India

India has highly populated states and a highly devolved budget; in fact, over half of all India’s public expenditures are through state budgets, including a large share of development expenditures on...

by International Budget Partnership IBP | On 13 Jan 2016

Social Policy in Development: Coherence and Cooperation in the Real World

Research and practice related to social policy and poverty alleviation have left a legacy of a very broad agenda of “things that need to be done”, along with important unanswered questions about how t...

by | On 13 Jan 2016

Social Institutions & Gender Index : 2014 Synthesis Report

Discrimination against women and girls carries a high development cost. This third edition of the SIGI captures and measures gender-based discrimination in social institutions- social norms, practices...

by OECD Development Centre | On 13 Jan 2016

Beyond Market Access: Trade-related Measures for the Least Developed Countries. What Strategy?

This paper assesses the effectiveness of non-tariff special and differential treatment (SDT) offered exclusively to the least developed countries by WTO agreements. SDTs are inefficient in at least fo...

by | On 11 Jan 2016

Redistributive Policies for Sustainable Development: Looking at the Role of Assets and Equity

Analyses of redistributive policies often focus on income flows to examine the nexus between redistribution and economic growth. With strengthening signs of growing economic inequality in many countri...

by | On 11 Jan 2016

The Contexts of Social Inclusion

In light of the emphasis on “inclusion” in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this paper contends that social exclusion and inclusion are context-dependent concepts in at least three senses. Fi...

by | On 11 Jan 2016

The Perils of Counting Caste

While the unpublished findings of the ‘Caste Census’ in India might not receive serious attention if ever made public, some of the socio-economic data, made available by the same Census, can set the m...

by Ronojoy Sen | On 10 Jan 2016

The Least Developed Countries Report, 2007

UNCTAD, in past LDC Reports, has taken the view that the key to sustained economic growth and poverty reduction in LDCs is the development of productive capacities and related creation of productive e...

by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNCTAD | On 09 Jan 2016

Caste and Gender: The Social Barriers to Solid Waste Management in India

The paper explains the indignities and deeply-held attitudes that stigmatize those who deal with waste, garbage and human excreta in India. It outlines how such attitudes make the goals of the ‘Swachh...

by | On 09 Jan 2016

Sharing of Social Sectors Experiences in IBSA: Assessment of Initiatives and Way Forward

The paper analyses the select Communiqués and Declarations pertaining to social sectors issued from time to time. In this context, it evaluates the status and performance of social development in each...

by | On 09 Jan 2016

Modi’s Foreign Policy: Focus on the Diaspora

The paper reviews the evolution of India’s diaspora policy and examines the possibilities and pitfalls that could arise from Delhi’s new political enthusiasm for overseas Indian communities. Engagemen...

by C. Raja Mohan | On 09 Jan 2016

Temporal and Spatial Changes in the Incidence of Agricultural Labourers

The attempt of the present thesis has been to examine the incidence of agricultural labourers in the state of Maharashtra. It primarily aimed at analysing changes in the size of the labour force in ag...

by Awanish Kumar | On 08 Jan 2016

Gender, work and development in northwest Pakistan: working environments of Pakistani female development practitioners

The research identifies the development sector as a complex and often contested work environment. Many local residents perceive ‘development’ as an instrument of the ‘West’ for pursuing its interests,...

by Julia Grünenfelder | On 08 Jan 2016

Impact of Participatory Forest Management on Financial Assets of Rural Communities in Northwest Pakistan

The system of participatory (or joint) forest management was commenced in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan in 1996 through Asian Development Bank's funded project. These forest refo...

by Tanvir Ali | On 08 Jan 2016

Street Sweeping as a Livelihood Strategy of Pode Community in KMC: Livelihood Assets and Vulnerabilities

The study of geography of poverty and peoples’ changing livelihood and their relation with globalization are some of the major areas of geographic research in the present context (Subedi, 2005). So, P...

by Basant Adhikari | On 08 Jan 2016

Livelihood Options of Dalit: An Analysis with Reference to Land Resources

Land is regarded as an important source of livelihoods to many people, especially rural people. For those people, access to and control over land resources is the source of livelihoods. Therefore, lan...

by Samana Adhikari | On 08 Jan 2016

2015 World Public Sector Report on Responsive and Accountable Public Governance

Heads of state and government have adopted a new development agenda to guide sustainable development efforts for the next 15 years. Member States will have the responsibility of turning this collectiv...

by | On 08 Jan 2016

Activity Based Training of WaterAid India Partners in Water Quality Monitoring & Management

Effective monitoring of access to, quantity of and quality of water is a key consideration for India. Given the large investments and big programmes and schemes including the current thrust of Sector...

by People's Science Institute PSI | On 07 Jan 2016

Socio-Economic Uncertainty and Violent Conflicts

This paper, with reference to the literature on research on violent conflicts, discusses socio-economic uncertainty and characteristics of coping with it in the context of violent mass conflicts. Rese...

by Gyöngyvér Demény | On 07 Jan 2016

Innovative Strategies in Higher Education for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia Nepal

The report herein provide in-depth analysis of the state of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education in Nepal.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 07 Jan 2016

Special Study on Sustainable Fisheries Management and International Trade in the Southeast Asia and Pacific Region

This paper analyzes the current status of fisheries and aquaculture in Southeast Asia and international trade. Analysis concludes that a policy of sustainable management for both capture fisheries and...

by Masayuki Komatsu | On 07 Jan 2016

Plurilateral Agreements: A Viable Alternative to the World Trade Organization?

The paper looks at some issue-based plurilateral agreements — such as the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), the Financial Services and Basic Telecommunication Services Agreements, and the Anti-C...

by Michitaka Nakatomi | On 07 Jan 2016

Groundwater, Fluoride Contamination in Unnao District (U.P)

A recent survey done by Vikas Bharati, an Unnao-based voluntary organization, revealed that 35%, 47.8% and 60.3% of children were affected with dental fluorosis, in Junior High School, Thana, Janta Sh...

by People's Science Institute PSI | On 06 Jan 2016

India’s Fragmented Social Protection System: Three Rights Are in Place; Two Are Still Missing

The paper touches only briefly upon the issue of social insurance because achieving this is a medium-term goal which the Indian welfare state must work towards within current fiscal constraints. It fo...

by | On 06 Jan 2016

Urbanization as “Development” Versus Constitutional Safeguards for the Tribal People

Following are excerpts from Report of a PUCL Fact Finding Team into unrest and repression in the Sundergarh scheduled district of Odisha.

by People's Union of Civil Liberties PUCL | On 06 Jan 2016

Internal Migration, Poverty and Development in Asia

This article explores the relationship between internal migration and economic growth and development in Asia, concentrating on four countries: China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Levels of internal...

by | On 05 Jan 2016

Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People

The findings from The Asia Foundation's fifth public opinion poll in Afghanistan, Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People, which covers all 34 of Afghanistan's provinces.

by The Asia Foundation | On 02 Jan 2016

Survey on Good Local Governance

The Survey on Good Local Governance is a 38-item survey that aims to obtain a broader data to help set the agenda for local government reforms in the Philippines. It covers the following: citizen perc...

by The Asia Foundation | On 02 Jan 2016

Social Protection Brief: Social Security Reform and Economic Modeling Capacity Building in Indonesia

While official poverty in Indonesia is relatively low at 12%, an additional 27% of the population live just above the poverty line and small shocks can drive them back into poverty. Poor and vulnerabl...

by Kefei You | On 01 Jan 2016

Social Protection Brief: Social Security Reform and Economic Modeling Capacity Building in Indonesia

While official poverty in Indonesia is relatively low at 12%, an additional 27% of the population live just above the poverty line and small shocks can drive them back into poverty. Poor and vulnerabl...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 01 Jan 2016

Carrot or Stick? Redistributive Transfers Versus Policing in Contexts of Civil Unrest

Recurrent episodes of civil unrest significantly reduce the potential for economic growth and poverty reduction. Yet the economics literature offers little understanding of what triggers civil unrest...

by Patricia Justino | On 30 Dec 2015

The Relationship between Structural Change and Inequality: A Conceptual Overview with Special Reference to Developing Asia

Structural change has a far-reaching impact on inequality. Extensive structural change is both a cause and consequence of the exceptionally rapid economic growth, which enabled developing Asia to rais...

by Donghyun Park | On 30 Dec 2015

Impact of Production Linkages on Industrial Upgrading in ASEAN, the People's Republic of China, and India: Organizational Evidence of a Global Supply Chain

This paper presents a simple model of industrial upgrading as a result of backward and forward information linkages between upstream and downstream relations. It also serves as an empirical investigat...

by Tomohiro Machikita | On 30 Dec 2015

Left Behind but Doing Good? Civic Engagement in Two Post-Socialist Countries

The fall of socialism in Central and Eastern Europe restored ordinary citizens' rights and freedoms and ended their political and social isolation. While the freedom of movement was quickly embraced,...

by Milena Nikolova | On 29 Dec 2015

Can Social Security Boost Domestic Consumption in the People’s Republic of China?

This paper reviews the development of the social security system and trends in the urban labor market in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite its remarkable economic achievement, the PRC face...

by Wang Dewen | On 29 Dec 2015

Women and Water

This article on women and water discusses gender perspectives of a growing water crisis and the evolution of the international policy on water. It stresses the importance of integrating gender perspec...

by UN Women | On 29 Dec 2015

Three Arrows of 'Abenomics' and the Structural Reform of Japan: Inflation Targeting Policy of the Central Bank, Fiscal Consolidation, and Growth Strategy

“Abenomics” refers to the economic policies advocated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who became prime minister of Japan for a second time when his party, the Liberal Democratic Party, won an overwhelmin...

by Farhad Hesary | On 29 Dec 2015

Gender-based Violence and Child Protection among Syrian Refugees in Jordan, with a Focus on Early Marriage

This study was undertaken on behalf of the Child Protection and Gender-Based Violence sub-working groups in Jordan, established in February 2012 to coordinate prevention and response to child protecti...

by UN Women | On 28 Dec 2015

Enhancing Youth Political Participation throughout the Electoral Cycle

This guide identifies key entry points for the inclusion of young people in political and electoral processes and compiles good practice examples of mechanisms for youth political empowerment around t...

by United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] | On 23 Dec 2015

Different Paths to Power: The Rise of Brazil, India and China at the World Trade Organization

New powers, such as China, India and Brazil, are challenging the traditional dominance of the US in the governance of the global economy. It is generally taken for granted that the rise of new powers...

by Kristen Hopewell | On 23 Dec 2015

Shia and Iranian Ascendance: Sunni and American Perceptions

The primary aim of this paper, however, is not to account for the historical/political rise of Shiaism or of Iran, or even debate the existence of the so-called ‘Shia Crescent,’ but to examine instead...

by | On 22 Dec 2015

The Sikh Diaspora and the Quest for Khalistan: A Search for Statehood or for Self-preservation?

This paper will reexamine the role of the Sikh Diaspora in the Sikh separatist movement, commencing in the 1980s, that loomed over the political, security, social, and humanitarian makeup of the Indi...

by | On 22 Dec 2015

How Does ADB Engage Civil Society Organizations in Its Operations? Findings of an Exploratory Inquiry in South Asia

The focus is on South Asia and the starting point of inquiry is on 33 projects that illustrate the roles and forms of NGO and CBO engagement in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The rep...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 21 Dec 2015

Innovations in Knowledge and Learning for Competitive Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific

The challenge of aligning higher education services (programs) with evolving labor market changes, and responding to knowledge-based economy of respective developing countries, has been difficult for...

by Jouko Sarvi | On 21 Dec 2015

Transitions to K-12 Education Systems Experiences from Five Case Countries

Preparing and implementing a K–12 transition absorbs considerable financial and human resources. It follows that the reasons for restructuring must be compelling. It follows that the reasons for restr...

by | On 21 Dec 2015

The Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011: Origin, Need, and Analysis

Tabled by V. Narayanasamy, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, in Lok Sabha in December 2011, The Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redre...

by Amit Chandra | On 21 Dec 2015

The Global Information Technology Report 2014

The Global Information Technology Report provides a comprehensive assessment of networked readiness, or how prepared an economy is to apply the benefits of information and communications technologies...

by | On 21 Dec 2015

Payment System Regulation for Improving Financial Inclusion

Drawing from existing domestic experiences and the first results of the international debate, this paper tries to identify some high-level recommendations on how the payments system should be regulate...

by Maria Malaguti | On 19 Dec 2015

Social Exclusion and Discrimination in the Labour Market

Social exclusion of certain groups on the basis of race, creed, colour and caste has been practised in most societies. This paper explores the sources and implications of such exclusion, especially as...

by T.S. Papola | On 18 Dec 2015

Managing Firms in an Emerging Economy: Evidence From The Time Use of Indian CEOS

The success or failure of a company is often ascribed to the behavior of its CEO. Yet little is known about what top managers actually do, whether this matters for firm performance, and why it differ...

by Oriana Bandiera | On 18 Dec 2015

Managing the Family Firm: Evidence from CEOs at Work

We develop a new survey instrument to codify CEOs’ diaries in large samples and use it to measure the labor supply of 1,114 family and professional CEOs of manufacturing firms across six countries...

by Oriana Bandiera | On 18 Dec 2015

Labour Processes and the Dynamics of Global Value Chain: A Developing Country Perspective

This paper with specific reference to India argues that limited view of verticality of production fails to appreciate the fact that choices of locations, the amount of rent created, the shift of value...

by Satyaki Roy | On 18 Dec 2015

Swat A Critical Analysis

While the government continues to press for an unconditional surrender of arms and men as a precondition to a dialogue and settlement; the other side is also adamant on its demands including the withd...

by | On 18 Dec 2015

Citizen Participation and Accountability for Sustainable Development

This report articulates three strategies by which the poorest and most marginalised have attempted to ensure accountability from national and global policymakers to local people.It is a response to de...

by Danny Burns | On 17 Dec 2015

Income Inequality and Labour Income Share in G20 Countries: Trends, Impacts and Causes

The paper present concise evidence of recent trends in inequality and labour income shares and to identify possible causes as a basis for developing potential policy responses. This report takes up th...

by Internaional Labour Organization [ILO] | On 17 Dec 2015

The Design and Implementation of Public Pension Systems in Developing Countries: Issues and Options

Developing countries are increasingly aware of the need to design and implement improvements in public systems for providing pensions to the elderly. Such systems may aim to smooth consumption and thu...

by David Bloom | On 17 Dec 2015

Globalisation and the Future of the Welfare State

This paper reconsiders the link between welfare state provision, globalisation and competitiveness empirically. We challenge the conventional wisdom that welfare states, large-scale public provision o...

by Yu-Fu Chen | On 16 Dec 2015

Engaging with Health Markets in Low and Middle-Income Countries

Many low and middle-income countries have pluralistic health systems with a variety of providers of health-related goods and services in terms of their level of training, their ownership (public or pr...

by Henry Lucas | On 16 Dec 2015

National Experiences in Building Social Protection Floors: India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

This study highlights three central themes of the MGNREGA: first, the innovative policy framework of the Act, which brings together rights-based entitlements, demand-driven employment, and citizen-cen...

by Ellen Ehmke | On 16 Dec 2015

Education Reforms, Bureaucracy and the Puzzles of Implementation: A Case Study from Bihar

It is a widely accepted truth that the Indian state suffers from a serious crisis of implementation capability. Despite widespread recognition of this crisis, there is remarkably little analytical wor...

by | On 15 Dec 2015

Big Data and International Development: Impacts, Scenarios and Policy Options

Many people are excited about data, particularly when those data are big. Big data, we are told, will be the fuel that drives the next industrial revolution, radically reshaping economic structures, e...

by | On 15 Dec 2015

Peaceful Coexistence? The Role of Religious Schools and NGOs in the Growth of Female Secondary Schooling in Bangladesh

In this paper, documents a positive spillover effect of BRAC schools on female secondary enrollment in registered madrasas. Drawing upon school enrollment data aggregated at the region level, It first...

by Mohammad Niaz Asadullah | On 11 Dec 2015

Empowering the Poor through Human Rights Litigation

The purpose of this manual is to collaborate with grass-roots organizations, in particular with NGOs, in defining the content of economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights) and to empower the ac...

by Maritza Formisano Prada | On 10 Dec 2015

National Strategy Day on India: Delivering Growth in the New Context

The World Economic Forum along with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) convened the National Strategy Day on India on 3rd and 4th of November to provide a platform to boost economic growth and...

by | On 09 Dec 2015

Ensuring and Protecting the Land Leasing Right of Poor Women in India

This paper critically examines how lease farming can be a viable livelihood option for landless rural poor, especially women in India. In the absence of land ownership and education, the majority of l...

by | On 08 Dec 2015

Health Assessment of Ganga River at Haridwar During Kumbh 2013

With a view to undertake the exercise the of health assessment of Ganga River River during Kumbh 2013 a water quality monitoring was done during Kumbh 2013. The present report is based on the socio-cu...

by People's Science Institute PSI | On 08 Dec 2015

Sustainable Urbanization in Asia

Rapid urbanization together with climate change is emerging as the most challenging issue of the twenty-first century. As the region with the highest percentage increase in urban population over the l...

by UN-HABITAT UNHABITAT | On 07 Dec 2015

Regional Inequality and ‘Inclusive Growth’ in India under Globalization: Identification of Lagging States for Strategic Intervention

This paper analyses the trends and patterns of economic inequality across Indian states since the early 1990s. The inter-state inequality in per capita income and consumption expenditure show a clear...

by | On 04 Dec 2015

Book Review: India: The Urban Transition - A Case Study of Development

Review of India: The Urban Transition - A Case Study of Development. Copenhagen Arkitektur B, 2014. Illustrations, graphs. 344 pp. $44.50 (paper), ISBN 978-87-92700-09-4.

by | On 03 Dec 2015

World Report on Ageing and Health

The World report on ageing and health outlines a framework for action to foster Healthy Ageing built around the new concept of functional ability. Making these investments will have valuable social an...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 03 Dec 2015

Trade Liberalization, Labour Law, and Development: A Contextualization

This paper is a literature review that emphasizes institutional analyses of trade law, and explores some of the linkages with the development literature. The paper contends that the development of tra...

by | On 02 Dec 2015

Socially Sustainable Development and Participatory Governance: Legal and Political Aspects

This paper explores the notion of “sustainable development” which has progressively evolved over the recent years from the environmental field in which it originated, to the social sphere and has been...

by | On 02 Dec 2015

Gender, Headship, and the Life Cycle: Landownership in Four Asian Countries

To inform the formulation of policies and interventions to strengthen women’s land rights, this paper analyzes nationally representative data from Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam to...

by Kathryn Sproule | On 02 Dec 2015

Intergenerational Educational Persistence among Daughters: Evidence from India

The paper examines educational transmission between fathers (mothers) and daughters in India for daughters born during 1962-1991. We find that educational persistence, as measured by the regression co...

by Mehtabul Azam | On 01 Dec 2015

Monitoring Mortality in Forced Migrants—Can Bayesian Methods Help Us to Do Better with the (Little) Data We Have?

The global number of forced migrants is currently the highest since the Second World War. This is a major concern to public health: lack of access to safe water, food, sanitation, and inadequate shel...

by Peter Heudtlass | On 30 Nov 2015

Countering Terrorism: Role of Intelligence and Investigative Agencies

Intelligence agencies provide the most sensitive protective security shield for a country. They mostly operate in shadows, develop sources and penetrate the enemy to prise out information that could b...

by Radha Vinod Raju | On 24 Nov 2015

From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State

This paper sets forth the main lines of the ideology of the Islamic State and carefully follows its historical trajectory. Part I, Doctrines, takes up the group’s fundamental religious and political b...

by Cole Bunzel | On 22 Nov 2015

Book Review: Religious Publishing, Nationalism and the Hindu

Review of The Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India. Harper Collins India, 2015; pp. 552, Rs 527/-

by Sandeep Dubey | On 20 Nov 2015

Teaching Philosophy in Asia and the Pacific

The teaching of philosophy is undeniably one of the keystones of a quality education for all. It contributes to open the mind, to build critical reflection and independent thinking, which constitute...

by UNESCO UNESCO | On 19 Nov 2015

Why can't an Academic deliver a Lecture on Secularism without Police Protection? - Romila Thapar

At Pratirodh, the Writers' Convention organised on 1 October 2015, Romila Thapar began with an anecdotal account of her recent lecture on secularism in Mumbai, a lecture for which she was advised to t...

by Romila Thapar | On 18 Nov 2015

Key Indicators of Social Consumption in India: Education

Key Indicators of Social Consumption in India on Education Show Continued Gender Gap and Rural Urban Differences. In rural areas, literacy rate was seen as 71% compared to 86% in urban areas. Also amo...

by National Sample Survey Office NSSO | On 17 Nov 2015

State and District Boundary Changes in India: 1961-2001

For a large variety of data recorded by the Census of India, such as those on language, age structure, religion, and on individual Scheduled Castes and Tribes, the district is the lowest level of ag...

by Hemanshu Kumar | On 17 Nov 2015

Going to School in Purdah: Female Schooling, Mobility Norms and Madrasas in Bangladesh

This paper looks at the determinants of secondary school attendance in Bangladesh with a focus on the interaction between community gender norms and relative supply of madrasas (i.e. Islamic schools)....

by Zaki Wahhaj | On 16 Nov 2015

Toward Better Global Poverty Measures

While much progress has been made over the last 25 years in measuring global poverty, there are a number of challenges ahead. The paper discusses three sets of problems: (i) how to allow for social...

by Martin Ravallion | On 16 Nov 2015

Convergence of Social Security Schemes for Elimination of Child Labour

Child labour is a complex problem rooted in poverty, illiteracy and social inequality. The National Child Labour Policy has identified ‘focusing of general development programmes for benefiting child...

by Helen Sekar | On 10 Nov 2015

Pragmatic Pathways: Critical Perspectives on Research Uptake in the Global South

One of social science’s core roles is to inform evidence-based policy making and policy interventions that produce pro-poor outcomes. This paper explores prominent debates on research uptake and polic...

by | On 05 Nov 2015

The Promise and Perils of Participatory Policy Making

This paper examines evidence on the advantages and limitations of participatory governance. The study compares theoretical predictions with the experience of South Africa, where policy-making fora ope...

by | On 04 Nov 2015

Highlights of Recent IFPRI Food Policy Research in India: Reducing Poverty and Hunger through Food Policy Research

IFPRI and India’s partnership played a particularly important role following the Green Revolution when that partnership analyzed the necessary policies to both promote domestic food production and to...

by International Food Policy Research Institute | On 03 Nov 2015

Non-Standard Work and Workers: Organizational Implications

In this paper provides an overview of the research on nonstandard work with a view to answering the following questions: (i) why do organizations use nonstandard workers, (ii) how has the practice of...

by | On 03 Nov 2015

Beyond Drugs: TB Patients in Bangladesh need Urgent Attention for Nutrition Support during Convalescene

This study measures the nutritional status (using Body Mass Index or BMI) of TB patients before, at two months, and after completion of TB treatment (DOTS) to study the changes during treatment and it...

by Environmental Management & Policy Research Institute | On 29 Oct 2015

Inequality, Social Cooperation and Local Collective Action

This paper examines the relationship between inequality and collective action, and identifies a range of mechanisms that shape the association between income inequality and local collective action. Th...

by | On 29 Oct 2015

Native Terror Factories

This digest throws light on how terrorism has affected the social and religious atmosphere of the country. This digest tries to bring a clear picture on the dangerous understanding that a particular c...

by Ram Puniyani | On 29 Oct 2015

Evaluating the Targeting Effectiveness of Social Transfers: A Literature Review

Many methodologies exist for dividing a population into those who are classified as eligible for social transfers and those who are ineligible. Popular targeting mechanisms include means testing, prox...

by | On 29 Oct 2015

Indian Society and the Secular: Public Lecture in Memory of Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer

In this lecture, the author discusses the concept of Indian secularism. She suggests that the concept of secularism went beyond politics. The lecture discusses on three aspects of what is involved in...

by Romila Thapar | On 28 Oct 2015

Is there a New Economic Sociology Effect? A Topic Model on the Economic Orientation of Sociology, 1890 to 2014

The conventional story tells us that since the birth of the discipline of sociology, the economic orientation of the discipline has peaked twice: the first peak was during the classical era between 18...

by Sebastian Kohl | On 28 Oct 2015

Reducing Poverty in India: The Role of Economic Growth

This paper empirically examines the relation between economic growth and poverty alleviation for the case of India. We provide evidence that higher growth rates were associated with faster decline in...

by Pradeep Agrawal | On 26 Oct 2015

Infrastructure in India: Challenges and the Way Ahead

This study compares the levels of development of the social and physical infrastructure in India with those in other major emerging countries as well as developed countries. The study finds that India...

by Pradeep Agrawal | On 26 Oct 2015

Ending Malnutrition: From Commitment to Action

Ending Malnutrition offers key insights from the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) to catalyze follow-up actions across the world. It reviews current evidence on the prevalence of ma...

by Vikas Rawal | On 23 Oct 2015

Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights

This Report focuses on the economic and social dimensions of gender equality, including the right of all women to a good job, with fair pay and safe working conditions, to an adequate pension in older...

by UN Women | On 23 Oct 2015

Economic Growth and Social Reproduction: Gender Inequality as Cause and Consequence

This paper examines how growth, social reproduction and gender equality are connected in ways that make care work a key determinant of macroeconomic policy outcomes, growth and development. The paper...

by | On 21 Oct 2015

Social Work in the Making: The State and Social Work Development in China

The instrumental role of government in the development of social work in China has led to questions about its political function. So far, little has been reported on how the government has “made” soci...

by | On 20 Oct 2015

State Food Provisioning as Social Protection: Debating India’s National Food Security Law

This report provides an overview on the main issues debated during the development and passage of the India’s National Food Security Act (2013), which legally binds national and state governments to e...

by Harsh Mander | On 20 Oct 2015

The Gender Dimensions of Pension Systems: Policies and Constraints for the Protection of Older Women

This paper documents the pervasiveness of women’s lack of income security in old age across a large number of countries, but also points to a number of important policy measures that can be taken to a...

by | On 20 Oct 2015

Post Conflict Face of Poverty and Society: Understanding a Gandhian Initiative against Pauperization and Violence in Mushahari (Muzaffarpur, Bihar)

This is an analytical narrative about post-conflict dynamics of poverty in a block of villages in north Bihar known as ‘the Mushahari Project’. It is related with the socio-economic and political cons...

by Anand Kumar | On 20 Oct 2015

Depression among Adolescents as a Function of Social Support and Parental Bonding

Depression is an emotional and mental disorder that affects person’s activity, thoughts, sense of wellbeing and behavior. Its rise within adolescents has become a matter of concern and has put emphasi...

by | On 19 Oct 2015

Corporate Social Responsibility in India - An Effort to Bridge the Welfare Gap

This paper analyses the potential implications of mandated CSR under the recently enacted Companies Act, 2013 in India on firm incentives, likely responses of corporates that come under the ambit of t...

by Jayati Sarkar | On 19 Oct 2015

Impact of Migration on Poverty and Development

This paper reviews the literature on migration in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, East Africa and West Africa in order to highlight the complexity of migration patterns and impacts. It is...

by Tasneem Siddiqui | On 19 Oct 2015

The Battle for Bihar

While the politics of caste and personalities do seem to be relevant to the elections to the Legislative Assembly in the eastern Indian State of Bihar, with the multi-phase polls beginning on 12 Octob...

by | On 19 Oct 2015

Aspirations and the Role of Social Protection: Evidence from a Natural Disaster in Rural Pakistan

This article uses Pakistan’s 2010 floods to identify the effects of a natural disaster on citizens’ aspirations. Aspirations were significantly reduced—especially among the poorest and most vulnerab...

by Katrina Kosec | On 19 Oct 2015

Mr Modi and Mrs Gandhi

Narendra Modi is the first PM after Indira Gandhi with the power and possibly the intention to change the Indian system.

by T.N. Ninan | On 16 Oct 2015

Gender Equality Results Case Study: Sri Lanka - Improving Connectivity to Support Livelihoods and Gender Equality

This case study documents key gender equality issues as well as key achievements and lessons from a project carried out in post conflict Sri Lanka as part of urgently needed reconstruction. The Improv...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 16 Oct 2015

Social Protection for Children: Key Policy Trends and Statistics

This policy paper: (i) provides a global overview of the organization of child and family benefits in 183 countries; (ii) presents the negative impacts of fiscal consolidation and adjustment measures...

by | On 15 Oct 2015

Book Review: Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India

Review of Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 554 pp. Rs 940 (Hardcover) ISBN 978-1-107-05212...

by Gail Minault | On 14 Oct 2015

Bihar Economic Survey 2014 - 15

Bihar clocked an economic growth rate of 9.92 per cent during financial year 2013-14, while its per capita Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) shot up to Rs 17,294 during this period from Rs 15,931 in...

by Government of Bihar | On 13 Oct 2015

Inequality: Trends, Harms and New Agendas

The paper focuses on within-country inequalities. It discusses in particular how the consequences of inequality are shaped by specific mechanisms that operate at the national, community and individual...

by | On 13 Oct 2015

Policies for a Better-Fed World

A wide range of interventions, from subsidized grains all the way to conditions on nutrition in conditional cash transfers, have either been tried or put in place in different countries in order to fi...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 12 Oct 2015

Violence Against Women in Rural Bihar: A Case of Four Villages

This covers various kinds of violence in the private and public spheres faced by women in the four villages. It concludes with issues for further research and some policy suggestions.

by Shivani Satija | On 12 Oct 2015

Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007–2012) Social Sector

The Eleventh Plan places the highest priority on education as a central instrument for achieving rapid and inclusive growth. It presents a comprehensive strategy for strengthening the education secto...

by Planning Commission, India | On 09 Oct 2015

Urban Poverty in Asia

This paper on Urban Poverty in Asia looks at the different dimensions of poverty in Asia, both income and nonincome, its two main regions, including a brief account of who and what class of people are...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 09 Oct 2015

Achievements of BRAC Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme Towards Millennium Development Goals and Beyond

BRAC WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) programme aims to facilitate, in partnership with the government of Bangladesh and other stakeholders, the attainment of the targets of UN Millennium Developm...

by Nepal C Dey | On 09 Oct 2015

Migration and Social Networks: Evidence from Bangladesh

This paper explores the role of social networks in the migration process in Bangladesh. Migration can be costly and can also involve considerable risks around finding adequate housing and employment....

by | On 08 Oct 2015

The Interaction Between Social Protection and Agriculture - A Review of Evidence

This study explores the interaction between formal social protection and agriculture by proposing a theory of change and conducting an empirical review that identifies how social protection impacts ag...

by Nyasha Tirivayi | On 07 Oct 2015

The State of Food Insecurity in the World Meeting the 2015 International Hunger Targets: Taking Stock of Uneven Progress

This year’s annual State of Food Insecurity in the World report takes stock of progress made towards achieving the internationally established hunger targets and reflects on what needs to be done, as...

by Food and Agriculture Organization | On 07 Oct 2015

World Social Protection Report 2014-15: Building Economic Recovery, Inclusive Development and Social Justice

This ILO flagship report provides a global overview of the organization of social protection systems, their coverage and benefits, as well as public expenditures on social protection. The report follo...

by Internaional Labour Organization [ILO] | On 07 Oct 2015

India's Journey with Corporate Social Responsibility – What Next?

One of the causes for raised eyebrows to the Companies Act, 2013 is Section 135. The provision mandates companies meeting certain requirements to compulsorily contribute to corporate social responsibi...

by | On 06 Oct 2015

Public Good Provision in Indian Rural Areas: The Returns to Collective Action by Microfinance Groups

Self-help groups (SHGs) are the most common form of microfinance in India. The authors provide evidence that SHGs, composed of women only, undertake collective actions for the provision of public good...

by | On 01 Oct 2015

User Perceptions of Shared Sanitation among Rural Households in Indonesia and Bangladesh

The practice of sharing sanitation facilities does not meet the current World Health Organization/UNICEF definition for what is considered improved sanitation. Recommendations have been made to catego...

by | On 30 Sep 2015

Rural Poverty Reduction Strategy for South Asia

Roughly 40 percent of the world’s poor live in South Asia, where poverty is basically a rural problem. Therefore, a significant gain in rural poverty reduction in this sub-region will be crucial to re...

by | On 30 Sep 2015

Finances for Health in India: Are New Sources the Way to Go?

The Government of India has proposed the National Health Assurance Mission (NHAM) to move the country rapidly towards universal health coverage (UHC), by providing all citizens with specified drugs, d...

by Indrani Gupta | On 30 Sep 2015

Poverty and Social Protection in Urban India

This paper, highlights the need for provisioning adequate social protection coverage to the vulnerable sections of population in urban India, assesses the role of the TPDS in reaching out to the depri...

by R. Radhakrishna | On 28 Sep 2015

Social Capital’s Dark Side and Patriarchy in India

Social capital is often extolled as a benevolent resource, but resources can be applied to any number of ends. Using new data from the India Human Development Survey (N=41,544), the author examined so...

by Lester Andrist | On 28 Sep 2015

Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. It recognises that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions...

by United Nations UN | On 28 Sep 2015

The Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Millennium Development Goals: Nutrition

This brief highlights that Malnutrition in all of its forms – undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – imposes unacceptably high economic...

by Food and Nutrition Division FAO | On 25 Sep 2015

Planning and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility: Global Report on Human Settlements 2013

Planning and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility argues that the development of sustainable urban transport systems requires a conceptual leap. The purpose 'transportation' and 'mobility' is to gain...

by UN-HABITAT | On 25 Sep 2015

Working towards Sustainable Development: Opportunities for decent work and social inclusion in a green economy

A green economy is necessary if sustainable development is to be realized. However, as this report emphasizes, a green economy can also, if accompanied by the right policy mix, create more and better...

by | On 25 Sep 2015

Contesting Consensus. Disputing Inequality: Agonistic Subjectivities in Rural Bihar

This paper discusses the manner in which the rural poor in one of India’s most impoverished regions engage with and in politics by analyzing the way in which a landless Yadav couple tries to forestall...

by Indrajit Roy | On 24 Sep 2015

Nath Yogis’ Encounters with Islam

Far from modern ideologies focusing on fixed ascriptive religious identities, the Shaivite ascetic sect of the Nath Yogis had a long tradition of close relationships with Islam. This article will focu...

by Véronique Bouillier | On 24 Sep 2015

The ‘Land of the Vaish’? Caste Structure and Ideology in Mauritius

Mauritius has been an independent nation since 1968. It was founded on the history and structures of a plantation society and is mainly inhabited by descendants of Indian (and Hindu) indentured labour...

by Mathieu Claveyrolas | On 24 Sep 2015

Disadvantage and Discrimination in Self-Employment: Caste Gaps in Earnings in Indian Small Businesses

Using the 2004-05 India Human Development Survey data, The paper aims to estimate and decompose the earnings of household businesses owned by historically marginalized social groups known as Scheduled...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 24 Sep 2015

The Social Dimensions of Free Trade Agreements

The report provides a comprehensive review of all existing trade agreements that include social provisions and discusses impacts for enterprises and workers.It also helps assess the challenges for ari...

by International Labour Organiztion [ILO] | On 23 Sep 2015

What is Preventing Women from Inheriting Land? A Study of the Implementation of the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005 in Three States in India

The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005, an inheritance law that covers 83.6% of the population of India, corrected some of fundamental inequalities in the law bringing the women in equal status to...

by Sohini Pal | On 23 Sep 2015

The Challenge of Slums - Global Report on Human Settlements 2003

The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessment of slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. It presents estimates of the numbers of urban slum dwellers and examines the factors tha...

by United Nations Human Settlements Programme UN-Habitat | On 23 Sep 2015

Human Rights for All: International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

This Handbook is mainly for human rights practitioners who want to familiarise themselves with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and use the human rights fram...

by | On 23 Sep 2015

Towards Universal Access to Health Care in India

In this concept note authors aim to put forth a broad canvas of the various issues that need to be considered and positions that need to be formulated, in order to argue that it is possible to make Un...

by Dr. Abhay Shukla | On 23 Sep 2015

India’s Worlds of Waste

The sheer magnitude of the social, political and technological challenges in implementing India’s new national priority of waste management, set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has attracted global a...

by | On 23 Sep 2015

Does Democracy promote Social Capital? Evidence from Bhutan

Bhutan is one of the youngest democratic countries in the world. The constitution of Bhutan was formally signed on July 18, 2008 by the fifth King of Bhutan, elected members of Parliament, and the Chi...

by | On 21 Sep 2015

Designing and Evaluating Social Safety Nets: Theory, Evidence, and Policy Conclusions

This paper reviews the literature on the performance of commonly found social safety net programs in developing countries. The evidence suggests that universal food subsidies have very limited potenti...

by | On 18 Sep 2015

Reducing all Forms of Child Poverty: The Need for Comprehensive Measurement

Despite widespread investments in child poverty reduction, the way in which child poverty is measured presents a narrow and partial picture. Current practice is still biased towards measuring static a...

by | On 17 Sep 2015

The Elephant in the Dark: Finding Ways to End India’s Hunger and Malnutrition

This paper tries to map some of the major debates exploring the 'elephant‘ of India‘s failure to end hunger and malnutrition. The authors identify five main hurdles towards addressing the issue of hun...

by | On 17 Sep 2015

Agricultural Diversification and Poverty in India

As stress on Indian agriculture increases because of several reasons, such as continuous fragmentation of landholdings and climate change, there is a serious threat to livelihood based on farming. Thi...

by Digvijay S. Negi | On 17 Sep 2015

Social Protection, Growth and Employment: Evidence from India, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico and Tajikistan

The paper addresses the issue of growth and development by looking at evidence from six country case studies to assess how to enhance the employment impact of social protection programmes by improving...

by United Nations Development Programme UNDP | On 16 Sep 2015

Comparative Notes on Indian Experiences of Social Democracy: Kerala and West Bengal

This paper compares, in historical perspective, the conditions for democracy, economic development and well-being in India and Scandinavia. Within India, it compares the states of Kerala and West Beng...

by | On 16 Sep 2015

Book Review: Climate Insurgency: A Strategy for Survival

Review of Climate Insurgency: A Strategy for Survival by Jeremy Brecher. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2015. 170 pp. Rs. 8.925/- Hardcover, IISBN-13: 978-1612058207.

by Peter St. Clair | On 15 Sep 2015

Are the World’s Poorest Being Left Behind? Reconciling Conflicting Views on Poverty and Growth

Traditional assessments of progress against poverty put no explicit weight on increasing the standard of living of the poorest—raising the consumption floor. Yet this is often emphasized by policy mak...

by Martin Ravallion | On 14 Sep 2015

Health Shocks and Short-Term Consumption Growth

Health shocks can affect the household economy through a substantial rise in out-of-pocket medical expenditure and/or loss of income. In such a situation, households use a range of coping mechanisms t...

by Sowmya Dhanaraj | On 14 Sep 2015

The Dismal State of the Social Sciences in Pakistan

The report measures the development of social sciences against several criteria, some of which are listed here: the number of Pakistani social scientists who have made internationally recognised contr...

by S. Akbar Zaidi | On 11 Sep 2015

Debt-Bondage Slavery in India

There have been numerous investigations in recent years to determine the incidence and prevalence of modern slavery worldwide, and debt bondage in India has been found to be the most extensive form of...

by Sarah Knight | On 10 Sep 2015

Dalit Women and Social Exclusion in Nepal: A Concern for Social Justice

Nepali society is highly stratified with many glaring inequalities among different socioeconomic groups. The worst positioned among them are Dalits. The caste system segregates Dalits from the rest to...

by | On 10 Sep 2015

Deep Shift Technology Tipping Points and Societal Impact

Digital connectivity enabled by the software technologies is changing the society fundamentally. The scale of the impact and the speed of the changes taking place have made the shift so different from...

by | On 10 Sep 2015

The Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2015

The World Economic Forum releases the first edition of "The Inclusive Growth and Development Report" in the WEF forum in Dalian. Around the world, no bigger policy challenge preoccupies political lea...

by | On 10 Sep 2015

Organising Rural Labour Process and Experiences, Vol. 2

Problems and challenges faced by the rural labour in India are many both in terms of their magnitude and impact on the rural economy in general and rural labourers in particular. The magnitude and the...

by | On 09 Sep 2015

Organising Rural Labour: Process and Experiences, Vol. 1

Problems and challenges faced by the rural labour in India are many both in terms of their magnitude and impact on the rural economy in general and rural labourers in particular. The magnitude and the...

by | On 09 Sep 2015

Universalising Health Care for All

This booklet presents a brief analysis of certain key sectors and themes related to the Health system in India on creating an integrated and comprehensive public health system that prioritizes people’...

by Jan Swasthya Abhiyan | On 09 Sep 2015

Social Security for International Labour Migrants: Issues and Policy Options

Cross-border population movement, an indispensible feature of the current phase of globalisation, has led to significant changes in the migration landscape. Factors like temporisation of labour flows,...

by | On 09 Sep 2015

Socio-Demographic Factors Associated with Domestic Violence in Urban Slums, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Domestic violence is identified as a public health problem. It is associated with adverse maternal health. This study examined the prevalence and determinants of domestic violence among women in urban...

by C.P. Prakasam | On 09 Sep 2015

The School Feeding Programme in India

This paper provides a descriptive summary of India’s experience with school feeding programmes (SFPs), focussing mainly on the period since 1995, the year that saw the launch of a national initiative...

by M S Swaminathan Research Foundation India | On 08 Sep 2015

How the Humanities Can Protect India Against the Attacks on Its Freedoms

Humanities departments in public universities are under attack across the country for their potential to spawn dissent. We need them to take the fight to the powers that be. [Transcript of a talk pres...

by Brinda Bose | On 07 Sep 2015

Implementation of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 - Case Study of India

This paper takes a look at the efforts made by the Government of India since the enactment of the Act to improve the relevance of minimum wages, its impact in bringing the workers out of the poverty l...

by | On 07 Sep 2015

Civil Society Briefs: Sri Lanka

This brief provides an overview of civil society in Sri Lanka. With a view to strengthening ADB cooperation with civil society organizations, the NGO and Civil Society Center periodically prepares rep...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 07 Sep 2015

Gender Gaps and Women’s Empowerment in India – Issues and Strategies

- Gender equality is considered a critical element in achieving social and institutional change that leads to sustainable development with equity and growth. Inequalities between men and women manifes...

by | On 07 Sep 2015

Civil Society Briefs: Myanmar

This brief provides an overview of civil society in Myanmar. With a view to strengthening ADB cooperation with civil society organizations, the NGO and Civil Society Center periodically prepares repor...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 07 Sep 2015

Needs vs Expediency - Poverty Reduction and Social Development in Post-Conflict Countries

Conflict depletes all forms of human and social capital, as well as supporting institutions. The scale of the human damage can overwhelm public action, as there are many competing priorities and resou...

by Tony Addison | On 01 Sep 2015

Addressing Urban Poverty: Relevance of Conditional Cash Transfers

This paper from a two-day conference in New Delhi explores the relevance of CCTs in addressing entrenched issues of urban poverty even as across Asia there remain few social protection measures that p...

by United Nations Development Programme UNDP | On 31 Aug 2015

Poverty Eradication in India by 2015

This paper highlights a strategic framework to eradicate rural poverty by 2015 with the rural household as the central unit. It is based on the premise that the livelihoods of rural households depend...

by Ministry of Rural Development Government of India | On 31 Aug 2015

Ghar Wapsi for Logic

If there is one thing the Census 2011 shows, it's that India will remain overwhelmingly Hindu forever

by T.N. Ninan | On 29 Aug 2015

The Experience with Regional Economic Cooperation Organizations: Lessons for Central Asia

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asia has witnessed repeated efforts to strengthen regional integration through cooperation with the establishment of a number of regional organizations...

by Johannes F. Linn | On 25 Aug 2015

On Reckoning Level Differentials in the Measurement of Progress: An Illustration in the Context of Deliveries Assisted by Skilled Health Personnel

The paper highlights that performance assessments should account for non-linear dynamics of progress, whereby an improvement at a higher level represents greater achievement than an equal improvement...

by William Joe | On 21 Aug 2015

Case Studies of Policy Coherence Initiatives in Developing Asia

This paper highlights four case studies of national efforts in developing Asia towards greater policy coherence and coordination, ranging from institutional cooperation in poverty reduction programmes...

by Internaional Labour Organization [ILO] | On 19 Aug 2015

Social and Cultural Development in the Development Triangle (CLV) and the Role of ASEAN in This Area

In a period not longer than 10 years (2002 – to present), 13 provinces at the common border of Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam (CLV Development Triangle) have cooperated for common development and achieved a lo...

by Hoang Thi My Nhi | On 19 Aug 2015

Reduction of GHG Emissions and Attainment of Energy Security through Sustainable Production of Biofuels: Is it a Viable Option? A Review of Experinces

The National Policy on Biofuels sets an indicative target of 20per cent blending of biofuels by 2017 to tackle the twin problem of energy security and climate change. Although biofuels seem to be the...

by Gopinath Reddy | On 13 Aug 2015

The Hidden Costs of the 2014 Gaza – Israeli Conflicts – Adolescent Girls’ Psycho- Social Wellbeing

The research focuses and is part of a broader project supported by the ReBUILD Consortium, which is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), to look at the linkages between me...

by | On 12 Aug 2015

Urban India 2011: Evidence

India’s urban transition has the potential to shift the country’s social, environmental, political and economic trajectory. Urbanisation will interact with the country’s ongoing demographic evolution...

by Indian Institute for Human Settlements | On 12 Aug 2015

Urban Policies and the Right to the City in India: Rights, Responsibilities and Citizenship

This publication highlights the relevance in India and the multiplicity of entry points of the right to the city as a vehicle for social inclusion and sustainable social development for Indian cities....

by Centre de Sciences Humaines CSH | On 12 Aug 2015

Social Enterprises and Employment: Mainstreaming SMEs and Employment Creation

This paper argues that mainstreaming SMEs and SE into various international treaties will require the assumption of positive externalities which markets cannot fully evaluate. To show this, the possib...

by Leonardo Lanzona | On 12 Aug 2015

The Politics of Sustaining Inclusive Growth and Social Inclusion

This working paper records the findings of the project and discusses the key principles that underpin the Danish and Finnish welfare states. The paper reflects on the critical issues that must be cons...

by Valerie Koh | On 11 Aug 2015

Results from the Perception and Attitudes Towards Ageing and Seniors Survey ( 2013/2014)

In this paper the results are documented which derived from the Perception and Attitudes towards Ageing and seniors (PATAS) survey completed in early 2014. These results delve into respondents beliefs...

by Mathew Mathews | On 11 Aug 2015

In Search of Economic Alternatives for Gender and Social Justice: Voices from India

How can we shape an alternative economic and gender just development? This document from Heinrich Böll Foundationand WIDE is a collection of Indian voices in the form of short essays on economic alter...

by | On 11 Aug 2015

Gender Equality and Social Dialogue in India

This paper forms part of a comparative research project that has the objective of demonstrating that gender equality and social dialogue are mutually beneficial fundamental values and crosscutting iss...

by R Madhav | On 11 Aug 2015

Initiatives and Achievements of the Department of Commerce, 2014 - 15

IMF in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) released in April 2015 has projected global growth for 2015 and 2016 to be at 3.5% and 3.8% respectively, a 0.1% increase for 2016 projection from the January 2...

by Ministry of Commerce and Industry Government of India | On 10 Aug 2015

The Socially Responsible Company as a Strategic Second-Order Observer: An Indian Case

The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a global component of business-society relationships has triggered many controversial debates in which CSR is either advocated as a source of...

by Damien Krichewsky | On 07 Aug 2015

Myanmar: Unlocking the Potential - A Strategy for High, Sustained, and Inclusive Growth

Recognizing the need to formulate policy strategies for the changes it faces, Myanmar started a multifaceted reform process in 2011. But speeding up development requires a multipronged but more cohere...

by | On 04 Aug 2015

Social Sector and Economic Reforms (With Special Reference to Public Health)

Social Sector performs an effective function in human resource development and hence it is very important to study how the economic reforms are influencing social sector expenditures. Any economic re...

by Runa Paul | On 03 Aug 2015

The Role of Technical and Vocational Education in the National Development of Bangladesh

Education is a basic human right and considered by many as a key tool for national development. However, this tenet has been challenged by several economists, especially Pritchett (1996). His empirica...

by Gazi Mahabubul Alam | On 03 Aug 2015

Book Review: Starve and Immolate: The Politics of Human Weapons

Review of Starve and Immolate: The Politics of Human Weapons. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. 512 pp. Rs. 3.775/- (Hardcover), ISBN 978-0-231-16340-8.

by Mark Bray | On 31 Jul 2015

Book Review: Indian Buddhist Philosophy

Review of Indian Buddhist Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2014. 256 pp. Rs. 1535/- (paper), ISBN 978-1-84465-298-3.

by Laura Guerrero | On 30 Jul 2015

Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Ordinance 2014: A Process Perspective

This paper captures the policy processes leading to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Ordinance, 2014. It maps the role an...

by G. Raghuram | On 28 Jul 2015

Freedom to Marry: The Constitutional Choice and KHAP Panchayats

This paper talks about the right to marry as an essential freedom of all human beings as it relates to their right to self-expression and their right to associate with a person of their choice. The au...

by | On 27 Jul 2015

The Defensive Crouch

China and India have approached trade negotiations very differently: the former with confidence, the latter in a defensive crouch.

by T.N. Ninan | On 25 Jul 2015

Clinical Trials Industry in India: A Systematic Review

This study shows that many global clinical trials organisations have relocated their clinical trial (CT) research units to India. The Indian CT industry has become one of the most cost-efficient desti...

by Dinesh Abrol | On 23 Jul 2015

The State of Social Safety Nets, 2015

This report documents the state of the social safety net agenda in low- and middle-income countries. In recent years, a true policy revolution has been under way. Th e statistics in this report captur...

by World Bank | On 20 Jul 2015

World Social Protection Report 2014/15

Social protection policies play a critical role in realizing the human right to social security for all, reducing poverty and inequality, and supporting inclusive growth – by boosting human capital an...

by International Labour Organisation ILO | On 17 Jul 2015

Inflation Targeting in India: Select Issues

The adoption of inflation targeting in India has been a much debated topic which also becomes a challenge for the emerging economy. Though inflation targeting has already been adopted in many emerging...

by Charan Singh | On 17 Jul 2015

Household Recombination, Retrospective Evaluation, and the Effects of a Health and Family Planning Intervention

Analysis of the long term effects of social and public health programs using household survey data requires an understanding of patterns of household recombination–that is the processes by which house...

by Andrew Foster | On 16 Jul 2015

The Role of Gender in Scholarly Authorship

Gender disparities appear to be decreasing in academia according to a number of metrics, such as grant funding, hiring, acceptance at scholarly journals, and productivity, and it might be tempting to...

by Jevin D. West | On 15 Jul 2015

Key Indicators of Social Consumption in India Health

The surveys on social consumption relating to health, conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), are primary source of basic quantitative information on the health sector like morbidity, h...

by Ministry of Statistics and Prog Implementation (MOSPI) | On 14 Jul 2015

Safeguard Implementation: How Can We Make It More Meaningful?

The report presents the (i) safeguard systems of Bhutan, India and Nepal; (ii) differences in national safeguard laws and institutional processes with the Asian Development Bank’s safeguards policy; (...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 13 Jul 2015

Public Service Spending: Efficiency and Distributional Impact—Lessons from Asia

Efficiency and equity are cornerstones in rational service delivery in the public sector. This paper benchmarks efficiency and equity in public spending on health, education and social protection in a...

by | On 10 Jul 2015

Engaging Civil Society to Promote Democratic Local Governance: Emerging Trends and Policy Implications in Asia

This paper discusses a wide range of issues in engaging civil society to deepen and sustain decentralization and local democracy. It examines the concepts of democratic local governance and decentrali...

by | On 07 Jul 2015

Waste Pickers in Pune, India

Recent statistics show the majority of workers in developing countries earn their livelihoods in the informal sector. For this paper, a sample of 150 was randomly drawn from the membership database of...

by Poornima Chikarmane | On 06 Jul 2015

Sex-ratio Imbalance in Asia: Trends, Consequences and Policy Responses

This paper offers a regional overview of the mechanisms and consequences of the growing gender imbalances, as observed today in Asia. The extent and timings of the trend towards more masculine populat...

by Christophe Z. Guilmoto | On 02 Jul 2015

Economic Development and Welfare: Some Measurement Issues

The concept of economic development has undergone a major change over the past few decades. The authors explain the conceptual and methodological framework based on which one may be able to assess so...

by Dipankor Coondoo | On 02 Jul 2015

Mainstreaming SMEs through Social Enterprises

Social enterprises (SEs) are crucial both for the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and labor generation. The goal of SEs is to provide public goods to communities. In the Philippines...

by | On 29 Jun 2015

Fifteenth Report on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014

The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 was enacted to give effect to the Proclamation on the Full Participation and Equality of the...

by Lok Sabha Secretariat | On 22 Jun 2015

The Rohingya and Islamic Extremism: A Convenient Myth

This policy brief questions the credibility of the narrative that the Rohingya pose an extremist Islamic threat, arguing that attention should instead be focused on resolving the plight of the Rohingy...

by Elliot Brennan | On 22 Jun 2015

Buddha's Rationality

In discussions on rationalism and scientific spirit in current literature, the contributions of Buddha’s thought are, largely, ignored. And yet, Buddha’s emphasis on empirical verification; his attit...

by N S Siddharthan | On 21 Jun 2015

Inflation Targeting India: Select Issues

The adoption of inflation targeting in India has been a much debated topic which also becomes a challenge for the emerging economy. Though inflation targeting has already been adopted in many emerging...

by Charan Singh | On 18 Jun 2015

Health Policy Kerala 2013

Kerala has achieved good health indictors compared to other Indian states. In order to navigate the sector through the multiple challenges faced in the health sector Government of Kerala needs to arti...

by Health & Family Welfare Department Kerala | On 17 Jun 2015

Culture’s Influence: Regionally Differing Social Milieus and Variations in Fertility Rates

This paper analyzes two social milieus in southern Germany and argues that variations in their fertility rates can only be understood through their cultural differences. Family extension patterns as w...

by | On 17 Jun 2015

Monetary Policy and Informal Finance

This article utilises state-level data for 1961–2012 to examine the interlinkage between informal finance and monetary policy. The analysis suggests that in response to a monetary contraction, borrowi...

by Saibal Ghosh | On 15 Jun 2015

Policy Note 2014–2015 on Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme Department of Tamil Nadu Government

The Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu has always ensured the welfare of the underprivileged sections of the society like destitute women, orphaned...

by Tamil Nadu Government | On 11 Jun 2015

Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 1390 Citizens Budget

The Government’s main budgetary objective is to allocate fiscal resources in line with Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS). In this way, it will be assured that resources are allocated to...

by Ministry of Finance Afghanistan | On 11 Jun 2015

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015: Meeting the 2015 International Hunger Targets Taking Stock of Uneven Progress.

This report discusses the need to eradicate hunger and achieve food security across all its dimensions. The report also identifies key factors that have determined success to date in reaching the MDG ...

by Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN UN | On 10 Jun 2015

When the Kerala Model of Development is Historicised: A Chronological Perspective

It is proposed in this study that the development experience in Kerala has resulted ultimately in weakening the material basis of public action. On limited evidence it is pointed out that the poor in...

by P.K.Michael Tharakan | On 10 Jun 2015

Scaling the Heights: Social Inclusion and Sustainable Development in Himachal Pradesh

This report peels through to many of the underlying drivers of Himachal Pradesh’s social inclusion. The paper tells us that commitment of the state and progressive policies are important, and that the...

by | On 08 Jun 2015

Gender Mainstreaming in Mining: Experiences across Countries

Mining not only has a negative impact on livelihoods, communities, and the socioeconomic and physical environment; it specifically and profoundly affects women. This paper uses the gender analysis fra...

by Prajna Mishra | On 08 Jun 2015

"Prof, no one is reading you"

An average academic journal article is read in its entirety by about 10 people. To shape policy, professors should start penning commentaries in popular media.The absence of professors from shaping pu...

by | On 08 Jun 2015

Gender Wage Gap in the Last Ten Years: A Case Study of India

This paper examines changes in the gender wage gap in India between the years 1999-2000 and 2009-2010, and analyses its determinants. Results of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition reveal that in the las...

by Nayni Gupta | On 05 Jun 2015

Youth, Social Change and Politics in India Today: An Introduction to the Delhi Studies

Events in many parts of the world over the last decade – starting with protests in Greece in December 2008, following the death of a young student at the hands of the police, and continuing through th...

by | On 05 Jun 2015

Flawed Urban Development Policies in Pakistan

History and civilisation move in cities. All major scientific, social, political, economic and technological innovations have happened in human agglomerations known as cities. Great civilisations and...

by | On 04 Jun 2015

“They Say We’re Dirty” Denying an Education to India’s Marginalized

In 2009, India enacted the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, which provides for free and compulsory education to all children aged 6 to 14 based on principles of equity and non-d...

by Human Rights Watch | On 02 Jun 2015

Report of the Sixty-Eighth World Health Assembly on Contributing to Social and Economic Development: Sustainable Action across sectors to Improved Health and Health Equity (follow-up of the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion)

The framework provides guidance to Member States on taking country-level action across sectors for improving health and health equity. Such action includes the support of the health sector to other se...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 02 Jun 2015

Report of the Working Group on Child Rights for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17)

The core concerns highlighted in this report of working group on child rights includes ensuring the right of all children to life, survival (especially in the context of gender-based sex selection) an...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 27 May 2015

Women’s Social Security and Protection in India

This report points out the existence of a number of Government-sponsored schemes for promoting the social welfare of women and for achieving other goals such as poverty amelioration, reduction in maln...

by | On 25 May 2015

Report of the Working Group on Social Security for Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17)

The Working Group, in its meeting held to discuss the terms of reference to review the existing social security measures for organized workers. It is a basic human right, and its fulfillment will con...

by Ministry of Labour and Employment MoL&E | On 22 May 2015

The Data Revolution: Finding the Missing Millions

This report sets out the evidence that, even when people are counted, the counting is frequently not good enough. What is assumed to be an empirical fact – a statistic – is too often the result...

by | On 21 May 2015

India Development Update : Towards a Higher Growth Path

The India Development Update for April 2015 has two main aims. First, it reports on the key developments over the past six months in India's economy, and places these in a longer term and global conte...

by World Trade Organisation | On 18 May 2015

Born Equal - how Reducing Inequality Could Give Our Children a Better Future

This report looks at how, despite major strides made towards poverty reduction and towards achieving the MDGs, increasing inequality in many countries in the last two decades has hampered greater prog...

by | On 14 May 2015

Punjab Youth Policy 2012

The policy covers all key issues of youth and has provided a framework that promises social, economic and political empowerment of youth. The central theme of the policy is integrated youth developmen...

by | On 12 May 2015

YOJANA Volume 58, Issue 1- January 2014

The January 2014 issue of YOJANA contains the following articles - Tribal and Marginalized Communities, Constitutional Provisions, Laws and Tribes, Actualising Adivasi Self-Rule, The Food Bill, Wild F...

by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting MIB | On 11 May 2015

Fifteenth Report of the Social Justice and Empowerment Committee on “The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014

The Committee are of the view that the disabled group in our country still remains an invisible group in the mind of policy makers. A vast number of the disabled are excluded from the existing servic...

by Lok Sabha Secretariat | On 11 May 2015

MGNREGA: Opportunities, Challenges and the Road Ahead

The Second Report of the Consortium of Civil Society Organizations on MGNREGA emphasis on market reforms and GDP through government schemes like MGNREGA. The paper also focuses on states within India...

by National Consortium on MGNREGA GoI | On 08 May 2015

Socio-economic Impact of Implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005 which is a rights-based flagship scheme of the Government of India with effect from 2 February, 2006, guarantees at least 100...

by | On 06 May 2015

Twenty-sixth Report on Review of Representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Senior Positions of Government of India

This Report of the Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes deals with the action taken by the Government on the recommendations contained in their Twenty-sixth Report (Fifte...

by Lok Sabha Secretariat | On 05 May 2015

Report of the Committee for Evolving a Composite Development Index of States

This report however, also takes a step forward in trying to draw a balance between “needs” and “performance”. Given that poor administration or weak institutions in a recipient state can fritter away...

by Ministry of Finance | On 23 Apr 2015

Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–2017): Social Sectors

This Five Year Plan document focuses on Social Sectors like Health, Education, Employment and Skill Development, Women’s Agency and Child Rights, Social Inclusion.

by Planning Commission | On 23 Apr 2015

ASEAN Community 2015: Managing Integration for Better Jobs and Shared Prosperity

This joint study of the Asian Development Bank and the International Labour Organization examines the impact of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) on labor. It highlights the challenges and opportunit...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 22 Apr 2015

Their lives on the line: Women rights defenders under attack in Afghanistan

Based on interviews with more than 50 rights defenders and their families, the 71-page document titled, "Their lives on the line: Women rights defenders under attack in Afghanistan," illustrates the r...

by Amnesty International AI, | On 14 Apr 2015

The State of Food Insecurity in the World Economic Growth is Necessary but not Sufcient to Accelerate Reduction of Hunger and Malnutrition

This report provides evidence that poor, hungry and malnourished people use some of their additional income either to produce or purchase more food, aiming to increase their dietary energy intake and...

by Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN UN | On 09 Apr 2015

How Power Can Be Cleaned

Coal is an environmentalist’s bugbear. The use of coal to generate energy is the key reason the world is looking at a catastrophic future because of climate change. Recognising this, global civil soci...

by Sunita Narain | On 08 Apr 2015

Are Current Tax and Spending Regimes Sustainable in Developing Asia?

This study projects government spending on education, health care, and social protection in developing Asia up to 2050 as a result of demographic changes and economic growth.

by Sang-Hyop Lee | On 06 Apr 2015

Prospects of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

AIIB is expected to accelerate economic development and integration of Asia through the promotion of investment in the infrastructure sector. AIIB have several priority areas include transport, energy...

by Makmun Syadullah | On 03 Apr 2015

War and the Lightness of Being Adivasi: Security Camps and Villages in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh

Since June-July 2014, reports have been filtering in regarding the intensification of Operation Green Hunt in the forest villages of Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh. Civil rights organizations have b...

by PUDR Peoples Union for Democratic Rights | On 31 Mar 2015

Water for a Sustainable World

The 2015 World Water Development Report sets both an aspirational and a realistic vision for the future of water towards 2050. This report comes at a critical moment, when freshwater resources face ri...

by UNESCO UNESCO | On 27 Mar 2015

Walk the talk on carbon tax, Mr Finance Minister

Budget 2015, presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, has a first. In it, India has accepted that it has a de-facto carbon tax—on petroleum products and dirty coal. Arguably, the only big green ini...

by Sunita Narain | On 25 Mar 2015

Budget (2015-16) Speech of Haryana Finance Minister

Budget speech of Haryana Finance Minister

by Capt. Abhimanyu | On 24 Mar 2015

Impact of India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement: A Cross-Country Analysis using Applied General Equilibrium Modelling

The study attempted to analyse the long-term effects of the FTA on India. It is argued that after full trade liberalization, India’s allocative efficiency will increase, but the terms of trade effect...

by | On 23 Mar 2015

Promoting Innovation in MSMEs through Public-Private Partnership

There is a growing realization that a strong and vibrant MSME sector characterized by high growth and continual innovation of products and processes can provide a strong foundation to economic and soc...

by Wadhwani Foundation | On 23 Mar 2015

Making Democracy Work: Culture, Social Capital and Elections in China

This paper aims to show that culture is an important determinant of the effectiveness of formal democratic institutions, such as elections. It is found that social capital complements democratic insti...

by Gerard Padro -i-Miquel | On 23 Mar 2015

Migrant Workers’ Right to Social Protection in ASEAN: Case Study of Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand

The report concludes with key recommendations to address the situation where there is currently a concerning lack of social protection for migrants within the ASEAN region from which MFA, FES, Parliam...

by | On 20 Mar 2015

Progress Towards the WSIS Targets in ESCAP and Regional Perspectives on Measuring ICT Development Objectives

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of regional progress in implementing the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Survey data collected in 2013 from ESCAP co...

by United Nations Economic and Social Commission (UNESCAP) | On 19 Mar 2015

World Social Science Report 2013 - Changing Global Environments

The World Social Science Report captures a world undergoing deep change, rocked by multiple crises, including in the environment. This World Social Science Report examines the social dynamics of the...

by UNESCO Publishing | On 18 Mar 2015

An Act to Amend the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

This Act may be cited as the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution to be it enacted by the Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

by | On 17 Mar 2015

Women in Indian Labour Market - Emerging Options

Expanding women’s access to the labour market and enhancing their employability, apart from all its other impact, contributes to the GDP substantially. It is important to generate creative partnership...

by G.D Bino Paul | On 10 Mar 2015

Of Bold Strokes and Fine Prints - An Analysis of Union Budget 2015-16

This publication highlights a range of pertinent issues primarily focusing on social sectors (such as education, health, drinking water and sanitation, food security etc.) and the responsiveness of th...

by Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability | On 02 Mar 2015

Straw in the Wind

What does the decision to save groundwater in Punjab or Haryana have to do with air pollution in Delhi? Plenty. We need to know this because many actions have unintended and deadly consequences.

by Sunita Narain | On 26 Feb 2015

Time for New Environmentalism

2014 has brought India’s environmental movement to a crossroad. On the one hand, there is a greater acceptance of our concerns, but on the other hand, there is also growing resistance against the requ...

by Sunita Narain | On 26 Feb 2015

Inclusive Water Governance: a Global Necessity. Lessons from India

Efficient water management has emerged as a critical challenge of environmental protection and human security in the twenty-first century. Lack of water management affects the hydrological cycle of th...

by | On 24 Feb 2015

Cracks in Budgetary Policies towards the Social Sectors

The union budget for 2014-15 offers few changes in terms of policy priorities from the United Progressive Alliance government interim budget for 2014-15, and it fails to recognise the cracks in the co...

by Subrat Das | On 20 Feb 2015

Social Exclusion in the Context of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Access to water and sanitation are strongly influenced by identities of caste, class and gender. The launch of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan presents an opportunity to address some concerns pertaining to...

by Kanika Kaul | On 19 Feb 2015

Microfinance for Decent Work – Enhancing the Impact of Microfinance: Evidence from an Action Research Programme

In many emerging markets, Micro FinanceInstitutions have significant outreach, providing financial services to thousands, if not millions of small and micro enterprises. Since their primary relationsh...

by International Labour Organisation ILO | On 18 Feb 2015

Medico Friend Circle Bulletin 363-364 (Jan/Feb 2015)

This special issue on mental health was put together for the Annual Meet of the Medico Friend Circle at Pune. Contents - Power to Label: the Social Construction of Madness by Prateeksha Sharma (1); T...

by Medico Friend Circle | On 18 Feb 2015

Public Private Sector Partnerships in an Agricultural System of Innovation: Concepts and Challenges

The purpose of this paper is to explore current practice, speculate on future patterns of PPP and discuss how partnership can be leveraged in the development process. The paper seeks to view PPP exper...

by Andy Hall | On 16 Feb 2015

Caste, Corruption and Political Competition in India

Voters in India are often perceived as being biased in favor of parties that claim to represent their caste. The caste bias is incorporated into voter preferences and examine its in influence on the...

by Avidit Acharya | On 12 Feb 2015

Sri Lankan Presidential Election at a Glance

This brief is review of an electoral analysis of Sri lanka Presidential Elections. Paper discusses the various measures of failure on the part of the Rajapaksa government and strategies for new govern...

by Saman Kelegama | On 09 Feb 2015

India Infrastructure Report 2013|14

A key measure of the social and economic development of a country is the health of its population. This year, in the India Infrastructure Report (IIR) series, it discusses some of the issues and chall...

by | On 05 Feb 2015

The Effect of Women’s Decision-Making Power on Reproductive Health Services Uptake - Evidence from Pakistan

A large body of research has attempted to explore the links between women's autonomy and their uptake of reproductive health services in the South Asia region, but the evidence so far is inconclusive...

by Xiaohui Hou | On 04 Feb 2015

Real Pride of Ancient Indian Science

Do we really have the time to waste on controversies like what ancient India did or did not achieve by way of scientific discoveries? This is when there is the huge unfinished agenda to use the best o...

by Sunita Narain | On 03 Feb 2015

Redistributive Policies for Sustainable Development: Looking at the Role of Assets and Equity

The paper distinguishes between the stock of income generating assets such as human capital and wealth and deriving income flows in order to clarify the differences between growth-equity trade off deb...

by Pierre Kohler | On 28 Jan 2015

India’s Climate Strategy Needs Revision

Developing countries do not come with a clear plan or proactive position to climate change negotiations, whereas industrialised nations do - to erase their contribution to the emissions already presen...

by Sunita Narain | On 22 Jan 2015

So That We Can Breathe Easy

The easiest way to clear air pollution is to not know how bad it is. This is what India practices—in most parts of the country. There is virtually no equipment to monitor the air we breathe and no sys...

by Sunita Narain | On 22 Jan 2015

World Employment and Social Outlook - Trends 2015

Formerly entitled Global Employment Trends, the World Employment and Social Outlook – Trends 2015 includes a forecast of global unemployment levels and explains the factors behind this trend, includin...

by International Labour Organisation ILO | On 22 Jan 2015

Annual Day Lecture of the Delhi School of Economics, India

The lecture focuses on the continuing relevance of the founding principles of the School, viz., academic freedom, academic excellence, social commitment with technical competence.

by C.H. Hanumantha Rao | On 21 Jan 2015

Women in Afghanistan: A Historical Study

Afghanistan is a landlocked country with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, China, Iran and Pakistan as its neighbours. It is a small country in the benign protection of the Hindu Kush and the great Himalayas...

by | On 19 Jan 2015

Militancy and Identity Politics in Assam

With the state getting tougher and the public turning against them, the militants in Assam are clearly on the defensive today. Militancy in Assam is not a mere law and order problem but a reflection o...

by | On 29 Dec 2014

Recommendations for High Level Committee on Status of Tribal in India

Keeping the present status of the tribal community and government commitment to improve their socio-economic status there have been various policy, programmatic and legislative interventions from time...

by Natural Resource Knowldge Activist Hub | On 29 Dec 2014

‘Coin of Blood’: Savarkar’s 'The Indian War of Independence – 1857'

Savarkar’s chief claim from the outset is that the Revolution was the manifestation of deep underlying principles. Indeed this sense of the underlying principles can alone justify such massive loss of...

by Nikhil Govind | On 27 Dec 2014

Framing Savarkar: Reading the Author’s Introduction and the Publishers’ Notes to Savarkar’s 'Indian War of Independence -1857'

Savarkar was not only a revolutionary, but also one who could reflect on the revolutionary life. The earlier generation of 1857 perhaps lacked the ability or at the very least, the opportunity to refl...

by Nikhil Govind | On 26 Dec 2014

The Emergence of a New Generation: The Generational Experience and Characteristics of Young North Koreans

Through the course of economic hardships and spontaneous marketization, the social consciousness and mindset of the North Korean people have changed. In turn, this has become a major factor to the...

by | On 24 Dec 2014

Social Safety Net—Emergency Assistance for Food Security in Bangladesh

In 2007, Bangladesh was adversely affected by severe flooding and a devastating cyclone which triggered a 1.2 million-ton shortfall in the country’s rice production. This situation resu...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 23 Dec 2014

Support to Rural Pension Reform and Administration in the People’s Republic of China

The lack of social protection for the elderly in rural areas of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has, since the 1990s, been seen by the government as a critical issue. The central government intro...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 23 Dec 2014

U.S. - China Climate Deal : Maker or Breaker?

Recently, the U.S. and China signed a bilateral treaty according to which they would equalise green house emissions by 2030, followed by a gradual reduction in emissions. Not part of the treaty, India...

by Sunita Narain | On 17 Dec 2014

Urban Governance in Bangladesh: The Post-Independence Scenario

Urbanization worldwide has been found to be an effective engine of economic growth and socio-cultural development. In pure economic terms, urbanization contributes significantly to the national econ...

by | On 17 Dec 2014

Local Governments and the Inclusion of the Excluded: Towards a Strategic Methodology with Empirical Illustration

This paper tries to argue that local governments constitutionally mandated to ‘plan for economic development and social justice’ at the local level are eminently qualified to take up the task of wor...

by Oommen M A | On 17 Dec 2014

Paediatric HIV - Trends & Challenges

With the availability of antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV infection, which was once considered a progressively fatal illness, has now become a chronic treatable condition in children, as in adults. ...

by | On 15 Dec 2014

Impediments to Contract Enforcement in Day Labour Markets: A Perspective from India

This paper focuses on one such setting in India's urban informal economy: the 'day labour' market for casual labour. We survey seven such markets in Navi Mumbai (a city on the outskirts of Mumbai),...

by Karthikeya Naraparaju | On 12 Dec 2014

Nutritional Status and Morbidity among School Going Children: A Scenario from Rural India

School health has been regarded as a high priority intervention in developing countries. However it has not been prioritized in India for many years. Malnutrition is one of a major public health conc...

by JP Singh | On 09 Dec 2014

Last Call to Get Climate Deal Right

The US “peaked” its emissions in 2012. Countries which were required to cut emissions did not do so at the scale or pace needed. The Durban CoP agreed that the world would work to finalise a new agree...

by Sunita Narain | On 03 Dec 2014

Socio-Economic Status of the Notified Minority Communities

The report provides a detailed quantitative account of the four notified minority communities – Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Parsis using all available information. The study takes into account th...

by Institute Human Development | On 11 Nov 2014

The Elusive Nature of Educational Incentives

This paper examines the assumptions underlying educational incentive schemes with the help of data collected on the status and implementation of three such schemes for minority communities in Mahara...

by Disha Nawani | On 11 Nov 2014

Socio Economic Profile of Muslims in Maharashtra

Maharashtra’s multicultural milieu is marked by crucial contribution made by Muslims. The Sachar Committee Report, 2006 stated that the condition of Muslim in Maharashtra demands special attention o...

by Vibhuti Patel | On 11 Nov 2014

A Report on Health Inequities in Maharashtra

This study project was undertaken by SATHI and CEHAT to make a small contribution in this emerging field of study of health inequities in India, and with the objective of strengthening advocacy on hea...

by Srijit Mishra | On 11 Nov 2014

Making Sense of Green Building Rating

It is time to go beyond just lip service to push green reforms in building standards. On analysing reports from the Indian Green Building Council, researchers at the Centre for Science and Environment...

by Sunita Narain | On 11 Nov 2014

Social Exclusion and (RSBY) Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana in Maharashtra

Out-of-pocket payments make up a large proportion of total health expenditure leading to inequity amongst the poorer sections. Recently government of India has instigated various demand side financing...

by Harshad Thakur | On 11 Nov 2014

Linkages between Maternal Education and Childhood Immunization in India

While correlations between maternal education and child health have been observed in diverse parts of the world, the causal pathways explaining how maternal education improves child health remain far...

by Kriti Vikram | On 30 Oct 2014

Ozone-smart, climate-cool

HFC has been a bugbear in the India-US relationship. One item on the agenda of the much-discussed Narendra Modi-Barack Obama meeting that has Indian commentators flummoxed is hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)...

by Sunita Narain | On 29 Oct 2014

Women and Labour Markets in Asia: Rebalancing for Gender Equality

The report is a joint undertaking by the ADB and the ILO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, reflecting the high-level commitment of both organizations to gender equality in the region, as an...

by International Labour Organisation ILO | On 29 Oct 2014

From Poverty to Empowerment: India’s Imperative for Jobs, Growth, and Effective Basic Services

More than two decades have passed since India embarked on major economic reforms—and although official poverty rates have declined sharply since then, millions of Indians continue to face significant...

by Rajat Gupta | On 28 Oct 2014

Employment for Youth – A Growing Challenge for the Global Community

Social and economic challenges facing young people today must be understood in terms of the complex interaction between unique demographic trends and specific economic contexts. There has been an...

by Ragui Assaad | On 27 Oct 2014

From “Hindu Growth” to Productivity Surge: The Mystery of the Indian Growth Transition

Most conventional accounts of India’s recent economic performance associate the pick-up in economic growth with the liberalisation of 1991. This paper demonstrates that the transition to high growth o...

by Dani Rodrik | On 21 Oct 2014

Public Distribution System of Essential Commodities as a Social Safety Net: A Study of the District of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh

The study concentrates on PDS as a social safety net.

by Bhaskar Majumder | On 17 Oct 2014

Youth in Transition: The Challenges of Transitional Change in Asia

This book originates from a conference of the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils and contains writings and research reports on Youth in Transition in the Asia and Pacific region. Th...

by UNESCO UNESCO | On 16 Oct 2014

Creating Youth Employment in Asia

This paper examines the labour market characteristics for adults and the entire population. Then it analyses challenges and opportunities in labour market for youth. Next, the paper discusses the exis...

by S.Mahendra Dev | On 15 Oct 2014

The Myth of Green Building

There is no question that India and other parts of the still-under-construction world must build green. The building sector is a major contributor to climate change and local environmental destruction...

by Sunita Narain | On 14 Oct 2014

Global Hunger Index 2014: The Challenge of Hidden Hunger

A staggering 2 billion people get so little essential vitamins and minerals from the foods they eat that they remain undernourished, according to the 2014 Global Hunger Index (GHI) being released toda...

by International Food Policy Research Institute | On 14 Oct 2014

Violence against Women and Girls: Lessons from South Asia

Violence against Women and Girls: Lessons from South Asia examines the prevalence and factors associated with various types of violence against women and girls in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indi...

by Jennifer L. Solotaroff | On 25 Sep 2014

India's Double Challenge

While climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, traditional system of flood management through lakes and connected water channels has been forgotten. This makes flood and d...

by Sunita Narain | On 22 Sep 2014

Green clearance test for NDA

Environmentalists are rightly alarmed that the NDA government is busy dismantling the environmental regulatory system in the country. Over the past two months, the media has reported that clearances f...

by Sunita Narain | On 22 Sep 2014

Training Module on Gender and Social Security for Unorganised Sector

The benefits of social protection do not, often, percolate down to the eligible beneficiaries. The main case of this deficiency is the lack of awareness of the main stakeholders, like the workers or...

by Shashi Bala | On 19 Sep 2014

Science Education - Few takers for Innovation

Science education has been undervalued and ignored in the majority of Indian schools. This dossier attempts to initiate a dialogue on the major challenges facing science education in Indian schools. T...

by Anu Joy | On 17 Sep 2014

Mainstreaming Science Curricular Innovations: Lessons from the HSTP Experience

What are the challenges of mainstreaming curricular innovations? Perhaps, the effort should not be to mainstream specific curricular innovations, but to enable wider circulation to the enabling discur...

by A Sharma | On 16 Sep 2014

Three Challenges Facing Indian School Science Education

A serious lack of adequate equipment, of trained teachers and most importantly, a consensus on what should be taught in school science impede any positive movement on expanding quality education in s...

by Padma M. Sarangapani | On 16 Sep 2014

Breaking the Intellectual Isolation of the Science Teacher: Reflections from Whole Class Technology Research in Government School Classrooms

The primary objective of programmes to introduce ICTs in teaching should not be to promote digital technology, but to find a way to address the urgent need to strengthen the knowledge base of the scie...

by Meera Gopi Chandran | On 16 Sep 2014

Teaching Science: Content, Method and More?

Science is more than facts, concepts, theories, mathematics and experiments. In the long debate on what science really is, many scientists and philosophers tend to describe science not in terms of its...

by Sundar Sarukkai | On 16 Sep 2014

Science Education for a Different India

Education today is reinforcing the forces leading the species into self destruction. Instead, it has to play a liberative role, a transformative role, a creative role - a humanistic role. This essay e...

by M.P. Parameswaran | On 16 Sep 2014

Indian School Science Education

What are the distinctive purposes of teaching science in schools? What knowledge is of most worth for school science education? What are the fundamental aims school science education? Why to teach sci...

by Anu Joy | On 16 Sep 2014

Production, Procurement and Inflation: A Market Model for Food Grains

Rapid rise in the price of food grains and their continued upsurge is a matter of concern for not only the government and policy makers but also for all concerned with social welfare. This is particul...

by Gopakumar K.U. | On 15 Sep 2014

Chicken Comes Home to Roost

India is at the beginning of industrial food production focused on efficiency and profits, and not on consumer safety, so it still has a choice to get it right. Why should the country not exercise its...

by Sunita Narain | On 04 Sep 2014

The Effects of Mortality on Fertility: Population Dynamics after a Natural Disaster

Understanding how mortality and fertility are linked is essential to the study of population dynamics. The fertility response to an unanticipated mortality shock is investigated that resulted from the...

by Jenna Nobles | On 02 Sep 2014

World Economic and Social Survey 2013: Sustainable Development Challenges

New strategies are needed to address the impacts of rapid urbanisation around the world, including increasing demands for energy, water, sanitation, public services, education and health, according to...

by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNDESA | On 21 Aug 2014

Gossip: Identifying Central Individuala in a Social Network

It is shown that boundedly-rational individuals can, simply by tracking sources of gossip, identify those who are most central in a network according to “diffusion centrality,” which nests other stan...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 20 Aug 2014

Doing more than Lip-service to the Backward Sections

The Scheduled Castes form 16 percent of the population yet their issues have largely remained silent. It’s high time to bring into line the discord between election commitments and budgetary allocatio...

by P.S Krishnan | On 19 Aug 2014

Performance of Major Social Sector Schemes: A Sample Survey Report

In this paper based on both desk research and selected sample survey of some districts in two states in India, an attempt has been made to see the efficacy and performance of the various central gover...

by H A C Prasad | On 31 Jul 2014

Event, Memory and Historical Analysis: A Reconstruction of Temple Destructions in India

This paper will highlight the myths that surround the question of mass conversion to Islam and the so called temple destructions by the Muslims during the formative years of the Sultanate and the Mugh...

by Amit K Suman | On 24 Jul 2014

Of Reigning Silences and Quivering Words: Kumher Kaand of 1992

This paper is an attempt to revisit an event that was barely given any space in public memory – the Kumher Dalit Massacre of 1992. The pogrom in question is one of the most brutal instances of choreog...

by Ridhima Sharma | On 24 Jul 2014

Union Budget 2014: New Government, Same Ol'Budget

If the Union Budget 2014 is anything to go by , the fiscal policy of the new government shows no change. In fact, there is an amazing continuity with the previous few Budgets. Significantly however,...

by Ravi Duggal | On 23 Jul 2014

What is in Store for Women in Union Budget 2014-15?

Union budget 2014-15 offers up old and new schemes but fails to address macro-economic and social causes of exploitation and subordination of women.

by Vibhuti Patel | On 18 Jul 2014

Who Goes? Failures of Marital Provisioning and Women's Agency among Less Skilled Emigrant Women Workers from Kerala

This paper draws upon a selection of narratives from interviews with over 150 less skilled emigrant and returnee women workers from Trivandrum district to argue that the conditions that structure i...

by Praveena Kodoth | On 14 Jul 2014

Article 2 and Government Budgets

Governments’ budgets are fundamentally about people’s human rights. Budgets are the central means by which governments can help realize their people’s access to quality education, decent health care s...

by International Budget Partnership IBP | On 10 Jul 2014

Laws and Son Preference in India- A Reality Check

This study underscores the need to connect the dots if the practice of son preference and its manifestation, discrimination against daughters, is to be addressed. Clearly, it is not only about impleme...

by Kirti Singh | On 07 Jul 2014

Gossip: Identifying Central Individuals in a Social Network

The paper examines individuals’ abilities to identify the highly central people in their social networks, where centrality is defined by diffusion centrality (Banerjee, Chandrasekhar, Duflo, and Jacks...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 19 Jun 2014

Project Brazilian Dreams

The Brazilian Dream Project is a non-profit social responsibility endeavour with no consumption bias, that arose from the ever more clearly awareness that Brazil has reached an unprecedented moment in...

by Box 1824 | On 18 Jun 2014

Why India Needs the Women’s Reservation Bill

Nine out of ten parliamentarians in India are men. Such dismal figures reveal the lasting grip of unfavourable social norms. Women’s disadvantage on a complex set of social and economic factors effect...

by Lucy Dubochet | On 17 Jun 2014

Jobs and Livelihoods Mapping the Landscape

The Indian labour market is characterised by abysmally low participation of women in the labour market, enormity of low wage informal employment, and scarcity of decent regular wage employment. The c...

by IRIS Knowledge Foundation IKF | On 17 Jun 2014

World Social Protection Report 2014/15 - Building economic recovery, inclusive development and social justice

This ILO flagship report: (i) provides a global overview of the organisation of social protection systems, their coverage and benefits, as well as public expenditures on social security; (ii) followin...

by International Labour Organisation ILO | On 17 Jun 2014

Quality Healthcare and Health Insurance Retention: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in the Kolkata Slums

Healthcare in developing countries is often unreliable and of poor quality, thus reducing individuals incentives to use quality health services. This paper examines an innovative approach to access to...

by Clara Delavallade | On 12 Jun 2014

Unfree Mobility: Adivasi Women's Migration

Tribal community practices and cultures, particularly the lack of traditional restrictions on women’s work and labour, have indeed been a significant factor in bringing larger proportions of tribal w...

by Indrani Mazumdar | On 02 Jun 2014

Organised Labour and Economic Liberalisation India: Past, Present and Future.

This paper examines the role of organised labour in India in a structural and historical context. It attempts to trace the economic, political and social effects of the trade union movement and its st...

by Debashish Bhattacharjee | On 23 May 2014

The Employment Imperative: Report on the World Social Situation 2007

The report closely examines four areas of increasing concern that of particular importance when addressing the issue of employment: jobless growth, global informalisation of the labour market, economi...

by United Nations UN | On 16 May 2014

Sanitizing the Profane

This paper seeks to understand the struggle of the ‘original’ singers/musicians of the theripaatu to retain the form in the face of censorship and commercial compulsions. It explores the complex inter...

by Shweta Radhakrishnan | On 13 May 2014

Mobile Phones in Everyday Life of Mao Naga Youth: Mobile Cultures and Online Social Networking Practices of Mao, Manipur

Mobile phones have facilitated connectivity in the north eastern region of India in terms of Information and Communication technology (ICT). The convergence of Mobile phones and social networking site...

by Kaikho Paphro Chachei | On 13 May 2014

Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development

The report investigates migration in the context of demographic changes and trends in both growth and inequality. It also presents more detailed and nuanced individual, family and village experiences,...

by Jeni Klugman | On 06 May 2014

The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World

The 2013 Human Development Report, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World looks at the evolving geopolitics of our times, examining emerging issues and trends and also the new actors...

by Khalid Malik | On 06 May 2014

Humanity Divided: Confronting Inequality in Developing Countries

This report demonstrates that inequality in society is an old and fatal phenomenon. If left unchecked, it can undermine the very foundations of development and social and domestic peace. This Report r...

by United Nations Development Programme UNDP | On 18 Apr 2014

Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition

This report highlights the way in which poverty and a?uence intersect with age-old divisions of regional inequalities, gender, caste, and religion that have long structured human development in India....

by Sonalde Desai | On 17 Apr 2014

Politics and Public Policies: Politics of Human Development in Uttar Pradesh, India

In India, public policies for human development are politically contested for many reasons like diverse political interests, commitment to specific social bases by political regimes etc. They have r...

by Shyam Singh | On 10 Apr 2014

Elections 2014: What Do the Manifestos of Political Parties Promise Children?

A quick look at the manifestos of the five national political parties, Indian National Congress (INC), Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), Aam Admi Party (AAP), Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) and S...

by HAQ Centre for Child Rights HAQCRC | On 10 Apr 2014

Food Prices and Child Nutrition in Andhra Pradesh

This paper makes an attempt to assess the impact of food price rise on the nutritional status of children of five year old. Young lives panel data provides the nutritional status of the children whe...

by S. Galab | On 27 Mar 2014

Is Self-Employment the Answer to Caste Discrimination? Decomposing the Earnings Gap in Indian Household Nonfarm Businesses

Using the India Human Development Survey data for 2004-05, two methodologies are used to estimate the earnings structure of household nonfarm businesses owned by Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SCSTs)...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 20 Mar 2014

Determinants of Social Mobility in India

The role of caste and community in class mobility and the impact of modernisation on such processes has long been a subject of local ethnographic research. This study, by using sample data from 1996 N...

by Anthony Heath | On 04 Mar 2014

What Does it Take to Become a Software Professional?

Rather than place of origin (rural vs urban) or economic background, two educated parents most commonly characterise newly recruited software professionals in Bangalore. A survey of three software fir...

by Anirudh Krishna | On 04 Mar 2014

Making it in India: Examining Social Mobility in Three Walks of Life

Inequality is rising in India alongside rapid economic growth, reinforcing the need to investigate social mobility. Are children from less well-off sections also able to rise to higher-paying position...

by Anirudh Krishna | On 04 Mar 2014

Examining the Structure of Opportunity and Social Mobility in India: Who Becomes an Engineering Student?

Rising inequality alongside rapid economic growth reinforces the need to examine patterns of social mobility in India. Are children from less well-off sections also able to rise to higher-paying posit...

by Anirudh Krishna | On 04 Mar 2014

Breaking the Caste Barrier: Intergenerational Mobility in India

The report studies the extent and evolution of this lack of mobility by contrasting the inter-generational mobility rates of the historically disadvantaged scheduled castes and tribes in India with th...

by Viktoria Hnatkovska | On 28 Feb 2014

Social Mobility of Caste and Tribes in India

Explains how the social difference between the caste system and different tribes was contained even through the caste system was officially abolished. Presents a general model of social mobility based...

by Panizza Philipp | On 28 Feb 2014

The Potential Effects of Tobacco Control in China: Projections from the China SimSmoke Simulation Model

This paper studies the potential impact of the programme ‘SimSmoke Tobacco Control Policy’ in China. China is home to about one third of the world's smokers and reducing smoking in China could have an...

by David Levy | On 19 Feb 2014

Is Self-Employment the Answer to Caste Discrimination? Decomposing the Earnings Gap in Indian Household NonFarm Business

Using the India Human Development Survey data for 2004-05, two methodologies are employed to estimate the earnings structure of household nonfarm businesses owned by Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SCS...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 17 Feb 2014

Medico Friend Circle Bulletin, 357-360, July 2013- Feb 2014

Contents? Social Discrimination in Health How to think of Discrimination? Why Casteism Persists Even in the 21st Century? Discrimination, Stigma and a Typology of Violence: Some Conceptual Reflect...

by Medico Friend Circle | On 08 Feb 2014

Combating Youth Unemployment in India

This study discusses in depth the youth unemployment "problem" in India and the reasons behind it. Despite its demographic dividend and increased literacy levels, India faces youth unemployment as a...

by Pravin Sinha | On 08 Feb 2014

Online Promotions: Exploring the Emerging Opportunity in Indian Market

In this paper, the phenomena of online promotions is examined, its impact so far and its promise as we go forward. The paper traces the origins of the concept and its evolution and progress in India...

by Nidhi Mathen | On 29 Jan 2014

Women and the RSS

Bound together by fraternal ties, the RSS and the various members of the Parivar share all pervasive ideas of ‘female virtue’ and the ideal of ‘Hindu family’ that serves to push aside a more comprehe...

by Namrata Ganneri | On 25 Jan 2014

Obituary: Prof. Ila Pathak (1933-2014): A Feminist Crusader

Ila Pathak was a dedicated social activist who stood by socially excluded sections of society, especially brutalized women. She tirelessly supported women survivors of dowry harassment, rape victims,...

by Vibhuti Patel | On 21 Jan 2014

Safety Nets and Food Programs in Asia: A Comparative Perspective

Many countries adopted safety net programs to deal with the food crisis of 2008. However, such programs are often beset with targeting errors, inefficiencies, and fraud. Despite this, there is no sys...

by Shikha Jha | On 20 Jan 2014

Governance and Development Outcomes in Asia

The relationship between governance and economic development is one of the most important areas of research in international development. Much of the previous literature has focused on whether better...

by Kunal Sen | On 20 Jan 2014

Under the Thumb of History? Political institutions and the Scope for Action

This paper discusses the two leading views of history and political institutions. For some scholars, institutions are mainly products of historical logic, while for others, accidents, leaders, and dec...

by Abhijit V. Banerjee | On 20 Jan 2014

Women's Migration, Urban Poverty and Child Health in Rajasthan

The paper is concerned with the high levels of infant and child illness and death amongst poor urban slum communities in Rajasthan, a state with one of the highest infant mortality rates in India. Ur...

by Maya Unnithan Kumar | On 15 Jan 2014

Editors’ Wishes for an Illuminated Season and an Open New Year

There are great opportunities for Open Access publications to advance human health, provided the medical research and publishing communities can rise to the challenges that come with them. There are m...

by Plos medicine Editors | On 06 Jan 2014

Editors’ Wishes for an Illuminated Season and an Open New Year

There are great opportunities for Open Access publications to advance human health, provided the medical research and publishing communities can rise to the challenges that come with them. There a...

by Plos medicine Editors | On 02 Jan 2014

Attitudes Towards Risk of Forest Dependent Communities Evidence from Andhra Pradesh

This study is an attempt to generate empirical evidence on attitude towards risk of forest dependent communities (FDCs). The FDCs covered in the study include two different geographical regions from...

by B. Sundar | On 05 Dec 2013

The World Trade Organization and the Post-Global Food Crisis Agenda

This policy note offers a preliminary assessment of the compatibility between the WTO and efforts to protect the human right to adequate food as part of the post-crisis food security agenda. Existing...

by Olivier Schutter | On 02 Dec 2013

Leveling with Friends: Social Networks and Indian Farmers’ Demand for Agricultural Custom Hire Services

This research was undertaken to understand how information about a new agricultural technology is transmitted through social networks, and what effect information gained through social networks has on...

by Nicholas Magnan | On 26 Nov 2013

Global Risks 2013 - Eighth Edition

The Global Risks Report 2013 analyses 50 global risks in terms of impact, likelihood and interconnections, based on a survey of over 1000 experts from industry, government and academia. This year’s f...

by World Economic Forum WEF | On 22 Nov 2013

Between two Worlds: Migrants caught at Social, Cultural and Political crossroads in India

A Panel Discussion which forms a part of a nine-day program of certificate course in 'Labour Protection and Migration Services', a collaborative effort of Aajeevika Bureau and Tata Institute of Social...

by Tata Institue of Social Sciences TISS | On 20 Nov 2013

The Dark Side of Migration

Qatar’s population is growing at a truly staggering rate. Between August 2012 and August 2013 it grew by 10.5 per cent. This growth is driven primarily by the recruitment of low-paid migrant workers...

by Amnesty International AI, | On 19 Nov 2013

Migrant Workers’ Rights to Social Protection in ASEAN: Case Studies of Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand

The UN estimates that there are 214 million migrants globally (IOM, 2010), making up 3% of the world’s total population. Increasing rapidly, the number of migrants globally could exceed 400 million by...

by FREDRICH STIFTUNG | On 15 Nov 2013

Changes in Knowledge and Attitudes of School Girls Towards Sexual Harassment and its Incidence: An Impact Assessment of the MEJNIN Programme

Gender Justice and Diversity unit of BRAC had a project on sensitizing young people especially girls and community people about sexual harassment in selected areas in Dhaka city in 2011 so that they...

by Md. Abdul Alim | On 13 Nov 2013

Preliminary Census Abstract on Slum Population

Preliminary report on the extent of slum population to the total population in India, 2011. According to the preliminary reports, the share of slum population has increased in the last decade with Mah...

by Planning Commission, India | On 12 Nov 2013

Social Media and Elections

Social Media and search results can be readily manipulated which has remained unappreciated by the press and the general public. During time of elections, when the stakes are high, electoral candidate...

by Panagiotis Metaxas | On 06 Nov 2013

Democratic Politics and Legal Rights: Employment Guarantee and Food Security in India

This paper focusses on two Indian laws that seek to guarantee socioeconomic rights: the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), an important example of India’s recent history of legislation...

by Reetika Khera | On 25 Oct 2013

Medical Tourism in the Philippines: Market Profile, Benchmarking Exercise, and S.W.O.T. Analysis

This report reviews the medical tourism industry in the Philippines. It discusses the global market for medical tourism, analyzes the demand and supply aspects of the local industry, and identifies...

by Oscar F Picazo | On 22 Oct 2013

Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India

Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India aims to provide an overview of existing innovative practices that increase the inclusion of internal migrants in society and act as a living document tha...

by United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF | On 21 Oct 2013

Global Hunger Index 2013 - The Challenge of Hunger: Building Resilience to Achieve Food and Nutrition Security

The 2013 Global Hunger Index (GHI), which reflects data from the period 2008–2012, shows that global hunger has improved since 1990, falling by one-third. Despite the progress made the level of hunger...

by International Food Policy Research Institute | On 16 Oct 2013

Ostracised and Abandoned: Widows in India

Widows from West Bengal, the northeastern states and Bangladesh still make their way to the ashrams of Vrindavan, Mathura and Varanasi, in the hope that in the holy cities, god will not allow anyone t...

by Hutokshi Doctor | On 15 Oct 2013

Welfare and Poverty Impacts of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: Evidence from Andhra Pradesh

India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is one of the largest public works programs globally. Understanding the impacts of NREGS and the pathway through which its impacts are realiz...

by Songqing Jin | On 14 Oct 2013

Missing Labour Force or ‘De-Feminization’ of Labour Force in India ?

The gendered division of household labour, stigma attached to paid labour and status production has precipitated withdrawal from paid work as a strategy to reduce the double burden of women. Upward s...

by Vinoj Abraham | On 09 Oct 2013

Model State Affordable Housing Policy for Urban Areas

The aim of this policy is to create an enabling environment for providing “affordable housing for all” with special emphasis on EWS and LIG and other vulnerable sections of society such as Scheduled c...

by Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation MOHUPA | On 09 Oct 2013

Decentralized Provisioning of Supplementary Nutrition for the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) in Mumbai

This study is an attempt to examine the decentralized production of supplementary nutrition which has been instituted for the Integrated Child Development Services in urban Maharashtra, specifically,...

by Natasha S. K. | On 04 Oct 2013

A Social Accounting Matrix for India 2007-08

The present study attempts to build a SAM for India for 2007–08. This SAM consists of 78 sectors and nine categories of households which are based on occupation and location (i.e. rural and urban)....

by Basanta K. Pradhan | On 26 Sep 2013

Preliminary Evidence on Internal Migration, Remittances, and Teen Schooling in India

Migration can serve as an outlet for employment, higher earnings, and reduced income risk for households in developing countries. The 2004–2005 Human Development Profile of India survey is used to exa...

by Valerie Mueller | On 06 Sep 2013

Scientist and Intellectual: Obaid Siddiqi and His Larger Family

Obaid Siddiqi, one of the most outstanding scientists of modern India, died in a freak accident in Bangalore on July 26. While he was out on a walk on July 21, a moped being driven by a young person o...

by Prabhat Patnaik | On 30 Aug 2013

The Innovation of Loneliness

What is the connection between Social Networks and Being Lonely?

by Shimi Cohen | On 26 Aug 2013

Vulnerability of Migrants and Responsiveness of the State: The Case of Unskilled Migrant Workers in Kerala, India

The paper examines how the state and other agencies in the host state (Kerala) responded to reduce the vulnerability of inter-state migrant workers. The paper also makes an assessment of a pioneering...

by N. Ajith Kumar | On 26 Aug 2013

Obituary: Narendra Dabholkar

An obituary and tribute to the rationalist, social activist and crusader against superstition and black magic who was murdered in broad daylight in Pune, India.

by Anant Phadke | On 24 Aug 2013

Anti-Superstition Bill

To bring social awakening and awareness in the society and to create a healthy and safe environment. This is done with a view to protect common people in the society against evil and sinister practice...

by Maharashtra Cabinet Sectretariat | On 23 Aug 2013

Anti-Superstition Legislation

After a long and gruelling campaign by ANS for the past eight years to enact a Law against Superstition which harm the citizens, the Maharashtra State Government under the leadership of the new Chie...

by Maharashtra Andhshraddha Nirmoolan Samiti MANS | On 22 Aug 2013

Employment and Unemployment Situation among Major Religious Groups in India

This report is based on the eighth quinquennial survey on employment and unemployment conducted in the 66th round of NSS during July 2009 to June 2010. The survey was spread over 7402 villages and 5...

by National Sample Survey Office NSSO | On 19 Aug 2013

The Youth Employment Crisis: A Call for Action

Resolution and conclusions of the 101st Session of the International Labour Conference, Geneva, 2012. [ILO].

by International Labour Organisation ILO | On 16 Aug 2013

BREASTFEEDING- A PUBL IC HEALTH PRIORITY

Breastfeeding is widely accepted by the World Health Organization (WHO), Health Canada, and the Canadian Institute of Child Health as the optimal method for infant feeding because it provides the foun...

by Newsfoundland & Labrador Association of Social Workers | On 08 Aug 2013

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012

An act to provide for the prohibition of employment as manual scavengers and their families and for matters connected there with.

by Parliamentary Research Service PRS | On 08 Aug 2013

Draft National Land Reforms Policy

This policy outlines a very clear strategy of creating a large pool of land so that every family's right to land is fully honoured. The policy proceeds to suggest a just and equitable method of allott...

by Ministry of Rural Development GOI | On 06 Aug 2013

Obituary: Veena Mazumdar (1927-2013)

Obituary: Veena Mazumdar (1927-2013)

by Vibhuti Patel | On 31 Jul 2013

Patterns of Migration, Water Scarcity and Caste in Rural Northern Gujarat

Patterns of rural-urban migration and employment shifts in a region that is facing ongoing depletion of groundwater resources in Northern Gujarat, India is discussed. Given that migration typically d...

by Ram Fishman | On 30 Jul 2013

Report of the Expert Group to Recommend the Detailed Methodology for Identification of Families Living Below Poverty Line in Urban Areas

The report deals with the estimation of poverty and identification of poor – differences in approach. It also describes the characteristics and trends of urban poverty. The vulnerability of urban poor...

by Planning Commission, India | On 29 Jul 2013

Analysis of the President's Budget for 2013

This paper evaluates the President’s Budget (PB) or the National Expenditure Program (NEP) for 2013. The assessment is composed of four parts: (i) an evaluation of the overall fiscal picture as proj...

by Rosario G. Manasan | On 25 Jul 2013

Ways of Knowing Science

What is Science? By Sundar Sarukkai National Book Trust, New Delhi; 229 pp; Rs. 405.

by Anu Joy | On 23 Jul 2013

Why Is Mobility in India So Low? Social Insurance, Inequality, and Growth

This paper examines the hypothesis that the persistence of low spatial and marital mobility in rural India, despite increased growth rates and rising inequality in recent years, is due to the existenc...

by Kaivan Munshi | On 22 Jul 2013

Access to Higher Education in India: An Exploration of its Antecedents

Using appropriate measures of participation, this paper explores if the role of socio-religious background and other factors has changed over a period of time. This dynamics of participation in High...

by Rakesh Basant | On 05 Jun 2013

National Urban Health Mission

The Union Cabinet gave its approval to launch a National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) as a new sub-mission under the over-arching National Health Mission (NHM).

by Anonymous | On 27 May 2013

Malnutrition in India & Steps Taken To Reduce It

According to Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012” report, there is a reduction of 34.9 percent in prevalence of undernourishment from 1990-1992 to 2010-...

by Anonymous | On 27 May 2013

Disability and Gender: The Case of the Philippines

Addressing gender gaps is a major development objective anywhere in the world. This paper aims to illustrate that this is far more critical in the presence of another social layer –disability. Among p...

by Christian Mina | On 24 May 2013

Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 in Rural India

This booklet explains the SECC,2011, as it relates to rural India, and details the entire process in simple language. [Ministry of Rural Development]. URL:[http://rural.nic.in/sites/downloads/general...

by Ministry of Rural Development GOI | On 02 May 2013

Media monitoring on Corruption in Indian print Media

To explore how much coverage is given by Leading Indian newspaper to 2G Scam and Common Wealth Games during the period of study. To explore what kind of image of India is famed by all four newspape...

by Daniel Drache | On 25 Apr 2013

Climate Change, Agriculture, Poverty and Livelihoods: A Status Report

This paper assesses the impact of climate change on Indian agriculture covering a cross section of crops, seasons and regions based on existing literature. The study notes that the impact of climate...

by K N Ninan | On 24 Apr 2013

Motivating Knowledge Agents: Can Incentive Pay Overcome Social Distance?

This paper studies the interaction of incentive pay and social distance in the dissemination of information. BREAD Working Paper No. 380. URL: [http://ipl.econ.duke.edu/bread/papers/working/380.pdf].

by Erlend Berg | On 16 Apr 2013

Reach out to Peasant Women: A Study from Punjab

Review of the book Those who did not die: Impact of Agarian Crisis on Women in Punjab by Gursharan Singh Kainth.

by Gursharan Singh Kainth | On 15 Apr 2013

State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Executive Summary

The State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills developed and produced by IRIS Knowledge Foundation, Mumbai on a commission from the UN-HABITAT Global Urban Youth Research Net...

by Padma Prakash | On 14 Apr 2013

Living Rough: Surviving City Streets

This paper records the findings of a small investigation into a fragment of experiences of people living on streets and into the social, economic, nutritional situation of urban homeless men, women, b...

by Harsh Mander | On 10 Apr 2013

Budget Analysis: Kerala Budget 2013-14

The Minister of Finance, K.M Mani , presented the General Budget 2013 to the State Assembly on March 15, 2013. In his address, he commented on the fiscal performance of the State in 2012-13 and laid...

by Vishnu Padmanabhan | On 09 Apr 2013

Entrepreneurship or Survival? Caste and Gender of Small Business in India

Unit-level data from the registered manufacturing segment of the Third and Fourth rounds of the Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) census data for 2001-2 and 2006-7 is used to understan...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 08 Apr 2013

The Lancang-Mekong River Basin: Reflections on Cooperation Mechanisms Pertaining to a Shared Watercourse

The ambitious development plans for the Lancang-Mekong River Basin (LMRB) could have serious environmental, social, cultural and even geopolitical ramifications that could in turn destabilise the Meko...

by Apichai Sunchindah | On 15 Mar 2013

A Reality Checkpoint for Mobile Health: Three Challenges to Overcome

It has been predicted that by 2017 there will be ‘‘more mobile phones than people’’ on the planet, and currently three-quarters of the world’s population have access to a mobile phone. Amidst the inte...

by PLoS Medicine | On 08 Mar 2013

Repayment and Exclusion in a Microfinance Experiment

The experiment is designed to explore the effectiveness of such sanctions in improving repayment incentives. Groups of 10 members are provided with joint-liability loans for a specific investment pr...

by Jean Marie Baland | On 07 Mar 2013

Growth and Deprivation in India: What Does Recent Data Say?

The report investigate the relationship between growth and deprivation in India, an issue of immense interest. Given the continuing controversy in India over poverty lines, they used a framework that...

by Sripad Motiram | On 07 Mar 2013

Economic Survey 2012-13: A Comedy of Errors?

There is lack of clarity and concepts in the Economic Survey. The Survey has not covered many topics which it was expected to cover.

by Suryanarayana M H | On 02 Mar 2013

Gambling on the Private Sector at the Cost of the Working Class: NTUI Statement

The budget offers no programme for job creation or any substantive policy measures to contain inflation that continues to erode the real wage while it commits itself to cash transfers and cuts in subs...

by Gautam Mody | On 01 Mar 2013

Inequalities Reinforced? Social Groups, Gender and Employment

Based on the last four rounds of NSS data the study explores some dimensions of women’s labour market participation across social groups. [CWDS Occasional Paper No.59]. URL:[http://www.cwds.ac.in/OCPa...

by Neetha N | On 01 Mar 2013

Target the Beneficiaries in the 2013-14 Budget

In spite of several programmes in the country to reduce undernutrition, India continues to have a large number malnourished women and children. In the coming Budget the government has to make some eff...

by Rudra Narayan Mishra | On 26 Feb 2013

Address by the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee to Parliament

Reviving economic growth is the priority of the government. [http://presidentofindia.nic.in/sp210213.html].

by Pranab Mukherjee | On 22 Feb 2013

Indian Special Economic Zones: The Difficulties of Repeating China’s Triumph

New Delhi launched its SEZ revolution in April 2000 to secure the country a two digit growth rate, copying from China what during the previous two decades proved to be an excellent strategy, this pa...

by Claudia Astarita | On 21 Feb 2013

BMC Budget Speech-Education, 2013-14

estimates of receipts and expenditure for the financial year 2013-14 with respect to the primary education. [BMC]. URL:[http://www.mcgm.gov.in/irj/go/km/docs/documents/MCGM%20Department%20List/Chief%...

by Municipal Commissioner BMC | On 11 Feb 2013

The Changing Perspective of Mental Health of Children and Adolescents

Review of the book 'Child and Adolescent Mental Health' edited by Usha Nayar, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children; February 2013; pp 363; Rs 115...

by Aarti Salve | On 07 Feb 2013

The Gender Differences in School Enrolment and Returns to Education in Pakistan

In this study attempt has been made to link the gender differences in parental resource allocation in demand for education at primary, secondary and tertiary level of education to gender differences i...

by Madeeha Gohar Qureshi | On 24 Jan 2013

Social Fragmentation, Public Goods and Elections: Evidence from China

This study examines how the economic effects of elections in rural China depend on voter heterogeneity, for which religious fractionalization is taken as a proxy. [BREAD Working No. 366]. URL:[http:/...

by Gerard Padro-i- Miquel | On 09 Jan 2013

Building a Knowledge Base on Population Ageing in India: Report on the Status of Elderly in Select States of India, 2011

To understand the ageing in India, a primary survey was carried out in seven states – Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal – having a higher percentage of...

by United Nations Population Fund UNFPA | On 08 Jan 2013

A Gender-Based Theory of the Origin of the Caste System of India

This paper proposes a theory of the origins of India’s caste system by explicitly recognizing the productivity of women in complementing their husbands’ skills. Its interesting to know the emergence...

by Chris Bidner | On 04 Jan 2013

Analyzing Intersectoral Convergence to Improve Child Undernutrition in India: Development and Application of a Framework to Examine Policies in Agriculture, Health, and Nutrition

To reduce child under nutrition in India, convergence from various sectors are required. The framework notes that issues related to convergence must be resolved in relation to three major steps in the...

by Rajani Ved | On 16 Nov 2012

Demographics, Labor Mobility, and Productivity

This paper considers two major issues that need to be treated as matters of urgency. First, internal (within country) migrations in the Asian (ACI) region are mostly undocumented and large. It is show...

by E J Wilson | On 05 Nov 2012

Mid Term Appraisal of Eleventh Five Year Plan - 2007 - 2012

The Mid-Term Appraisal (MTA) reviews the experience in the first three years of the Plan and seeks to identify areas where corrective steps may be needed. The chapter presents a broad overview of the...

by Planning Commission | On 05 Oct 2012

Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG) - Sabla

A new comprehensive scheme, called Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls or Sabla, merging the erstwhile Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) and Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls (NPA...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 05 Oct 2012

Poverty, Human Development and Health Financing in India

This study aims at analyzing the differentials across rich and poor states and across rich and poorer strata and rural urban segments of 19 major Indian states. The study indicates that besides ind...

by Brijesh C Purohit | On 28 Sep 2012

NATIONAL PROGRAMME FOR YOUTH AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT

The scheme titled National Programme for Youth Adolescent Development (NPYAD) has been formulated by merger of four 100% central sector grants-in-aid schemes of the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports...

by Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs YAS | On 28 Sep 2012

National Policy on Skill development

Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development for any country. Countries with higher and better levels of skills adjust more effectively to the challenges and o...

by Ministry of Labour and Employment MoL&E | On 28 Sep 2012

Maharashtra State Youth Policy Declaration

This is an inclusive policy, which recognizes diversity in gender, caste, class, religion, language and reiterates the commitment of the State to this vibrant and significant population group and look...

by Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs YAS | On 12 Sep 2012

NATIONAL YOUTH POLICY 2003

The earlier National Youth Policy was formulated in 1988. The socio-economic conditions in the country have since undergone a significant change and have been shaped by wide-ranging technological adva...

by Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs YAS | On 12 Sep 2012

Exposure Draft National Youth Policy 2012

The NYP 2012 is a step forward from the earlier Policy formulated in 1988 and, later, in 2003. It reaffirms commitment of the nation to the rights and holistic development of the young people of the c...

by Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs YAS | On 12 Sep 2012

Costly Posturing: Relative Status, Ceremonies, and Early Child Development in China

A primary census-type panel household survey is show that in 18 villages in rural China, child health status has barely improved in the past decades despite more than double digit of annual per capita...

by Xi Chen | On 07 Sep 2012

Contribution of the Unorganized Sector to GDP Report of the Sub Committee of a NCEUS Task Force

The task of the Sub-committee was to review the existing methodologies for estimating the contribution of unorganized/informal sector to GDP and suggest measures to facilitate direct estimation. The G...

by NCEUS NCEUS | On 06 Sep 2012

The Challenge of Employment in India: An Informal Economy Perspective Volume I - Main Report

India is perhaps the first country to set up, at the national level, a commission to study the problems and challenges being faced by what in India is called the unorganized economy - or the informal...

by NCEUS NCEUS | On 05 Sep 2012

Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector

This Report is focused on the informal or the unorganized economy which accounts for an overwhelming proportion of the poor and vulnerable population in an otherwise shining India. It concentrates on...

by NCEUS NCEUS | On 05 Sep 2012

Japan’s Post-Triple-Disaster Growth Strategy

This paper discusses the scope of the many challenges and sets out a long-term strategy for overcoming them and putting the Japanese economy on a stable growth path. [Working Paper No. 376]. URL:[http...

by Masahiro Kawai | On 24 Aug 2012

Integrating Mental Health and Development: A Case Study of the BasicNeeds Model in Nepal

The BasicNeeds model of Mental Health and Development (MHD), Nepal emphasizes user empowerment, community development, strengthening of health systems, and policy influencing. The Nepal program was...

by Shoba Raja | On 24 Aug 2012

National Commission for Minorities: Communalising Assam Riots?

The Asian Centre for Human Rights has alleged that the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) is communalizing the riots in Assam. [ACHR]. URL:[http://www.achrweb.org/reports/india/NCM-2012.pdf].

by Asian Centre for Human Rights ACHR | On 24 Aug 2012

Network Structure and the Aggregation of Information: Theory and Evidence from Indonesia

A unique data-set from Indonesia is analysed to understand what individuals know about the income distribution in their village to test theories such as Jackson and Rogers (2007) that link informatio...

by Vivi Alatas | On 23 Aug 2012

Pilot Intervention of Improved Cook Stoves in Rural Areas: Assessment of Effects on Fuel Use, Smoke Emission and Health

This study aims to explore the impact of improved cook stoves (ICS) on fuel expenditure (consumption), smoke emission, and health of women (cook) in rural households of Bangladesh. In the follow-up...

by Nepal C. Dey | On 06 Aug 2012

Western Myanmar Unrest: Partisan Portrayals Risk Extremist Implications

The violence in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State appears to have died down. However, partisan portrayals of the violence risks jeopardising the security of locals and Myanmar’s reform process with extr...

by Kyaw San Wai | On 31 Jul 2012

Obituary: Mrinal Gore (1928-2012)

Obituary: Mrinal Gore (1928-2012)

by Vibhuti Patel | On 23 Jul 2012

The Salween River Basin: Dam Cascades Threaten Biological and Cultural Diversity

F rom its headwaters in the Tibetan Plateau to its estuary in Burma, the Salween River supports over ten million people. For many decades, it was the longest free-flowing river in Southeast Asia. It...

by International Rivers Network IRN | On 17 Jul 2012

Ensuring Food and Nutrition Security in a Green Economy

What are the implications of a green economy for the poor and hungry? How can the poor benefit from and thrive under a green economy? What role can agriculture play? What are the possible trade-off...

by Shenggen Fan | On 17 Jul 2012

The New Age of Food Marketing: How Companies are Targeting and Luring our Kids — and What Advocates can do About it

Why should health advocates be concerned about the new marketing paradigm? Because young people's choices about what to eat and when are largely shaped by food and beverage marketing -- and these indu...

by Berkeley Media Studies Group BMSG | On 13 Jul 2012

How Close Does the Apple Fall to the Tree? Some Evidence on Intergenerational Occupational Mobility from India

Using data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2005, intergenerational occupational mobility in India is examined, an issue on which very few systematic and rigorous studies exist. Individ...

by Sripad Motiram | On 12 Jul 2012

Three Gorges Dam: A Model of the Past

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is the world’s largest and most controversial hydropower project. The 600 kilometer-long reservoir has displaced 1.3 million people and is wreaking havoc wi...

by International Rivers Network IRN | On 12 Jul 2012

Recommendations on the Proposed Disability Rights Legislation

Estimates of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in India vary greatly depending on the source. The 2001 census found 21.91 million disabled persons (2.13 % of the population), but there are serious cons...

by National Advisory Council NAC | On 11 Jul 2012

Eat, Drink and be Healthy: A Paradigm Shift for Linking Food and Beverages Industry with People’s Knowledge and Institutions

The food and beverages industry has not yet established strong and vibrant linkages with the local communities to develop value added products and share the benefits. The paper lists seven models fo...

by Anil K Gupta | On 11 Jul 2012

Domestic Violence Prevention Bill 2012: Bhutan

This Act ensures a prompt and just legal remedy for the victims of domestic violence; facilitate access to remedies for immediate and effective assistance, shelter homes and protection to the victims...

by National Assembly of Bhutan | On 11 Jul 2012

Cultural Proximity and Loan Outcomes

Evidence is presented to show that shared codes, religious beliefs, ethnicity - cultural proximity - between lenders and borrowers improves the efficiency of credit allocation. In-group preferential t...

by Raymond Fisman | On 05 Jul 2012

State Health Insurance and Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditures in Andhra Pradesh, India

In 2007, the state of Andhra Pradesh in southern India began rolling out the Aarogyasri health insurance to reduce catastrophic health expenditures in households “below the poverty line.” The program...

by Victoria Fan | On 05 Jul 2012

Improving Access to Mental Health Care and Psychosocial Support within a Fragile Context: A Case Study from Afghanistan

Afghanistan is an example of a ‘‘fragile state,’’ characterised by a government that lacks the capacity to provide core services and basic security to its population. Improving health care within...

by Peter Ventevogel | On 22 Jun 2012

Like Father, Like Son? Intergenerational Education Mobility in India

This paper employs a novel strategy to create a unique father-son matched data that is representative of the entire adult male population in India. Using this father-son matched data, the paper stu...

by Mehtabul Azam | On 28 May 2012

The Impact of 1998 and 2008 Financial Crises on Profitability of Islamic Banks

The paper investigates the profitability of 78 Islamic banks in 25 countries for the period of 1992-2009. The Fixed Effect Model (FEM) used to analyse profitability shows that profit efficiency is pos...

by NOR HAYATI BT AHMAD | On 24 May 2012

Group Norms and the BRAC Village Organization – Enhancing Social Capital Baseline

This study used social capital as an organizing framework to capture VO members’ group behaviour, and their current status along programme activities. The study compared the status of intervention...

by Nayma Qayum | On 22 May 2012

Hate Crimes in India: An Economic Analysis of Violence and Atrocities against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes

Crimes against the historically marginalized Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) by the upper castes in India represent an extreme form of prejudice and discrimination. In this paper, the ef...

by Smriti Sharma | On 16 May 2012

Narrowing the Gaps through Regional Cooperation Institutions and Governance Systems

Regional governance systems and national frameworks to address climate change and accelerate green growth in Asia are reviewed and tools to address climate change are outlined. Options for regional le...

by Heinrich-Wilhelm Wyes | On 11 May 2012

The Domestic Workers Convention 2011: Implications for Migrant Domestic Workers in Southeast Asia

The recent International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers (Domestic Workers Convention 2011) offers an opportunity to finally address the longstanding...

by Pau Khan Khup Hangzo | On 09 May 2012

NAC Working Group on Gender and the Sex Ratio Draft Recommendations

The NAC Working Group held three national consultations on different aspects of the issue of declining child sex ratio. The Working Group conveners also separately met with Ministry of Women and Child...

by Farah Naqvi | On 25 Apr 2012

Corruption

In this paper, a new framework for analyzing corruption in public bureaucracies is provided. The standard way to model corruption is as an example of moral hazard, which then leads to a focus on bette...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 24 Apr 2012

Nepal: Elusive Democracy and Uncertain Political System

Persistence and breakdowns of democracy are the dominant features of Nepali politics.Democracy continues to be attractive amidst setbacks and discontinuity. So it remains perennially elusive, desp...

by Lok Raj Baral | On 23 Apr 2012

Research Study on Women’s Empowerment, Good-governance and Decentralisation : Assuring Women’s Participation in Panchayats of Two Backward Districts of Northern Part of West Bengal

The study focused on the factors and forces behind the participation of women in Panchayat Structure specially after the seventy third Constitution Amendment Act. The role performance, role awarenes...

by Dilip Kumar Sarkar | On 20 Apr 2012

Audiovisual Services in Korea: Market Development and Policies

This paper reviews economic development and the regulatory environment of audiovisual services in the Republic of Korea (hereafter, Korea). The paper specifically examines motion pictures and broadcas...

by Yeongkwan Song | On 19 Apr 2012

Labour Migration and Remittances in Uttarakhand

The type, volume, and mode of transfer of remittances in Uttarakhand is analysed. The impact of remittances, in terms of both financial flows and transfer of new skills and the perceptions in relat...

by Anmol Jain | On 18 Apr 2012

Voices from the Margin: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Northeast Thailand: Pak Mun Dam

The protests against the Pak Mun Dam are amongst the longest running in the world. The dam is also one of the most studied, in part because it had all the features of a failed development policy: no...

by Katie Jenkins | On 18 Apr 2012

Signpost for Community Policing

Review of the book Community Policing: Misnomer or Fact? Author: Veerendra Mishra Sage, New Delhi.

by Vijay Raghavan | On 16 Apr 2012

Construction and Seasonal Patterns of Islamic Hijri Calendar Monthly Time Series: An Application to Consumer Price Index (CPI) in Pakistan

Time series data are compiled and analysed in accordance with Gregorian calendar, given its world-wise use. This paper presents a simple method of constructing time series in accordance with Hijri Cal...

by Riaz Riazuddin | On 13 Apr 2012

Madhya Pradesh Budget Speech: 2012-13

Hon’ble Finance Minister Shri Raghavji presented the budget for year 2012-13. The salient features of the budget estimates of 2012-13 are as follows:- • Total expenditure of ` 80030.98 crores for th...

by Madhya Pradesh Government | On 13 Apr 2012

West Bengal Budget Speech: 2012-13

Speech by Amit Mitra, Minister of Finance. [Government of West Bengal]. URL:[http://www.wbfin.nic.in/writereaddata/Budget_Speech/2012_English.pdf].

by West Bengal Government | On 13 Apr 2012

What is the Role of Social Pensions in Asia?

The main objective of this paper is to explore the potential role of social pensions and other noncontributory schemes in Asia, informed by insights from theory and international experience. The paper...

by Armando Barrientos | On 13 Apr 2012

Tenth Malaysia Plan: 2011-2015

SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER DATO’ SRI MOHD. NAJIB BIN TUN ABDUL RAZAK INTRODUCING THE MOTION TO TABLE THE TENTH MALAYSIA PLAN. [Prime Minister's office Malaysia]. URL:[http://www.pmo.gov.my/?menu=...

by Prime Minister Malaysia | On 11 Apr 2012

The Iban Population of Sarawak: 1947-2000

The paper gives an analysis and description of the quantity and quality of the Iban population of Sarawak. The information about the pattern and trends of change of the population over time is also sh...

by Lam Chee Kheung | On 09 Apr 2012

Chronicling the Hindutva Threat

Review of The Saffron Condition, Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neo Liberal India By Subhash Gatade; Three Essays Collective, New Delhi; Pp. 475, Rs 500.

by Ram Puniyani | On 04 Apr 2012

Policy and Processes that Enable Honey Export: A Case Study from India

India started exporting a small amount of honey in 1991-1992 and has now established itself as an important honey exporter to the world market. The quantity exported has increased substantially, and t...

by Harish K Sharma | On 02 Apr 2012

Historical and Contemporary Factors Govern Global Biodiversity Patterns

Jetz and Fine that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event on this planet and the cause is us. By achieving greater understanding of the underlying causes and correlates of current-...

by Jonathan Chase | On 29 Mar 2012

Highlights of the Budget for FY2012: Japan

1) Allocating budget to the measure for the real revitalization of Japan to recover Japan’s economy and society 2) Reviewing the existing budget based on the result of evaluation by the Policy Propos...

by Ministry of Finance, Japan MOF, Japan | On 28 Mar 2012

Myanmar’s Ethnic Insurgents: UWSA, KNU and KIO

Since the elections of 2010, Myanmar’s political landscape has changed significantly; the old military junta has officially been dissolved and a new civilian government, led by President Thein Sein,...

by Christopher O’Hara | On 27 Mar 2012

The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010

A bill further to amend the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954. [PRS]. URL:[http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Marriage%20Laws/Marriage%20Laws%20Bill%202010.pdf].

by Parliamentary Research Service PRS | On 26 Mar 2012

Prevalence, Distribution, and Impact of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Latin America, China, and India: A 10/66 Population-Based Study

Rapid demographic ageing is a growing public health issue in many low- and middle-income countries (LAMICs). Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a construct frequently used to define groups of people...

by Ana Luisa Sosa | On 19 Mar 2012

Report of the Expert Group for Modernizaion of Indian Railways

There is in urgent need for modernization and generational Change need to be done in the Indian railways to assure safety, improve productivity, take advantage of advanced technology, respond to ever...

by Ministry of Railways | On 14 Mar 2012

Towards Building A Happy, Prosperous and Caring Bangladesh: Budget Speech 2011-12

Budget speech 2011-12 by Finance minister. URL:[http://www.mof.gov.bd/en/budget/11_12/budget_speech/speech_en.pdf].

by Abul Maal Abdul Muhith | On 14 Mar 2012

Issues and Challenges with the Philippines' Public Corporate Sector

Government-ownedand- controlled corporations were initially created as solutions to market imperfections. It is ironic therefore, that in recent years, they have come to be seen as problems t...

by Senate Economic Planning Office SEPO | On 06 Mar 2012

Indian Islam in the Age of Industry

Review of Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840-1915. by Nile Green. Cambridge University Press, New York 2011. xvi + 327 pp. $90.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-76924-2.

by Fahad A. Bishara | On 26 Feb 2012

Climate Change and Migration in Southeast Asia: Responding to a New Human Security Challenge

The paper aims at understanding the reasons which influence migration and mobility choices, ways by which vulnerabilities can be managed and the role that local, national and regional policy responses...

by Lorraine Elliot | On 24 Feb 2012

Girish Sant on India's Energy Challenges

This interview with Girish Sant, head of Prayas Energy Group and one of India's foremost energy experts, was made during COP17 in Durban. Girish died on February 2, 2012. This interview was published...

by Marian M | On 20 Feb 2012

Mumbai Riots, 1992-3: Revisiting the Affected

Review of the book 'Riots and After in Mumbai: Chronicles of Truth and Reconciliation' Meena Menon, Sage Publications India, 2011, Pp 267 + xcii, Rs. 595/-

by Irfan Engineer | On 17 Feb 2012

Formalizing the Informal Economy: Women’s Autonomous Self-Employment in Rural South India

This paper considers the effects of contemporary restructuring of women and men’s employment in rural south India alongside ongoing efforts to recast India’s poor rural women as entrepreneurs. This s...

by Samantha Watson | On 15 Feb 2012

Selling Formal Insurance to the Informally Insured

Unpredictable rainfall is an important risk for agricultural activity, and farmers in developing countries often receive incomplete insurance from informal risk-sharing networks. The demand for, and...

by A. Mushfiq Mobarak | On 10 Feb 2012

Is Caste Destiny? Occupational Diversification among Dalits in Rural India

he caste system – a system of elaborately stratified social hierarchy – distinguishes India from most other societies. Among the most distinctive factors of the caste system is the close link betwee...

by Ira Gang | On 07 Feb 2012

Foreign R&D Centres in India: An Analysis of their Size, Structure and Implications

The study measures the contribution of MNCs to the generation of innovations from India. The focus is on innovations that are carried out in foreign R&D Centres. After having mapped out the size of...

by Rakesh Basant | On 06 Feb 2012

Estimating the Middle Class in Pakistan

Using the Pakistan Social and Living Measurement Survey (PSLM), conducted in 2007-08, the paper measures the magnitude of the middle class (definition given by Thurow (1987); Birdsall, Graham and Pe...

by Durr-e- Nayab | On 06 Feb 2012

Who is the Identifiable Victim?: Caste Interacts with Sympathy in India

Earlier studies have documented an “identifiable victim effect”: people donate more to help individual people than to groups. Evidence suggests that this is in part due to an emotional reaction to the...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 03 Feb 2012

Shaking Embedded Gender Roles and Relations: An Impact Assessment of Gender Quality Action Learning Programme

The Gender Quality Action Learning programme initiated a village level intervention in 2007 in 10 districts to increase knowledge, change perception, attitudes, and practice/behaviour of the villagers...

by Md. Abdul Alim | On 03 Feb 2012

Fiscal Policy in India: Trends and Trajectory

This essay examines the trajectory of India?s fiscal policy with a focus on historical trends, fiscal discipline frameworks, fiscal responses to the global financial crisis and subsequent return to a...

by Supriyo De | On 31 Jan 2012

A Study on Emigration Attitudes of Young Singaporeans (2010)

The study examines the intention to work abroad based on a representative sample of young Singaporeans residing in the city-state. Two thousand and thirteen Singaporeans between the age of 19 to 30 ye...

by Leong Chan Hoong | On 27 Jan 2012

Toward a Framework for Implementation of Climate Change Treaty through Self-enforcing Mechanisms

The paper discusses the pros and cons of the already proposed international cooperative mechanisms toward climate change mitigation and highlights the problem of information revelation, particularly...

by Meeta Keswani Mehra | On 27 Jan 2012

Chinese Commodity Imports in Ghana and Senegal: Demystifying Chinese Business Strength in Urban West Africa

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, independent entrepreneurial migrants from China have been increasingly flocking to Africa in search of “greener pastures.” This paper scrutinizes the...

by Laurence Marfaing | On 25 Jan 2012

Building World Class Businesses for the Long Term

This report identifies some of the factors complicating the debate on role of the company in society. It focuses particularly on the changing models of ownership and differing time horizons and on how...

by Gillian Lee | On 23 Jan 2012

Energy in the Development Strategy of Indian Households-The Missing Half

The present paper explores the nexus between gender-energy-poverty, highlights areas of gender concern, and suggests actions. It is analyzed how women from rural areas and low income households are...

by B. Sudhakara Reddy | On 19 Jan 2012

Wage Coordination and the Welfare State: Germany and Japan Compared

The German and Japanese welfare state differ from each other in almost all dimensions. The essay reaches the conclusion that there is indeed ample evidence that both the German and the Japanese welfar...

by Philip Manow | On 19 Jan 2012

Contested Relationships: Women’s Economic and Social Empowerment, Insights from the Transfer of Material Assets in Bangladesh

This article examines the relationship between women’s economic and social empowerment in the context of extreme poverty. It is based on the findings of primary fieldwork on the char islands of nort...

by Lucy Scott | On 11 Jan 2012

Peer Effects, Risk Pooling, and Status Seeking: What Explains Gift Spending Escalation in Rural China?

It has been widely documented that the poor spend a significant proportion of their income on gifts even at the expense of basic consumption. We test three competing explanations of this phenomenon—pe...

by Xi Chen | On 10 Jan 2012

Can Lease Hold Forestry in Nepal Benefit People and the Environment?

In Nepal an innovative form of forestry management, known as the Leasehold Forestry (LHF) Programme, is being introduced to protect forest land and help it regenerate. A new SANDEE study analyzes th...

by South Asian Network for Development SANDEE | On 10 Jan 2012

Parental Education as a Criterion for Affirmative Action in Higher Education: A Preliminary Analysis

Affirmative action, especially in the form of reservation policies, to address the issues of inclusion and equity has been in place in India for a long time. Through these policies higher participatio...

by Rakesh Basant | On 09 Jan 2012

Are All Migrants Really Worse Off in Urban Labour Markets? New Empirical Evidence from China

The rapid and massive increase of rural-to-urban migration in China has drawn attention to the welfare of migrant workers, particularly to their working conditions and pay. This paper uses data from...

by Jason Gagnon | On 06 Jan 2012

Poor Diet in Shift Workers: A New Occupational Health Hazard?

As the world of work becomes increasingly 24 hour, shift work will become more common. Shift work has the potential to accelerate the progression of the global epidemic of obesity and diabetes. Ob...

by PLoS Medicine Editors | On 06 Jan 2012

The Unseen Skills of the Dalit Population

Review of the book Post-Hindu India: A Discourse on Dalit-Bahujan, Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution, Kancha Ilaiah SAGE India, New Delhi 2009, Rs 295/-, pp 340.

by Vaijayanta Anand | On 03 Jan 2012

Comparison of the Lok Pal Bill, 2011 and Lok Pal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011

Major differences between the Lok Pal Bill 2011 and the Lok Pal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011.URL: [http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Lok%20Pal%20Bill%202011/Major%20differences%20between%20the%20Lok%...

by Parliamentary Research Service PRS | On 28 Dec 2011

Approach Paper: Vulnerabilities of Women Homebased Workers`

This paper focuses on homebased women workers and discusses the specific issues of their vulnerability as women and as workers, in the framework of their basic citizenship right to economic and soci...

by Indrani Mazumdar | On 26 Dec 2011

Social Implications of Economic Reforms in India

Review of the book 'Economic Reforms and Social Exclusion: Impact of Liberalization on Marginalized Groups in India', by K S Chalam, Sage Publications, New Delhi, India.

by Rajesh Komath | On 26 Dec 2011

Can these Policies Change their Life?

Women who come into the stream of domestic workers are poorly educated and do not know their rights. It is necessary that these women know about their rights. Even after reading the policies some ques...

by Anwesha Sen | On 19 Dec 2011

High Level Expert Group Report on Universal Health Coverage for India

The recommendations that follow take cognizance of the extraordinary opportunities that India offers – and the possibility for India to take a lead in introducing a well-designed UHC system that i...

by Planning Commission | On 15 Dec 2011

Union Power November 2011

The three year journey of the G-20 Heads of Government Summit from Washington in 2008 to Paris this November is signified by two markers of the depth of the global capitalist crisis. First, that the c...

by Louise Ross | On 14 Dec 2011

Where Socrates Fears to Tread……

Review of the book 'Social Income and Insecurity: A Study in Gujarat' by Guy Standing, Jeemol Unni, Renana Jhabvala, and Uma Rani Routledge India, 2010 216 pages.

by N. Vijayamohanan Pillai | On 12 Dec 2011

Impact of Inter-organizational Relationships on Organizational Learning

The paper explores how inter-organizational relationships foster organizational learning process through experiential and vicarious learning. The paper further explores various factors that impact t...

by Vijayta Doshi | On 08 Dec 2011

Indigenous Communities, Cooperation, and Communication: Taking Experiments to the Field

A series of common-pool-resource field experiments were conducted in eight indigenous communities in India that have very long traditions of shared norms and mutual trust. Two experimental designs a...

by Rucha Ghate | On 02 Dec 2011

Legislative Brief: The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill, 2011

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill, 2011 was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, Minister for Finance on March 24, 2011. The Bill was referred to the St...

by M. R. Madhavan | On 01 Dec 2011

National Urban Transport Policy

The objective of this policy is to ensure safe, affordable, quick, comfortable, reliable and sustainable access for the growing number of city residents to jobs, education, recreation and such other...

by Ministry of Urban Development GOI | On 30 Nov 2011

Rejigging the Elephant Dance

India's development challenges. The India growth story was thrown off track by the global financial crisis which engulfed virtually every country in the world. We recovered from the crisis sooner than...

by Duvvuri Subbarao | On 30 Nov 2011

Fifth Krishna Raj Memorial Lecture Series: Moving Towards Universal Access to Health Care- 5

The Fifth Anusandhan Trust’s Krishna Raj Memorial Lecture Series on Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Sciences was held on January 5, 2011. The speakers were Dr. K. Srinath Reddy (Chairperson o...

by Hansa Thapliyal | On 29 Nov 2011

Fifth Krishna Raj Memorial Lecture Series: Moving Towards Universal Access to Health Care- 4

The Fifth Anusandhan Trust’s Krishna Raj Memorial Lecture Series on Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Sciences was held on January 5, 2011. The speakers were Dr. K. Srinath Reddy (Chairperson o...

by Hansa Thapliyal | On 29 Nov 2011

How Are Markets Made?

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the making of markets. The paper identifies two ideal-typical processes in which markets are made – organized making and spontaneous making – which are often...

by Patrik Aspers | On 29 Nov 2011

Social Security and Labor Migration in ASEAN

This policy brief takes a preliminary look at portability of social security in ASEAN, particularly old-age, retirement, and survivor benefits. The next section discusses the growth of intra-ASEAN...

by Gloria O. Pasadilla | On 28 Nov 2011

Draft of combined Fourth and Fifth Periodic Reports of India to CEDAW

This Report covers developments in implementation of the Convention in India from 2006 to 2011. The harmonised guidelines for preparation of Common Core Document and the reporting Guidelines of the...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 25 Nov 2011

Global South: SEPHIS e-magazine, October 2011: Visual Encounters: Beyond the Written and Toward the Sensory

What is 'visual methodologies? How is it defined? What are the challenges in grappling with the interdisciplinary nature of this multifaceted research approach? This issue of Global South features e...

by SEPHIS | On 22 Nov 2011

Where is the Virtue in the Middle Class?

It is widely agreed by economists and political scientists that the middle class is vital to progress because of its many virtues. But it is difficult to define a middle class by income in a manner t...

by Charles Kenny | On 16 Nov 2011

Equity in the Time of Recession: Mumbai Youth Struggle to Bridge Yawning Opportunity Gap

Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra, a large highly industrialised, progressive state that until a decade ago, reported remarkable progress on social and economic indices. Today, it is still a leadi...

by eSocialSciences eSS | On 11 Nov 2011

Consumption and Social Identity: Evidence from India

Spending on consumption items is examined which have signaling value in social interactions across groups with distinctive social identities in India, where social identities are defined by caste an...

by Melanie Khamis | On 10 Nov 2011

German Companies Engaging in China: Decision-Making Processes at Home and Management Practices in Chinese Subsidiaries

This paper attempts to explain why internationalization processes to China are growing despite the significant difficulties that foreign direct investments into China encounter. The answer to this q...

by Geny Piotti | On 04 Nov 2011

Reading Savarkar: Disequilibriums in Hindutva’s Notion of National-Unity-at-all-Costs

Sarvarkar’s case for Unity is at best a cumulative network of agile concepts that are open-ended, and can be used by future sympathetic thinkers. To not grasp this agility is to fundamentally misunder...

by Nikhil Govind | On 03 Nov 2011

Coordination Under Uncertain Conditions: An Analysis of the Fukushima Catastrophe

This paper analyzes the impacts of the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which were amplified by a failure of coordination across the plant, corporate...

by Masahiko Aoki | On 03 Nov 2011

Complex, Historical, Self-reflexive: Expect the Unexpected!

The object world of the social sciences is complex, historical and self-reflexive. It generates nonlinear effects, it is unique, and it is able to understand the theories developed about it and resp...

by Sandra Mitchell | On 01 Nov 2011

Teaching How to Bridge Neuroscience, Society, and Culture

In most universities, sharp disciplinary and departmental divisions continue to this day and have regrettably translated into the life sciences being taught with scarce attention to their historical a...

by Giovanni Frazzetto | On 31 Oct 2011

Emigration of Women Domestic Workers from Kerala: Gender, State Policy and the Politics of Movement

Restrictions imposed by the Government of India on the emigration of women in ‘unskilled’ categories such as domestic work are framed as measures intended to protect women from exploitation. Specia...

by Praveena Kodoth | On 24 Oct 2011

Dorm Spaces and Sociability

Physical spaces may significantly shape social interaction. This study has explored how the residential provisions (Dormitories) for students at IIM-Ahmedabad impact their social life. This paper ad...

by Arvind Shatdal | On 21 Oct 2011

A Case for Case Studies

This essay attempts to look beyond the long-standing qualitative-quantitative tug of war in studying society. It takes as an example one approach, the case study, that often acts as a bridge between...

by Ipsita Sapra | On 19 Oct 2011

Who Drives Change? Comparing the Evolution of Domestic Climate Governance in India and South Africa

This paper compares and contrasts the nature and scope of change in the domestic climate governance of India and South Africa between 2007 and 2010. It uses an actor-centered approach to analyze the d...

by Babette Never | On 18 Oct 2011

Transactions Matter but They Hardly Cost: Irrigation Management in the Kathmandu Valley

This study estimates the transaction costs entailed in maintaining Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems (FMIS) in Nepal based on a case study of 60 irrigation systems in the Kathmandu valley. It analyz...

by Ram Chandra Bhattarai | On 18 Oct 2011

Does Participatory Development Legitimise Collusion Mechanisms? Evidence from Karnataka Watershed Development Agency

While examining participatory development projects, existing contributions have demonstrated how aid resources are often captured by local elites. This paper hypothesises that another possible source...

by G.Ananda Vadivelu | On 18 Oct 2011

Report on Socio Economic Status of the Women Domestic Workers- A Diagnostic Study in Five Major Townships: Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Berhmpur, Ssmbslpur and Rourkela of Orissa

Women workers In India constitute one third of the total workforce. Majority of these women are engaged in the un-organized sectors such as agriculture, construction, domestic services etc. The over...

by Bharat Jyoti BJ | On 18 Oct 2011

Voice and Accountability: The Role of Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health Committee

The study aims to explore how the MNCH committee encouraged community participation and how its communication activities empowered the community people to ensure the healthcare needs of the poor and...

by Margaret Leppard | On 17 Oct 2011

Paraiyans’ Self-assertion for Identity

Review of Nandanar’s Children: The Paraiyans’ Tryst with Destiny Tamil Nadu 1850—1956, Raj Sekhar Basu, Sage India, New Delhi, 2011, 492 pp, Rs 895

by Rajesh Komath | On 11 Oct 2011

Localization, Globalization and Networks of foreign Subsidiaries

This research is about multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their subsidiaries abroad. The specific focus of the research is on the foreign subsidiaries? local embeddedness, global integration and m...

by Filip De Beule | On 10 Oct 2011

Urban Transport Sustainability Indicators – Application of Multi-view Black-box (MVBB) Framework

In a recent work Nathan and Reddy (2011a) have proposed a Multi-view Black-box (MVBB) framework for development of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) for an urban setup. The framework is flex...

by Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan | On 10 Oct 2011

Got Water? Social Divisions and Access to Public Goods in Rural India

Data for 436 rural districts has been used from the 2001 Census of India to examine whether different aspects of social divisions help explain the wide variation in access to tap water across rural In...

by Divya Balasubramaniam | On 07 Oct 2011

Competition for Foreign Capital: Endogenous Objective, Public Investment and Tax

In this paper the objective functions of the regions as well as their decision to provide public investment are endogenized in a model of competition for foreign owned mobile capital. It is demonstra...

by Rupayan Pal | On 04 Oct 2011

ASEAN Auto Market Growing in the Shadow of China and India

The automobile industry in the ASEAN countries has expanded rapidly over the last few years. The growth potential of the ASEAN auto market and its now very major absolute importance for the industr...

by Eric Heymann | On 03 Oct 2011

The Lok Pal Bill Debate: Lack of Accountability, not Anna Hazare's Fast, Should be the Focus

The paper analysis the current situation of corruption in India, the protests against it, the role of NGOs and the Lok Pal Bill

by Asian Centre for Human Rights ACHR | On 19 Sep 2011

National Policy for Senior Citizens: 2011

The foundation of the new policy, known as the “National Policy for Senior Citizens 2011” is based on several factors. These include the demographic explosion among the elderly, the changing economy a...

by Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment GOI | On 19 Sep 2011

Opening India’s Garments Sector to South Asia

This paper examines the competitiveness of the Indian garments industry vis-à-vis the other South Asian countries Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Under the SAFTA agreement, many of the garment i...

by Saon Ray | On 16 Sep 2011

Report of the Expert Committee on Licensing New Urban Co-operative Banks

With a view to increasing the coverage of banking services amongst local communities, it was proposed in the Annual Policy Statement for the year 2010-11 to set up a Committee comprising of all stakeh...

by Reserve Bank of India RBI | On 15 Sep 2011

The Land Acquisition Bill: A Critique and a Proposal

The new Bill on land acquisition recently tabled in Parliament is well intentioned but seriously flawed. Its principal defect is that it attaches an arbitrary mark-up to the historical market price to...

by Maitreesh Ghatak | On 12 Sep 2011

Fertility Regulation in an Economic Crisis

Substantial international aid is spent reducing the cost of contraception in developing countries, as part of a larger effort to reduce global fertility and increase investment per child worldwide....

by Christopher McKelvey | On 09 Sep 2011

The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011

A bill to ensure a humane, participatory, informed consultative and transparent process for land acquisition for industrialisation, development of essential infrastructural facilities and urbanisa...

by Parliamentary Research Service PRS | On 08 Sep 2011

The Seed and Agricultural Biotechnology Industries in India: An Analysis of Industry Structure, Competition, and Policy Options

This paper examines the structure of India’s cereal seed and agbiotech industries, its potential effects on innovation and social welfare, and the policies that may improve both industry performance a...

by David J Spielman | On 31 Aug 2011

Achieving Progress for Development Effectiveness in Busan: An Overview of CSO Evidence

The global Reality of Aid Network has been working in preparation for Busan alongside CSO colleagues from women’s rights organizations, trade unions, farmers’ organizations, faith-based organizations...

by Brian Tomlinson | On 30 Aug 2011

Evolution of Property Rights Regimes in the Groundwater Economy of India-Constraints on Moving Towards a Common Property Regime

The paper paper reviews the 'model' central and state government bills, pertaining to groundwater, through a conceptual framework and discusses the Andhra Pradesh experience in the developing governme...

by G.Ananda Vadivelu | On 30 Aug 2011

Policy Dilemmas in India: The Impact of Changes in Agricultural Prices on Rural and Urban Poverty

Trade policy reforms which lead to changes in world prices of agricultural commodities or domestic policies aimed at affecting agricultural prices are often seen as causing a policy dilemma: a fall...

by Sandra Polaski | On 26 Aug 2011

Trans-border Identities: (A Study on the Impact of Bangladeshi and Nepali Migration to India)

This paper deals with migration into India from adjoining neighbours and its impact on security and other issues of national interest. Unlike other studies on migration, it focuses on the ethnic ident...

by Subhakanta Behera | On 26 Aug 2011

From Economic Meltdown to Social Crunch – Impact of the Global Economic Recession on Social Capital Building in Developing Countries and What We still Don't Know!

This paper draws on the experiences of the Far East Economic Crisis in 1998 and argues that: (1) the poor depended heavily on bonding social capital during the Crisis, but the crunch-point beyond wh...

by Sam Wong | On 22 Aug 2011

National Nutrition Policy

The need for a National Nutrition Policy is implicit in both the paramountcy of nutrition in development as well as in tbe complexity of the problem. This general problem of under-nutrition should b...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 19 Aug 2011

Poverty Estimates in India: Old and New Methods, 2004-05

This paper provides estimates of poverty and inequality across states as also for different sub-groups of population for 2004-05 by using the old and new methods of the Planning Commission. The new m...

by Durgesh C Pathak | On 17 Aug 2011

Multidimensional Indices of Achievements and Poverty: What Do We Gain and What and What Do We Lose?

Poverty and well-being are multidimensional. Nobody questions that deprivations and achievements go beyond income. There is, however, sharp disagreement on whether the various dimensions of poverty...

by Nora Lustig | On 11 Aug 2011

Working and Living Conditions of Women Domestic Workers: Evidences from Mumbai

This paper, exploring primary data collected from 1510 women domestic workers in Mumbai, evidently brings out that domestic work as a feminine occupation in a global city like Mumbai is a epitome of...

by G.D Bino Paul | On 08 Aug 2011

Historical Analysis Or Honest Reflection?

Review of Lost Years of the RSS by Sanjeev Kelkar; Sage India, New Delhi 2011, pp. 392, Rs 350.

by Nikhil Govind | On 05 Aug 2011

Televangalism and Popular Religiosity

Review of McDonaldisation, McGospel and Om Economics By Jonathan D. James; Sage, Delhi; 2010, Pp. xxvii + 232, Rs. 596, hb.

by Rudolf C. Heredia | On 05 Aug 2011

Distress Situation in Dryland Areas Impacts on Livelihood Pattern and the Coping Strategies: A Review

This paper is a review of the different coping mechanisms adopted by the households in different dryland area of India. The primary focus of the present paper is to understand the coping mechanisms...

by Nikhil Govind | On 05 Aug 2011

The Digital Society: New Ways to More Transparency, Participation and Innovation

The study makes specific recommendations for decisionmakers in industry, society and politics on how to handle new network technologies. URL:[http://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD...

by Thomas F Dapp | On 02 Aug 2011

World Trade Report 2011- The WTO and Preferential Trade Agreements: From Co-existence to Coherence

The ever-growing number of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) is a prominent feature of international trade. The World Trade Report 2011 describes the historical development of PTAs and the current...

by World Trade Organisation WTO | On 22 Jul 2011

Bentham from the Crypt Once More: Politicians in Pursuit of Happiness

There is a burgeoning academic literature on happiness polls that has used a range of different measures and approaches across countries rich and poor alike to answer the question, “what makes peopl...

by Charles Kenny | On 21 Jul 2011

The Dynamics of Health and Return Migration

Return migration and health has received little attention in policy and research. This article will focus on the risk factors and social determinants of health during all phases of migration that...

by Anita A Davies | On 20 Jul 2011

Deprivation and Vulnerability Among Elderly in India

A documentation of different aspects of human deprivation in the old age other than the measurement of income poverty is done. Aspects of economic, health and social aspects of deprivation and how i...

by Syam Prasad | On 14 Jul 2011

The Impact of Feminine Identity and Soft Influence Tactics on Leadership Style

Using sex identity theory, the paper studies the impact of feminine identity and soft influence tactics on leadership styles, specifically task oriented and participative. Earlier researchers have doc...

by Asha Kaul | On 13 Jul 2011

EGoM cleared the Draft National Food Security Bill

The empowered group of ministers on food on Monday approved the draft National Food Security Bill, bringing the ambitious social security programme that guarantees highly subsidized food grains to abo...

by Economic Times ET | On 12 Jul 2011

Lives and Livelihoods on the Streets of Dhaka City: Findings from a Population-based Exploratory Survey

BRAC has long been working to empower people and communities in situations of poverty, illiteracy, disease and social injustice. In recent years, BRAC has extended its activities to include the urba...

by Syed Masud Ahmed | On 11 Jul 2011

Decentralized Forest Governance - A Policy Perspective

This paper examines challenges associated with early stages of decentralizing the administration and management of forest resources. It is based on review of literature on forest, decentralization a...

by Aruna Kumar Monditoka | On 07 Jul 2011

A Framework for Developing a Research Agenda for Diseases Disproportionately Affecting the Poor:The Cases of Malaria, Diabetes, Rotavirus

In this paper three diseases- malaria,diabetes and rotavirus- selected because of their contrast. The paper examines the severity of their presence in developing countries and suggests viable solution...

by Alyna C Smith | On 07 Jul 2011

Groundwater: Development, Degradation and Management (A Study of Andhra Pradesh)

This study attempts to highlight the importance of hydrological information to the user communities from a socio-economic perspective. It shows, based on the evidence, how groundwater is depleting a...

by M Srinivasa Reddy | On 06 Jul 2011

Detection and Forecasting of Islamic Calendar Effects in Time Series Data: Revisited

This paper is an attempt to revisit the pioneering work of Riazuddin and Khan (2002). A complete business cycle has been elapsed (2002-2010) since their study, so there is need to review the results ...

by Syed Kalim Hyder Bukhari | On 05 Jul 2011

Marriage Networks, Nepotism and Labor Market Outcomes in China

This paper considers the potential role of marriage in improving labor market outcomes through the expansion of an individuals' networks. The impact of a father-in-law on a young man's career using pa...

by Shing-Yi Wang | On 05 Jul 2011

Commons And Community: Evidence From Southwestern Tribal Belt Of Madhya Pradesh

Sah and Shah (2003) have shown that the incidence of poverty in the South-Western tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh is alarmingly high. About three fifths of the households in this tribal belt were catego...

by D.C. Sah | On 04 Jul 2011

U.S. Trade Policy and Global Development

Polls show that many Americans increasingly see the country’s trade openness asmore of a threat than an opportunity, and the bipartisan political consensus in favor of openmarkets is badly frayed....

by Kimberly Ann Elliot | On 01 Jul 2011

New Sources of Development Finance: Funding the Millennium Development Goals

As a result of the Five Year Review of the World Summit for Social Development, the UN General Assembly in September 2000 adopted a resolution calling for 'a rigorous analysis of the advantages, disad...

by A. B. Atkinson | On 20 Jun 2011

Alvida, Maqbool Fida: M.F. Husain, Free at Last

In a television interview not so long ago when the interviewer painfully and persistently asked Husain yet again, why he had chosen Qatar over Hindustan, he said laughing, playfully invoking and twis...

by Shuddhabrata Sengupta | On 15 Jun 2011

On the Passing Away of M F Husain: Statement by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust

Easily the most iconic artist of modern India, Maqbool Fida Husain passed away in London on June 9, 2011. Already, his life and work are beginning to serve as an allegory for the changing modalities o...

by Sohail Hashmi | On 15 Jun 2011

Let’s Be Straight Up about the Alcohol Industry

Alcohol industry is a massive and growing US$150 billion global business—have not yet received adequate prominence in medical journals. Indeed, attention to and scientific research on the alcohol...

by PLoS Medicine Editors | On 15 Jun 2011

Frontier Issues on the Global Agenda- Emerging Economy Perspective

The article is a report of RBI Minister Duvvuri Subbarao on issuesing concerning the G-20 countries and also issues effecting all the countries collectively.

by Duvvuri Subbarao | On 13 Jun 2011

Polarization, Inequality and Growth: The Indian Experience

Polarization in India is analysed roughly in the past two and half decades using consumption expenditure data. It is seen that polarization has increased sharply since the 1990s, reversing the earlie...

by Sripad Motiram | On 13 Jun 2011

Book Review: CSR: A Profitable Concept

Review of Corporate Social Responsibility: Past, Present and Future by Sanjay Kumar Panda; The Icfai University Press; 373pp, 2008.

by Subhash Mohanti | On 12 Jun 2011

Social Exclusion and Adverse Incorporation in Rural Bangladesh: Evidence from a Mixed-methods Study of Poverty Dynamics

Using findings from a mixed-methods study of poverty dynamics in rural Bangladesh, including from 293 life history interviews, the paper explores how the alternative stance of viewing poverty dynamics...

by Peter Davis | On 09 Jun 2011

Trends in Poverty and Social Indicators: An Update

This paper provides an update of the changes that Bangladesh has undergone in terms of its poverty and social indicators over the last one and a half decades. Several key social and human developmen...

by Zulfiqar Ali | On 07 Jun 2011

Book Review: Ineffable or Not: Understanding and Writing about Sri Aurobindo

Review of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo Peter Heehs. Columbia University Press, New York 2008. xiv + 496 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14098-0. [ https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=32846...

by Hanna H. Kim | On 05 Jun 2011

Women Exiting Chronic Poverty: Empowerment Through Equitable Control of Households’ Natural Resources

This paper examines the relationship between women’s vulnerability to poverty and their management of domestic natural resources. It finds that gendered experiences of poverty often derive from discri...

by Jessica Espey | On 01 Jun 2011

Social Assistance and the ‘Dependency Syndrome'

This policy brief discusses the fact that social assistance is critical to counter the insecurity and vulnerability experienced by chronically poor people. Evidence shows that as well as preventing pe...

by Andrew Shepherd | On 30 May 2011

Behind the Scenes Action: Learning from a Collective Process

Almost two decades after ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), India came up for review by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cult...

by PCESC R | On 24 May 2011

India’s Policy Deficit: As I Look At It

Policies, be they administrative, economic, educational, scientific, social or regarding anything else, are necessarily grounded in some ideology; relating to the conception of an ideal man, an i...

by S.K. Mishra | On 24 May 2011

Social and Economic Impact of Disasters: Estimating the Threshold between Low and High Levels of Risk

Catastrophes caused by natural hazards that hit “without warning” serve as grim reminders of the challenge that governments and civil society face in identifying and protecting the areas that are...

by Clovis Freire | On 23 May 2011

Youth and Globalisation

This paper presents the proceedings of the workshop on Youth and Globalisation, jointly organized by Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Youth Development, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. There were...

by Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development | On 20 May 2011

Book Review: Kale on Menon 'Women of the Hindu Right'

Everyday Nationalism: Women of the Hindu Right in India Kalyani Devaki Menon; University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia; 224 pp. $49.95(cloth). [H-Net Reviews.https://www.h-net.org/reviews/s...

by Sunila S. Kale | On 17 May 2011

Social Change and Development: A Journal of OKD Institute of Social Change and Development

This journal by OKD Institute of Social Change and Development contains different articles, papers, book reviews on social change and development.

by OKD Institute of Social Change and Development | On 12 May 2011

Socio-economic Exclusion of Different Religious Communities in Meghalaya

Meghalaya is one of the prosperous states in the North Eastern region of India. Before Meghalaya was separated from Assam in the early 1970’s, its leading city, Shillong, was the capital of the er...

by S.K. Mishra | On 10 May 2011

Corporate Social Responsibility Redefined: A Case Study from an Educational Institution

An essential component of corporate social responsibility is to care for the community - an endeavor to make a positive contribution to the community by supporting a wide range of socio-economic, educ...

by S. Kumudhavalli | On 09 May 2011

Book Review: Distance Education: A Growing Sector in Asia

Review of Policy and Practice in Asian Distance Edited by Belawati Tiawati and Baggaley Jon Education, Sage, Publications, India 2010, 260 pages, Rs. 650/-

by Madhu Parhar | On 06 May 2011

Toward Results-Based Social Policy Design and Implementation

This paper analyzes some of the elements that cause the apparent perception in the realm of social policy, and in particular in the case of poverty alleviation and education policies in developing ...

by Miguel Székely | On 02 May 2011

Targeting and Distribution of Post-Tsunami Aid in Sri Lanka : A Critical Appraisal

In this study, two types of aid transfers - boats and houses are examined- that were made to rehabilitate tsunami-affected fishery households in Sri Lanka. The goal is to investigate the distributio...

by Asha Gunawardena | On 20 Apr 2011

National Youth Policy 2010 (NYP 2010)

The NYP 2010 is a step forward from the earlier Policy formulated in 1988 and, later, in 2003. It reaffirms commitment of the nation to the holistic development of the young people of the country....

by Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs YAS | On 19 Apr 2011

An Alternative to Conventional Public Water Service: "User Group Networks" in a Mumbai Slum

This article is a research on the water services available in north eastern parts of Mumbai. It aims as highlighting the ability of communities to design and run functional systems to overcome the sho...

by Rémi de BERCEGOL | On 08 Apr 2011

On The Optimal Coordination Of Uninformed Agents by an Informed Principal

They consider organizations with a single principal and many agents who interact in an environment with the following features: (a) Nature imperfectly informs the principal via a state-contingent si...

by Sudhir A. Shah | On 30 Mar 2011

Socio-Economic and Ecological Benefits of Mangrove Plantation: A Study of Community Based Mangrove Restoration Activities in Gujarat

A comprehensive assessment of the multiple benefits of mangrove ecosystems and their restoration efforts in Gujarat is made. The study is important and contextual as there are very limited empirical...

by P.K. Viswanathan | On 29 Mar 2011

Foretelling the Mekong: Key Findings of the MRC’s Strategic Environmental Assessment on Mekong Mainstream Dams

With 11 large hydropower dams proposed to block the Lower Mekong River’s mainstream, the future of the river lies at a crossroads. To inform decision-making, in October 2010, the Mekong River Commiss...

by International Rivers Network IRN | On 29 Mar 2011

Globalization and the Women’s Movement in India

From the early 1990s, the principal economic, social and political problems experienced by the mass of Indian women have, in one way or another, become inextricably linked with the processes and pol...

by Centre for Women's Development Studies | On 28 Mar 2011

Ban on Employment of Children in Domestic Sector, Dhabas and Eateries

The social audit aimed at reflecting questions such as what has the ban resulted in, what steps have been taken to make it effective, is there any visible change in the attitudes of the people in i...

by HAQ Centre for Child Rights HAQCRC | On 25 Mar 2011

Union-Firm Bargaining Under Alternative Pay Schemes: Does Performance Related Pay Fair Better?

This paper compares and contrasts equilibrium outcomes under right-to-manage bargaining (RTM) and efficient bargaining (EB) corresponding to two alternative pay schemes, fixed wage vis-a-vis piece-r...

by Rupayan Pal | On 22 Mar 2011

Social and Economic Policies to Prevent Complex Humanitarian Emergencies Lessons from Experience

In simple language and with numerous concrete examples, this policy brief analyses the impact - among others - of key ex-ante factors such as acute 'horizontal inequality' between social groups in the...

by Jeni Klugman | On 22 Mar 2011

Political Economy of Tribal Development: A Case Study of Andhra Pradesh

The paper delineates the situation of the Scheduled Tribes in the background of various policies of the state during the successive plan periods and its impact on their socio-economic mobility. Pol...

by M. Gopinath Reddy | On 16 Mar 2011

Cambodia enters the WTO: Lessons learned for Least Developed Countries

The Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia applied for accession to the World Trade Organization in October 1994. At its meeting on 21 December 1994, the Preparatory Committee for the WTO establishe...

by Sok Siphana | On 16 Mar 2011

Poverty Targeting in Asia: Experiences from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, People’s Republic of China and Thailand

Poverty targeting, defined as the use of policy instruments to channel resources to a target group identified below an agreed national poverty line, is used by all governments in Asia in one form or...

by John Weiss | On 11 Mar 2011

Book Review: Search for Identities: Dalits and Tribal Christians in India

Review of: Margins of Faith: Dalit and Tribal Christianity in India, Edited by Rowena Robinson & Joseph Marianus Kunjur; Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2010, 295 pages, Rs.695/

by Hemali Sanghavi | On 09 Mar 2011

Of Education, Politics and Ideology

This interview-based article elaborates on the evolving education and political scenario in a small town of Madhya Pradesh and reflects on issues that have influenced it over at least three generation...

by Rinchin Rinchin | On 04 Mar 2011

An Ethnobiography of Teyyam Performance from a Practitioner’s Perspective

Rajesh Komath gives a description the conflicts between his socio-material position as a Teyyam performer, and persona/personality as a student of economics.

by Smriti Vohra | On 26 Feb 2011

National Programme for the Health Care of the Elderly-Better Late than Never

While there are many path-breaking elements in the Programme document, the stress is on a top down programme that leaves little room for accommodating regional needs. Nor is there much emphasis on enc...

by Syam Prasad | On 15 Feb 2011

Does Management Matter? Evidence from India

A long standing question in social science is to what extent differences in management cause differences in firm performance. To investigate this we ran a management field experiment on large Indian t...

by Nicholas Bloom | On 14 Feb 2011

Resolutions of the Sixth Session of the First Parliament of Bhutan

The following bills were resolved to be passed with corrections: The Child Care and Protection Bill; Penal Code Amendment Bill; Anti Corruption Act 2010; and others

by Jigme Tshultim | On 08 Feb 2011

Children's Rights to be Heard in Judicial Process in India

This submission to the UNCRC Committee is primarily addressing the right to be heard in judicial processes. It analyses the space available within the legal system that ensures that children are giv...

by HAQ Centre for Child Rights HAQCRC | On 07 Feb 2011

Before the Deluge: Coping with Floods in a Changing Climate

Improving our ability to cope with floods under current and future climates requires adopting a more sophisticated set of techniques -- the "soft path" of flood risk management, which aims to understa...

by International Rivers Network IRN | On 31 Jan 2011

Rising Food Crisis and Financial Crisis in India:Impact on Women and Children and Ways of Tackling the Problem

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of rising food prices and financial crisis on the impact of women and children in India. It identifies the pathways for dealing with the effects of...

by S. Mahendra Dev | On 31 Jan 2011

Conceptualising Social Security And Income Redistribution

This paper offers a conceptualisation of social security and income redistribution schemes which highlights the strong overlaps between the two. Indeed, it is virtually impossible to disentangle the t...

by Ravi Kanbur | On 27 Jan 2011

Voluntary Contribution in the Field: An Experiment in the Indian Himalayas

In this paper is a study of trend of voluntary contribution for community services in the Indian Himalayan region. The study is done by using an experimental game method of face-to-face communication...

by Sujoy Chakravarty | On 25 Jan 2011

Exclusion and Poverty: An Analytical Approach for Understanding Exclusion and Assessing Programmes Targeting the Very Poor in Bangladesh

Exclusion is a term that comes up often in association with poverty, social welfare and social injustice. Development interventions are designed with some notion of benefiting or including the exclu...

by Sajjad Zohir | On 18 Jan 2011

Revisiting Matlab: Repeat Survey 1999

Linkage between socioeconomic development and improved health and well-being has been a matter of growing interest among social scientists and development practitioners, especially the processes and...

by Syed Masud Ahmed | On 14 Jan 2011

Environmental Literacy and NGOs: Experience from the Microcredit Based Social Forestry Program of Proshika in Bangladesh

This study assesses the impact of participation in the social forestry program of Proshika on the environmental literacy of participating households in Bangladesh. Proshika--a non-governmental organiz...

by Md. Jahangir Alam Chowdhury | On 13 Jan 2011

Socioeconomic Divides in Tuberculosis Control: Study of Smear-Positive TB Prevalence, Care Seeking Behaviour and Role of Informal Healthcare Providers

The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has intensified the implementation of the directly observed treatment, short-course (DOTS) strategy with the primary aims (i) to detect and treat at least 70% of T...

by Fazlul Karim | On 12 Jan 2011

Joint Forest management, Role of Communication, and Harvesting Behavior: Evidence from Field Experiments in India

There has been much interest recently in promoting decentralization in the forestry sector in the belief that it would bring in downward accountability, which in turn would ensure economic efficiency,...

by Rucha Ghate | On 06 Jan 2011

Pentavalent and other New Combination Vaccines: Solutions in Search of Problems

The pentavalent vaccine and many other combination vaccines waiting to enter Universal immunization Programme (UIP) have brought into sharp focus the gaping gap between lofty slogans of ‘evidence ba...

by Y Madhavi | On 05 Jan 2011

The Experience of a Low Cost Diagnostic Centre (RAHAT NIDAN KENDRA ): Basic Diagnostic Services in Radiology and Pathology

The presentation sensitizes service givers in Voluntary Organizations (VOs) that it is possible to be financially viable if you provide services at 50% the market rates (in diagnostics) even if Consul...

by Nimitta Bhatt | On 05 Jan 2011

An Approach to Communication and Social Change: How Communications Can Build Social Capital for the Ultra Poor

BRAC’s Advocacy and Human Rights Unit (BAHRU) has developed a social communications programme that goes beyond traditional approaches of marketing communications. The goal of the programme is long-t...

by Jeneviève Mann ell | On 03 Jan 2011

The Impact of Asset Transfer on Livelihoods of the Ultra Poor in Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s progress in economic growth and extensive social protection interventions have contributed to a reduction in the headcount poverty rate of around 1.5 percentage points a year since the ...

by Akhter U. Ahmed | On 03 Jan 2011

Explaining Threshold Effects of Globalization on Poverty: An Institutional Perspective

The paper focuses on the non-linearity of the transmission of the impact of globalization on poverty and the existence of threshold effects. Institutions constitute a critical factor for the creatio...

by Alice Sindzingre | On 31 Dec 2010

Formation of Village Organizations: The First Three Months

This study looked at the process of forming of Village Organizations (VOs) by BRAC. BRAC organizes the poor by initiating the institution building process through which the formation of VOs takes pl...

by Manzurul Mannan | On 29 Dec 2010

Exploring Changes in the Lives of BRAC Women: A Gender Perspective

In Bangladesh, patriarchal norms, ideology and social institutions shape women's role and status in the society. Within this patriarchal system, some forces like NGOs may affect the relationship bet...

by Amina Mahbub | On 23 Dec 2010

From Invalidation and Segregation to Recognition and Integration: Contemporary State Responses to Disability in India

This paper traces the engagement of the Indian state with the issue of disability over the past three decades as a discourse of charity and welfare gives way to one of equality and human rights. Using...

by Renu Addlakha | On 22 Dec 2010

Guidelines for Health Professionals in Responding to Women Facing Violence

This is a guidelines for health professionals on methods and need of counseling and helping the victims of violence.

by ... CEHAT | On 20 Dec 2010

The State of the World's Children: Celebrating 20 Years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (henceforth referred to as ‘the Convention’) was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 November 1989 and entered into force on 2 September 1990. It is t...

by United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF | On 17 Dec 2010

Repayment Incentives and the Distribution of Gains from Group Lending

Group loans with joint liability have been a distinguishing feature of many micro nance programs. While such lending has bene tted millions of borrowers, major lending insti- tutions have acknowledg...

by Jean-Marie Baland | On 17 Dec 2010

Negotiating Placeness:Tribal Communities in Western Ghats

The paper discuses the differences tribals and government have in understanding of and perception about the forest. It also discuses the outcomes of these differences.

by M. Suresh | On 15 Dec 2010

NGOs’ Strategies and the Challenge of Development and Democracy in Bangladesh

The paper argues that while Bangladesh is reported to have more NGOs per capita than other developing countries, those organisations have gradually abandoned social mobilising and collective action...

by Naila Kabeer | On 14 Dec 2010

ICT for Social Development: Some Experiences and Observations

It is widely acknowledged that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have potential to play a vital role in social development. Several projects have attempted to adopt these technologies t...

by T.P. Rama Rao | On 07 Dec 2010

E-Commerce and Digital Divide: Impact on Consumers

This paper discusses the concerns on the digital divide and illustrates, through case studies, how the recent developments in the Information and Communication Technology can be gainfully employed in...

by T.P. Rama Rao | On 03 Dec 2010

A Study of Children Dependent on Prostitutes in Selected Areas of Uttar Pradesh

Many studies simply demonstrate that there is paucity of empirical data, research findings and literature on the status of children dependent on prostitutes in Uttar Pradesh. Thus, it is imperative...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 02 Dec 2010

Census of Castes

The present system of making Census has many advantages such as, taking stock of Indian situation with detailed data regarding the wide diversity of our people and the finding of conditions of life ha...

by Rajesh Komath | On 01 Dec 2010

Formal Bureaucracy and the Emergent Forms of the Informal Economy

The following essay has three parts. The first is a story about fluctuations in the balance of the relationship between impersonal and personal principles of social organization. This draws heavi...

by Keith Hart | On 01 Dec 2010

Contemporary lessons in Economic Philosophy drawn from two recent Indian Films

The aim of this paper is to derive some important lessons in economic philosophy from two recent Indian films. The two films, Mani Ratnam’s Guru (2007) and Madhur Bhandarkar’s Corporate (2006), are...

by Tejas A Desai | On 29 Nov 2010

Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: What Is the Relationship? What Can Be Done?

The paper studies the relation between globalization, inequality and marginalization, within and across nations. It reviews the existing evidence on globalization and global inequality and argues,...

by Kaushik Basu | On 29 Nov 2010

Developing Incentive Based Mechanisms for Watershed Protection Services through Participatory Hydrological Studies

Peoples’ Science Institute (PSI), Dehradun and Winrock International India (WII), Gurgaon jointly initiated participatory hydrological studies in two micro-catchments that is, the Bhodi-Suan and Kuhan...

by Rajesh Gupta | On 26 Nov 2010

Thailand’s Commercial Banks’ Role in Financing Dams in Laos and the Case for Sustainable Banking

This paper puts forward the case for Thailand’s commercial banks to move towards more sustainable banking practices that proactively contribute towards socially and environmentally sustainable and j...

by Carl Middleton | On 25 Nov 2010

India's Twelfth Finance Commission:A View from Kerala

The focus of the paper is to review the Terms of Reference (TOR) of the Twelfth Finance Commission with special reference to Kerala. It also critically examines the emphasis on fiscal deficit reduct...

by K. P. Kannan | On 18 Nov 2010

Social Responsibility of Indian Microfinance: A Critical Review

This paper discusses the issue of social responsibility of Indian microfinance using two theoretical streams from business social responsibility research – stakeholder theory and social contract the...

by Tara S Nair | On 15 Nov 2010

A Social Cost Approach to Choice at Technology in Building Construction

This pager is an attempt to apply the technique of social cost-benefit analysis to the problem of choice of technology in building construction in Kerala. [Working Paper No. 030]

by K. P. Kannan | On 10 Nov 2010

The Asian Development Bank Loan for Kerala (India): The Adverse Implications and Search for Alternatives

The privileging of internal resources over external finance is not only the most democratic but also the most politically desirable option. The implications of the ADB loan for Kerala is situated ag...

by K. Ravi Raman | On 09 Nov 2010

Does Partial Privatization Improve the Environment?

This paper shows that, in case of differentiated products mixed duopoly, environmental damage increases (decreases) with the level of privatization, if the level of privatization is less (more) than ...

by Rupayan Pal | On 03 Nov 2010

The Welfare Fund Model of Social Security for Informal Sector Workers: The Kerala Experience

This paper examines the evolution of the institution of ‘Welfare Funds’ for informal sector workers in the State of Kerala in India. The Kerala experience, which is now thirty years old, reflects wh...

by K. P. Kannan | On 25 Oct 2010

Government Structure and Labour Market Outcomes in Garment Embellishment Chains

The perspective of global commodity chain or GCC framework and social embeddedness are used to understand the organizational and social linkages in the embellishment production network in garment i...

by Jeemol Unni | On 21 Oct 2010

Accelerating Economic Growth and Reducing Poverty: The Road Ahead

It outlines the broad framework and the strategy for poverty reduction based on four pillars: (a) accelerating economic growth while maintaining the macroeconomic stability; (b) improving the govern...

by Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan, | On 19 Oct 2010

Emerging Market Economies Leading Global Growth

The three issues laid out in today’s agenda are particularly relevant at this juncture and how we answer them in the months ahead will determine how the world regains and then sustains economic grow...

by Duvvuri Subbarao | On 18 Oct 2010

A Diagnostic Study of Wives Deserted by NRIs

There is an urgent need to study the social compulsions/ factors that lead parents to marry off their daughters to NRIs who ruin their lives completely. It is also to be examined whether any safeguard...

by M.K. Jabbi | On 13 Oct 2010

Social Identity and Inequality: The Impact of China's Hokou System

They conduct an experimental study to investigate the causal impact of social identity on individuals' response to economic incentives. They focus on China‟s decades old household registration...

by Farzana Afridi | On 08 Oct 2010

Decent Work and the Informal Economy

The ILO was founded for social justice, a mandate expressed today in terms of decent work as a global goal, for all who work, whether in formal or informal contexts. In June 2002, the delegates to...

by Anne Trebilcock | On 08 Oct 2010

Developing Asia’s Competitive Advantage in Green Products: Learning from the Japanese Experience

Right now, governments around the world are spending record amounts of money to kick- start their economies in response to the financial crisis. Fortunately, a great opportunity exists for this fis...

by Fukuya Lino | On 06 Oct 2010

The Concept and Measurement of Group Inequality

The economist’s conceptualisation of inequality in terms of interpersonal distribution of income or wealth, and the tradition of measurement of inequality that follows from this conceptualisation ha...

by Achin Chakraborty | On 05 Oct 2010

Asia’s Role in the Global Financial Architecture

The global economic and financial landscape has been transformed over the past decade by the growing economic size and financial power of emerging economies. The new G20 summit process, which includes...

by Masahiro Kawai | On 05 Oct 2010

Chronic Poverty and Social Conflict in Bihar

Chronic poverty trends cannot be examined without considering the impact of various social conflicts afflicting a region. It is true that all forms of poverty cannot be explained by conflicts as much...

by N.R. Mohanty | On 04 Oct 2010

Social Ties and the Job Search of Recent Immigrants

This paper is an attempt to fill the knowledge of the role played by network in the labor market assimilation of immigrants and the mechanisms through which networks affect the labor market outcomes o...

by Deepti Goel | On 30 Sep 2010

Wage Determination in a Casual Labour Market: The Case of Paddy Field Labour in Kerela

The wage rate in s casual labour market, paddy field labour, is estimated from a reduced form version of a supply and demand model after incorporating literacy, caste and the degree of m...

by K. Pushpangadan | On 27 Sep 2010

Social Protection is Centuries-Old!

In spite of continued growth, millions of Ugandans remain in long-term, extreme poverty. They are also likely to continue being by-passed by the opportunities that economic growth offers, mostly to th...

by John De Coninck | On 24 Sep 2010

The Structure of Labour Process

The objective of this paper is to give a rigorous and systematic conceptualization of Labour process which could provide a definite view point or approach to the study of evolution of social technolog...

by D. Narayana | On 24 Sep 2010

About Geography of Health: Reflections on Concepts and Relevant Techniques

Present study illustrates and collates the conceptual bases, methodology and findings of some relevant case studies dealing with Health Care in Maharashtra in the 1980s to illustrate the situations of...

by Smita Gandhi | On 23 Sep 2010

Implications of Global Crisis: Integrate Sustainability with Organizational Culture

Sustainability is an issue of escalating importance as a result of structural changes of organizations which are consolidating, downsizing, merging and outsourcing as well as due to the increasing c...

by Indu Rao | On 23 Sep 2010

Causation, Economic Efficiency and the Law of Torts

In standard models dealing with liability rules, generally, the proportion of accident loss a party is required to bear does not depend upon the 'causation' - the extent to which the care or lack of...

by Ram Singh | On 17 Sep 2010

Antievolution and the Transormation of American Social Science

For more than half a century, scholarly studies of the antievolution movement have been concerned almost exclusively with its influence on the teaching of the natural sciences, especially biology. Yet...

by Michael Lienesch | On 15 Sep 2010

An Ethnography of Associational Life: Caste and Politics in India

In 1956 Susanne Rudolph and I arrived in India for the first of many research years there. We were among the second batch of Ford Foundation Foreign Area Training Fellows. As area scholars we were com...

by Lloyd I. Rudolf | On 15 Sep 2010

Ayodhya: Masjid-Mandir Dispute: Towards Peaceful Solution

The present article examines the Babri Mazjid-Ram Janambhumi dispute. It analyzes background of the dispute, its perceptions and the path to peace and reconciliation in the future.

by Ram Puniyani | On 15 Sep 2010

Human Dilemma of Technological Progress: Women, Technology and Employment

Science and technology have continuously enlarged the frontiers of human knowledge, growth and development. The issue which keeps surfacing time and again and needs to be addressed while planning ou...

by Kumud Sharma | On 15 Sep 2010

On Backwardness and Fair Access to Higher Education in India: Some Results from NSS 55th Round Surveys 1999-2000

Against the backdrop of policy of reservation of seats in Higher Education for the Other Backward Castes in India, this paper examines two inter-related yet distinct issues: (i) the use of economi...

by K. Sundaram | On 14 Sep 2010

How Much Should You Own? Cross-ownership and Privatization

This paper examines the interdependence of cross-ownership and level of privatization in case of differentiated products mixed duopoly. It shows that it is optimal for the private firm not to own any...

by Rupayan Pal | On 03 Sep 2010

Employee State Insurance: For a handful of contribution, a bagful of benefits

The paper is about the Employment State Insurance Act (ESIC). It analyzes two important questions i.e. what ESTA is and whether the ESIC in Delhi is catering to the needs of its employees.

by M Gopinath | On 02 Sep 2010

Experience of the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme: are there lessons for NREGS?

This paper notes that while the NREGS has potential to reduce the intensity of poverty for the large mass of rural poor, the number of days of work provided and the level of the wage rate remain criti...

by Amita Shah | On 17 Aug 2010

Do Professionals Choke Under Pressure?

High rewards or the threat of severe punishment do not only provide incentives to exert high levels of effort but also create pressure. Such pressure can cause paradoxical performance effects, namel...

by Thomas J. Dohmen | On 06 Aug 2010

An Examination of the Relationship between Health and Economic Growth

This paper attempts to examine the relationship between health and economic growth. The rate of growth is measured using gross national income (GNI) and health status is measured using infant mortalit...

by Garima Malik | On 04 Aug 2010

Addressing Extreme Poverty in a Sustainable Manner: Evidence from CFPR programme

BRAC initiated an innovative programme known as Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction (CFPR) in 2002 to address the extreme poverty in Bangladesh. Impact assessment studies on the first pha...

by Narayan C Das | On 02 Aug 2010

Survey Of State-Society Relations Social Indicators Research Project Executive Summary Report

The executive summary reports on major findings from a survey conducted among a random sample of 1,054 Singaporeans and Permanent Residents aged 18 to 65. Focus is on views of public policies in thr...

by Ooi Giok Ling | On 29 Jul 2010

Comparative Vigilance

A growing body of literature suggests that courts and juries are inclined toward division of liability between two strictly non-negligent or “vigilant” parties. However, standard models of liability r...

by Allan M. Feldman | On 20 Jul 2010

Not a matter of choice

This editorial questions whether the two values freedom and liberty can come together?

by T.N. Ninan | On 19 Jul 2010

Who Participates in Higher Education in India? Rethinking the Role of Affirmative Action

This paper explores how socio-economic, especially socio-religious affiliations, and demographic characteristics of individuals influence participation in higher education (HE). It argues that ap...

by Rakesh Basant | On 16 Jul 2010

Intellectual Property Rights: Who Needs Them?

The twenty-first century will be the century of knowledge, indeed the century of the intellect. A nation’s ability to translate knowledge into wealth and social good through innovations will determi...

by Garima Gupta | On 24 Jun 2010

Analysis of Internet Patenting Strategies of E-commerce Firms

Patents and patent applications are important indicators of innovative activity in industrial R & D, especially in areas such as Information Technology (IT), where technology growth is rapid. Within...

by Biju Paul Abraham | On 22 Jun 2010

How Does a Single Professional Issue Become Social Movement Discourse? Case of Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan

This paper explores the modification of a discourse in the context of emergence of social movement from a single issue professional campaign through a framework of Habermasian communicative action the...

by Muhammad Anwar | On 22 Jun 2010

Communication and Power: The State of Research

Given the increasingly confusing proliferation of models for communication research, documentation of some of the differences that exists have been done. There are a number of ways to divide the terr...

by Biswajit Das | On 22 Jun 2010

Women and Sustainable development

In this paper there is an attempt to bring in some theoretical analysis on the development process and women's roles in it as seen and advocated by the women's movements and later on by the State and...

by Aleyamma Vijayan | On 22 Jun 2010

Theun-Hinboun: Expanding Failure

The Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project – a dam and diversion project under construction in Central Laos – violates the Equator Principles and Lao law, according to this report. It documents how Lao villa...

by Ikuko Matsumoto | On 17 Jun 2010

After 7 years of 8.3%

This editorial piece talks about the changing scenario of India's Economic Growth. There was a time when the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) would look with mild disdain at an India th...

by T.N. Ninan | On 14 Jun 2010

Providing Microfinance and Social Space to Empower Adolescent Girls: An Evaluation of BRAC’s ELA Centres

Lately there has been a surge in the variety of approaches to assist the adolescents, specially the girls, in building up their lives and livelihoods. With financial assistance from Nike Foundation,...

by Rizwana Shahnaz | On 10 Jun 2010

Provoking Thought, Changing Talk: Discussing Inequality

This occasional publication series is part of the Social Equity and Opportunity Forum in the Dean’s Office of the College of Urban and Public Affairs. Directed by Janet Hammer, Ph.D., the Forum emph...

by Joseph Grady | On 10 Jun 2010

Social Capital and State-Civil Society Relations in Singapore

This paper shows that the realization of Singapore’s vision of “active citizenship” and “state-society partnership”, to a significant extent, depends on how social capital is being created and renew...

by Tan Tay Keong | On 09 Jun 2010

A Perspective on Fisheries Sector Interventions for Livelihood Promotion

The ultimate goal of this paper is to derive inspiration from Coase Theorem and the Japanese model of Keiretsu to empower the producers and suppliers of fish – namely, the fisher folk and to place the...

by Samar K. Datta | On 09 Jun 2010

Measuring Discrimination in Education

In this paper, a methodology to measure discrimination in educational contexts is illustrated. In India, exam competition is run through which children compete for a large financial prize and teachers...

by Rema Hanna | On 08 Jun 2010

Commercialisation of Microfinance in India: A Discussion on the Emperor’s Apparel

The paper looks at the growth and commercialization of microfinance in India. It starts out be looking at how the commercial microfinance has evolved internationally by discussing two specific ex...

by M S Sriram | On 08 Jun 2010

Affordability to Finance Poverty Reduction Programmes

This paper addresses the question of affordability to finance poverty reduction programs in a dynamic context. In doing so, it stresses the need for approaching the problem from a human rights perspec...

by Omar Haider Chowdhury | On 04 Jun 2010

Gender Development Indicators: Issues, Debates and Ranking of Districts

The present study emphasizes on independent variable analysis in assessing gender development at the disaggregated district level to account for problems such as the major contradiction facing this c...

by Preet Rustagi | On 03 Jun 2010

School Educational Attainment in Kerela: Trends and Differentials

This paper examines the trends and differentials in school educational attainment in Kerala, the State that ranks right on top in terms of human development in India. The trend analysis is based on...

by T.R. Dilip | On 02 Jun 2010

The Economics of Adaptation to Extreme Weather Events in Developing Countries

Without a better understanding of the interactions between international players, households and public sector, it will be difficult for climate negotiators and donor institutions to determine the...

by Brian Blankespoor | On 01 Jun 2010

Do Reservation Policies Affect Productivity In The Indian Railways?

The objective in this paper is to shed some empirical light on a claim often made by critics of affirmative action policies: that increasing the representation of members of marginalized communities i...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 26 May 2010

The EU-India FTA in Services and Possible Gender Impact in India: Concern Areas

This paper studies the impact of services trade liberalization under the currently negotiated EU-India FTA on women’s lives in India and tries to delineate the concern areas. Relevant sectors of int...

by Ranja Sengupta | On 25 May 2010

Short-Run Subsidies and Long-Run Adoption of New Health Products: Evidence from a Field Experiment

This paper is about a field experiment which was designed to estimate the relative importance of competing effects of targeted subsidies for health products. It has been found out that, for a health...

by Pascaline Dupas | On 25 May 2010

Cultures of Transport: Representation, Practice and Technology

It is argue that the so-called cultural‘ (and spatial‘) turn that has remodelled so many other areas of the humanities and social sciences over the last two decades might help answer Armstrong‘s plea...

by Colin Divall | On 21 May 2010

Can Social Security Boost Domestic Consumption in the People’s Republic of China?

This paper reviews the development of the social security system and trends in the urban labor market in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite its remarkable economic achievement, the PRC face...

by Wang Dewen | On 20 May 2010

Book Review: Of Space and 'Spatialities'

Review of Spatialising Politics: Culture and Geography in Postcolonial Sri Lanka. Catherine Brun and Tariq Jazeel (Editors). Sage Publications, New Delhi; 2009, 260 pp, Rs. 695.

by Anandi Dantas | On 04 May 2010

Technologies, Rules, and Progress: The Case for Charter Cities

The principal constraint to raising living standards in this century will come neither from scarce resources nor limited technologies. Rather it will come from our limited capacity to discover and i...

by Paul Romer | On 12 Apr 2010

Education Impact Study: The Global Recession and the Capacity of Colleges and Universities to Serve Vulnerable Populations in Asia

This paper reviews the capacity of colleges and universities to serve poor and vulnerable populations during past and present economic shocks. The main argument is that the environment of the global r...

by Gerard Postiglione | On 12 Apr 2010

Railway Budget 2010-11

Railway Budget 2010-11.

by Mamata Banerjee | On 25 Feb 2010

Globalisation Lived Locally: New Forms of Control, Conflict and Response Among Labour in Kerala, Examined Through a Labour Geography Lens

With the support of the labour geography framework, this study tries to analyse how the economic geography of capitalism is shaped by the spatial practices of labour. The model that is taken up is n...

by Neethi P | On 22 Feb 2010

What Determines the Success and Failure of ‘100 Days Work’ at the Panchayat Level? A Study of Birbhum District in West Bengal

West Bengal is not among the best performing states with regard to NREGA. The performance of all districts in the state is not equally discouraging. Some districts, in fact, have done well in gener...

by Subrata Mukherjee | On 19 Feb 2010

Escaping Chronic Poverty Through Economic Growth

The paper discusses the participation of poor participate in growth, and how different forms of growth connect to poverty. Also the paper discusses important policy levers, in relation to agriculture,...

by Chronic Poverty Research Centre CPRC | On 18 Feb 2010

Many Worlds of Dak Vachan: Proverbial Knowledge and the History of Rain and Weather

This paper is about deconstructing the middle class perception of the domain of the ‘folk’ in this region. With these questions, the paper sets out an agenda for writing the history of rain and weat...

by Sadan Jha | On 16 Feb 2010

Understanding Untouchability: A Comrehensive Study of Practices and conditions in 1589 villages

To date, the tools used to assessthe status of untouchability have been divided by discipline—human rights, legal and social science. Although significant contributions toward understanding untouchabi...

by David Armstrong | On 05 Feb 2010

Negotiating the Terms of A New Social Contract: Private Companies, Civil Society and the State in India

A detailed analysis of the stakes and dynamics at play in the public, civil and self-regulation of companies in India is offered. With the rapid growth and modernization of the country as the backdro...

by Damien Krichewsky | On 02 Feb 2010

Social Business: A Step Toward Creating a New Economic and Social Order

The concept of social business flows from a firm conviction that profit or benefit is not the only motivating factor for an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur can also be motivated by social goals and e...

by Mohammad Yunus | On 27 Jan 2010

Identity Formation, Nationhood and Women An Overview of Issues

The essay is begun with a reference to a television programme on one of the Hindi news channels - titled Burqe me Atankvad which was telecast sometime in mid-2005. The complex and turmoil-ridden and ...

by Vasanthi Raman | On 21 Jan 2010

Who Owns Children and Does It Matter?

In this paper a particular market failure that may lead to inefficiently low equilibrium fertility and therefore to a need for government intervention are analysed. The friction which is investigated...

by Alice Schoonbroodt | On 18 Jan 2010

Social Security Nets for Marine Fisheries

This paper attempts to explain the provision of social security in the fisheries sector of Kerala State in south India. It enumerates the salient achievements and the problems faced by the state in pr...

by John Kurien | On 14 Jan 2010

Rethinking Food Security Policies: IDSAsr Declaration

Declaration made at the end of two days national seminar on Food security and Sustainability in India held on November 7-8, 2009 organized by GAD Institute of Development Studies, PO Naushera, Amritsa...

by Gursharan Singh Kainth | On 14 Dec 2009

Women’s Experience in New Panchayats: The Emerging Leadership of Rural Women

This paper presents some of the findings of our recent study on women’s representation and participation in panchayats. Some of the findings of the study (Buch; 1999) of women in panchayats after the...

by Nirmala Buch | On 04 Dec 2009

Literacy Traps: Society-wide Education and Individual Skill Premia

Using a model of O-ring production function, the paper demonstrates how certain communities can get caught in a low-literacy trap in which each individual finds it not worthwhile investing in higher...

by Vidya Atal | On 01 Dec 2009

Delivering (sustainable) Services on Scale : Anywhere

This paper addresses issues related to public private partnerships that can enable delivery of comprehensive health care to rural communities.

by Prachi Shukla | On 25 Nov 2009

Muslim Women’s Rights Discourse in the Pre independece Period

The present paper deals with the discourse of the rights of Muslim women in the pre- independence period with particular reference to the Shariat Act 1937 and the Muslim Marriage Dissolution Act 193...

by Sabiha Hussain | On 20 Nov 2009

Combining Data, Enhancing Explanation

In this paper the author analyzes the pros and cons of combining data from different sources to revisit some explanatory problems. The problems discussed have risen from a theoretical and analytic g...

by Sarah Irwin | On 18 Nov 2009

Effects of Court Errors on Efficiency of Liability Rules: When Individuals are Imperfectly Informed

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of court errors in estimating the harm, on the parties' behaviour regarding the levels of care they take, and their decision to buy the information about...

by Ram Singh | On 17 Nov 2009

Start With a Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health

Sheds light on the realities of girls' health and wellbeing in developing countries, on the links between the health of girls and the prospects for their families, and on the specific actions that wil...

by Miriam Temin | On 17 Nov 2009

Sustainable Urban Development In India: Some Issues

This paper aims at discussing some of the important issues relating to sustainable urban form that would lead to sustainable urban development with possible references to India. The paper is based on...

by Basudha Chattopadhyay | On 17 Nov 2009

Cost and Time Overruns in Infrastructure Projects: Extent, Causes and Remedies

Various issues related to delays and cost overruns in publically funded infrastructure projects are investigated. The study is based on, by far, the largest data-set of 850 projects across seventeen i...

by Ram Singh | On 11 Nov 2009

A Profession on the Margins: Status Issues in Indian Nursing

This joint paper attempts an unusual collaborative approach that offers an understanding of the problems that registered nurses of India have faced. Through this paper, the problem of ‘social status’...

by Sreelekha Nair | On 10 Nov 2009

Delegation and Emission Tax in a Differentiated Oligopoly

How product differentiation as well as strategic managerial delegation affects optimal emission tax rate, environmental damage and social welfare, under alternative modes of product market competiti...

by Rupayan Pal | On 04 Nov 2009

Intellectual Property Rights in Indian Agriculture

This paper distinguishes the Intellectual Property Rights relevant to agriculture and explain these rights. The international intellectual property law for these rights will be described. India's in...

by Jayashree Watal | On 03 Nov 2009

Coping with Rising Food Prices: Policy Dilemmas in the Developing World

Rising food prices cause considerable policy dilemmas for developing country governments. Letting domestic prices adjust to reflect the full change in international prices generates inflationary pres...

by Nora Lustig | On 09 Oct 2009

Concept Paper on Child Labour in India

This concept papers aims at demystifying some of these social, economic and political myths, and stimulate discussion, debate and deliberation on various aspects of child labour. This paper, further...

by Child Rights and You CRY | On 07 Oct 2009

Assessing the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Poverty

Fiscal policy measures are a key means by which governments can influence distribution and poverty, but in fact the relationships between fiscal policy and poverty are not well understood. The most c...

by Andrew McKay | On 05 Oct 2009

New Financiers and the Environment: Ten Perspectives on How Financial Institutions can Protect the Enviornment

This new report discusses the experience with environmental standards and how it can be useful for new financiers. It contains ten papers written by experts from civil society, financial institutions...

by International Rivers Network IRN | On 01 Oct 2009

Are Gender Differentials in Educational Capabilities Mediated through Institutions of Caste and Religion in India?

In this paper, with empirical data, the Capabilities Approach to identify 'conversion factors' that are not typically addressed in the utility approach is used. The two approaches are juxtaposed to...

by Jeemol Unni | On 01 Oct 2009

Position Paper of National Focus Group on Heritage Crafts

The paper says to incorporate the cultural, social, and creative attributes of craft into the educational system,through both theory and practice and also to ensure that craft is viewed as a professi...

by National Council of Educational Research &Training NCERT | On 22 Sep 2009

Survival Lessons Water Management Traditions in the Central-Western Himalayas

India is home to fantastic water harvesting traditions that have evolved over millennia. The central western Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are no exceptions to these traditions....

by People's Science Institute PSI | On 21 Sep 2009

A Social Cost Approach to Choice at Technology in Building Construction: A Study of Some Alternative Technologies in Kerala

This paper is an attempt to apply the technique of social cost - benefit analysis to the problem of choice of technology in building construction in Kerala. [WP No. 30].

by K P Kannan | On 21 Sep 2009

Chronic Poverty and Development Policy in Sri Lanka: Overview Study

The present study attempts to capture chronic poverty in Sri Lanka by examining general information on poverty and drawing conclusions on those who are likely to be among the chronic poor. Certain p...

by Indra Tudawe | On 17 Sep 2009

Child Protection A Handbook for Panchayat Members

This handbook on child protection will help Panchayat Raj members to understand the actions they can take to protect children resulting in better convergence of programmes and increased allocation of...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 16 Sep 2009

Progressive Social Change – Women’s Empowerment

The focus is on the social discrimination trap, which highlights the ways in which men and women’s, girls and boys’ experiences of poverty differ in important ways. It is also discussed how understand...

by Tim Braunholtz Speight | On 01 Sep 2009

WCD Thematic Review V.2:Contributing Paper: Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for Large Dams -Thematic Review from the Point of View of Developing Countries

It presents an overview of the theme based on the author’s experience on EIA in developing countries. In many of these countries, a holistic approach has been adopted to EIA requiring the consideratio...

by Iara Verocai | On 31 Aug 2009

Can ‘Beautiful’ Be ‘Backward’? India’s Tribes in a Long-Term Demographic Perspective

The paper examines the present condition of tribals in India with a demographic perspective. Construction of a long-term demographic perspective on India’s tribal population rests on the premise...

by Arup Maharatna | On 28 Aug 2009

Workbook on Life Skills

RGNIYD planned to develop a workbook on Life Skills which would help adolescents to both understand the concepts of the ten core Life Skills and practice them. The workbook has been carefully designed...

by Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Developme RGNIYD | On 19 Aug 2009

Six Strategies for Mixing Methods and Linking Data in Social Science Research

This paper is written as a practical and accessible guide to some key issues in mixed methods research. It explores six broad strategies that can underpin the mixing of methods and linking of differen...

by Jennifer Mason | On 12 Aug 2009

Technology, Financial Inclusion and Role of Urban Cooperative Banks

The focus should be to simplify the technology which can operate on any platform. The technology solution to the business needs should be user-friendly without much third-party or IT vendor interventi...

by Chakrabarty K C | On 11 Aug 2009

Incentives in Elementary Education - do They Make a Difference

This study tried to bring together the experiences of different approaches to incentives followed by six NGOs in the states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Issues deal...

by Vimala Ramachandran | On 11 Aug 2009

The Behavioral Equivalence of Organizational Culture

This paper presents findings from an extensive review of literature on organizational cultural (OC) and highlights the relevance of OC with respect to individual, organizational, intra-organizational...

by Indu Rao | On 10 Aug 2009

Conflict, Crisis, and Abuse in Dharavi, Mumbai: Experiences from Six Years at a Centre for Vulnerable Women and Children

Many victims of domestic violence go to hospitals, but interaction with doctors and nurses tended to stop at treatment for injuries. Engaging with the wider issues—emotional, psychiatric, social, and...

by Nayreen Daruwalla | On 29 Jul 2009

Marry for What? Caste and Mate Selection in Modern India

This paper studies the role played by caste, education and other social and economic attributes in arranged marriages among middle-class Indians. A unique data set on individuals who placed matrimon...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 28 Jul 2009

Unravelling Khulna Jessore Drainage Project

An analysis of the Asian Development Bank-funded Khulna Jessore Drainage Rehabilitation Project by the Bangladeshi NGO Uttaran.

by Shahidul Islam | On 24 Jul 2009

Migration and Chronic Poverty

This paper provides an overview of conceptual understandings of, and methodological research issues on, the relationship between chronic, or long-term, poverty and processes of migration. The paper...

by Uma Kothari | On 13 Jul 2009

Adding Insecurity to Live: Erratum Annual Report and Accounts: Unilever

The aim of this Erratum to the Annual report and Accounts, is to inform Unilever shareholders and other interested parties of the full story behind the good revenues and efficient restructuring pr...

by FNV Mondiaal FNV | On 12 Jun 2009

A Distributional Analysis of Social Group Inequality in Rural India

This paper examines the differences in welfare, as measured by per capita expenditure (PCE), between social groups in rural India across the entire welfare distribution. The paper establishes that the...

by Mehtabul Azam | On 11 Jun 2009

Anthropology and Bioethics: Linking Knowledge Production and Professional Regulation

The paper revolves around Anthropology and Ethical Guidelines: from a stand alone code to everyday disciplinary practice [NCRM]

by Maya Unnithan Kumar | On 06 Jun 2009

Initiatives of NGOs in Kutch Region

Many NGOs occupy a space between public and private sector organisations, and the papers in this special issue demonstrate that the mechanisms required for effective accountability by these NGOs are u...

by Kalpana C Satija | On 06 Jun 2009

Research Governance in Social Science and Social Care Research

The paper summarises the main ethical issues in social science and social care research. It outlines what is meant by research governance, especially as set out in the Department of Health Research Go...

by Jan Pahl | On 05 Jun 2009

An inquiry into the regulation of pharmaceuticals and medical practice in Sri Lanka

The study brings out several organizational, social, cultural and political constraints, which hinder effective implementation of regulations. Lack of human resources and skills, poor allocations, del...

by Nimal Attanayake | On 04 Jun 2009

The Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Malaria: A Review of the Literature

Malaria is frequently referred to as a disease of the poor or a disease of poverty. A better understanding of the linkages between malaria and poverty is needed to guide the design of coherent and eff...

by Eve Worrall | On 03 Jun 2009

A Typology of Research Methods Within the Social Sciences

This paper discusses and develops a typology of research methods in the social sciences. Such a typology will be relevant for various aspects of the work of the ESRC National Centre for Research Metho...

by Gabriele Beissel Durrant | On 01 Jun 2009

Barso Mhare Des… Children's Perception of Drought

The chronic drought in Rajasthan affects everyone. But people are affected in different ways. This may be because of locality, form of livelihood, caste and class.This report carries the voices of gir...

by ECHO Save the Children (U.K) | On 31 May 2009

Trading our Way Out of the Financial Crisis: The Need for WTO Reform

In the context of the deepening global crisis that is pushing millions more women, children, and men into poverty in developing countries, development should be the centerpiece of reforming the global...

by Kevin P. Gallagher | On 29 May 2009

Cheery Children, Growing Girls, and Developing Young Adults: On Reading, Growing, and Hopscotching Across Categories

This paper is about hopscotching, and in turn jumps over many disciplinary categories, from literature to gender studies to development studies. At one level this is the voice of the interdisciplinary...

by Barnita Bagchi | On 29 May 2009

Effect of Mobiles on Socio-economic Life of Urban Poor

Using a survey of 1774 users and non-users in 84 slums in three metropolitan cities (Delhi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata), we try to understand the impact of mobiles on their social and economic lives. Urban...

by Ankur Sarin | On 27 May 2009

Performance and Development Effectiveness of the Sardar Sarovar Project

The study was undertaken with the objective to review and analyse the costs and benefits of the Sardar Sarovar Dam at this stage, when efforts are being made to complete the last leg of the dam, rai...

by Tata Institue of Social Sciences TISS | On 26 May 2009

Social Group Disparities and Poverty in India

This paper seeks to provide a profile of social group disparities and poverty in India,where social groups are classified as scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other social groups, and examine the f...

by Rohit Mutatkar | On 26 May 2009

Insecurities of the Old and Marginalized: Inflation, Oil Shocks, Financial Crisis and Social Security

The paper examines the impact of recent inflation and financial shocks on the vulnerable, and explores policy design to reduce both future shocks and vulnerability to shocks. Inflation affects the typ...

by Ashima Goyal | On 22 May 2009

Straddling Faultlines : India's Foreign Policy Toward The Great Middle East

India’s foreign policy has had an anomalous quality since the time Jawaharlal Nehru resolutely attempted to steer clear of Cold War alliances. This continues to be so given India’s unique situation of...

by Sushil J Aaron | On 21 May 2009

If Technology is like Word, Institutions are like Grammar: Institutional Context of Technological Innovations and Knowledge Systems at Grassroots

Many developing countries have taken interest in learning from the Honey Bee Network experience for replicating the model. In a UNESCO conference, the author was asked to identify the key steps that...

by Anil K Gupta | On 21 May 2009

Contextualizing The Urban Healthcare System - Methodology for Developing a Geodatabase of Delhi's Healthcare System.

This paper introduces the setting up of a Geographical Information System on Delhi for studies in the Social Sciences. Through an explaination of their methodological procedure and demonstration of t...

by Pierre Chapelet | On 20 May 2009

Social Movements and the Law in Post Colonial Hong Kong

Social movements in Hong Kong have begun to challenge the law and the judicial system for the purpose of challenging government policies or at least making their claims highly visible before the publi...

by | On 19 May 2009

Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2008: Addresing Triple Threats to Development

In 2008, three global crises converged to threaten development in the Asia-Pacific region, bringing to the fore particularly testing challenges for policymakers – a Great Recession in developed coun...

by Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific ESCAP | On 16 May 2009

Measurement of Employment And Unemployment in India : Some Issues

This paper offers a review of the concepts and definitions used in the NSS Employment-Unemployment Surveys (EUS, for short) which have remained virtually unchanged since they were introduced in the NS...

by K. Sundaram | On 15 May 2009

Managing Prolonged Low Fertility: The Case of Singapore

This paper analyzes Singapore’s multi-pronged approach to managing prolonged low fertility which has led to population aging, labor force shortages, increasing elderly dependency ratios, and feminizat...

by Mukul. G Asher | On 15 May 2009

Can Ethical Trade Certification Contribute to the Attainment of the Millennium Development Goals? A Review of Organic and Fair-trade Certification

The growth of ethical consumerism in developed countries has led to increased imports of environmentally and socially certified products produced by the poor in developing countries, which could poten...

by Sununtar Setboonsarng | On 13 May 2009

Gender and Innovation in South Asia

To understand how gender, women’s rights and citizenship intersect with innovation in SouthAsia, one must begin by considering some of the main features of life for South Asian women, about a half of...

by Sujata Byravan | On 06 May 2009

You Can Get There From Here..

This inaugural piece addresses a fundamental problem of communication – how to effectively talk about an issue. It’s not as simple as it seems. Its always known that people did not always “hear” what...

by Joseph Grady | On 05 May 2009

Social Protection for Informal Workers: Insecurities, Instruments and Institutional Mechanisms

This paper presents a broad definition of social protection to include basic securities, such as income, food, health and shelter, and economic securities including having income generating productive...

by Jeemol Unni | On 01 May 2009

Sharing Traditinal Knowledge for Commerce-the Power of Bargaining Strength

The paper is motivated by concerns about the depletion of traditional knowledge and recent efforts to preserve this knowledge through commercial use. The study looks at incentives that can induce comp...

by Aparna K Bhagirathi | On 30 Apr 2009

Perinatal and Neonatal Mortality in Rural Punjab A Community Based Case-Control Study

The study aimed at identifying social and biomedical risk factors attributable to perinatal and neonatal mortality (PN, NNM) in rural Punjab.

by Rohina Joshi | On 30 Apr 2009

Balika Shikshan Shivir, Lok Jumbish

Evaluations of Balika Shikshan Shivir of Lok Jumbish Rajasthan was carried out with the objective of capturing the tangible and intangible outcomes, areas of concern thrown up by this experience and...

by Vimala Ramachandran | On 29 Apr 2009

China’s Socialist Market Economy: Lessons for Democratic Developing Countries

The paper’s focus is on successful Chinese policies that can be emulated by other countries to an extent (within certain bounds) which mentined in the article. The author is not trying to draw lesson...

by Arvind Virmani | On 22 Apr 2009

'Mirakles' Do Happen!

A courier service entirely run and staffed by the deaf? Is it a workable idea? Here’s the remarkable story of just such a service surviving against all odds.

by Indira Gartenberg | On 18 Apr 2009

India – 1947-79 Six Parliaments and Democratic Rights

Communal riots have become an annual feature of Indian life, although their number varies from year to year. A situation has come to pacs where maddening communal violence, arbitrary actions of exe...

by People's Union for Democratic Rights PUDR | On 16 Apr 2009

Vote-Buying and Reciprocity

In this paper, how social preferences overcome the commitment problems implicit in vote-buying is examined. Data used for the study is a survey information on vote-buying experienced in a 2006 munici...

by Frederico Finan | On 03 Apr 2009

Contextualizing the Urban Healthcare System:Methodology for Developing a Geodatabase of Delhi's Healthcare System.

This paper introduces the setting up of a Geographical Information System on Delhi for studies in the Social Sciences.Through an explanation of their methodological procedure and demonstration of the...

by Pierre Chapelet | On 27 Feb 2009

Tamil Nadu Budget Speech 2009-10

Budget speech by Prof. Anbazhagan

by Tamil Nadu Government | On 24 Feb 2009

The State of the World's Children 2009

The State of the World’s Children 2009 focuses on maternal and neonatal health and identifies the interventions and actions that must be scaled up to save lives.

by United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF | On 13 Feb 2009

Governance in Public Transport Systems: Comparing Indian Railways and Airways

The paper examines the basic reasons and feasible remedies for organizational weakness, and the possible contribution of ownership, industry and management structure, leadership, social norms, and i...

by Ashima Goyal | On 12 Feb 2009

Al Qaeda in the West as a Youth Movement: The Power of a Narrative

In recent years there has been a strong focus on ‘Islamic radicalisation’ in Europe, due both to the threat of terrorism and its security implications, and to the issue of integrating second generat...

by Olivier Roy | On 22 Jan 2009

Thinking 'Small' and the Understanding of Poverty: Maymana and Mofizul's Story

Much recent thinking on poverty and poverty reduction is ‘big’ in terms of its ideas, units of analysis, datasets, plans and ambitions. While recognising some of the benefits of such approaches this p...

by David Hulme | On 21 Jan 2009

Homelessness is not just a Housing Problem

Political will, imaginative and collaborative solutions from across the spectrum of health and social care providers are needed to address the needs of homeless individuals.

by Plos medicine Editors | On 06 Jan 2009

Development of What? An Exposition of the Politics of Development Economics

The present paper aims at driving home a hitherto-neglected and perhaps often muted (but important) point, namely, that the confusions and identity crisis that had gripped development economics in th...

by Arup Maharatna | On 31 Dec 2008

Gestational Surrogacy Contracts: Altruistic or Commercial ?

The paper provides an analytical structure to endogenize the optimal gestational surrogacy contract in terms of a simple moral hazard framework. The study shows that altruistic surrogacy is optimal...

by Swapnendu Banerjee | On 23 Dec 2008

Suggesting Effective Policy Frames for Chronic Poverty Alleviation in India

This is a continuation of an earlier paper (2005) by the author which dealt with policy implications based on the work done by CPRC in India. There is no map of chronic poverty in India, but have an a...

by N C B Nath | On 16 Dec 2008

Educational Reforms in India: Universalisation of Primary Education in Kerala

The history and evolution and the factors underlying the success of primary education in Kerala. [CDS WP 189].

by P R Gopinathan Nair | On 10 Dec 2008

Reporting on Violence: New Ideas for Television, Print and Web

This handbook gives information about violence like domestic or family violence and youth violence. It also provides suggestions to public health departments on the ways to deal with such crimes. Addi...

by Jane Ellen Stevens | On 04 Dec 2008

Inside the Family A Report on Democratic Rights of Women

The report highlights the following aspects: 1. the inability of the legal system to recognise the unique unequal , 2. position of women; 3. the perception of women as peripheral to economic develo...

by PUDR Peoples Union for Democratic Rights | On 01 Dec 2008

The Demand for Disadvantage

In a poor, growing economy with academic costs well below the market value of educational training, the tag of disadvantage has come to acquire value and, ironically, the desire for mobility has brou...

by Rohini Somanathan | On 18 Nov 2008

Untold Stories: The Human Face of Poverty Dynamics

The policy brief describes the life stories of five people, to show the face of human face of chronic poverty. It also suggests that such life history material can be an important source of data for p...

by Martin Prowse | On 11 Nov 2008

Developing a ‘Vertical’ Dimension to Chronic Poverty Research: Some Lessons from Global Value Chain Analysis

This paper aims at developing an explicit ‘vertical’ dimension to chronic poverty research that focuses on ‘adverse incorporation and social exclusion’ (AISE). an effort is made here to sensitise lite...

by Stefano Ponte | On 31 Oct 2008

Affective Cosmopolitanism Ashis Nandy’s Utopia

Ashish Nandy’s utopia is based on a particular view of cosmopolitanism – one that acknowledges and acts upon suffering as a global feature irrespective of geographical and historical location. Nandy’s...

by Pramod K. Nayar | On 16 Oct 2008

Hobbes, Coase and Baliraja: Equity and Equality in Surface Water Distribution

It is attempted to understand the implications of equality in water distribution on social welfare with a simple abstract analysis using Leontief-type fixed production function.

by Sashi Sivramakrishna | On 16 Oct 2008

On The Existence and Efficiency of Equilibria Under Liability Rules

The first objective of this paper is to contribute to the debate regarding the desirability of the sharing of liability for the accident loss. The second objective is to extend the efficiency analysi...

by Ram Singh | On 08 Oct 2008

Consultation Paper on Media Ownership

The objective of the paperis to obtain the inputs of stakeholders and to generate a discussion on the appropriate policy relating to cross media and ownership restrictions in India. The comments of al...

by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India TRAI | On 03 Oct 2008

Carrying Over: Analysing Female Utopias and Narratives of Education from 17th-century France to 18th-century Britain and 20th Century India

The paper carries the reader across and over great spans of space and time, with an Indian feminist woman academic journeying back to seventeenth-century ancien regime France, to 1770s Scotland, to 17...

by Bagchi B | On 01 Oct 2008

Women in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation: A Study in the Context of the Debate on the Women's Reservation Bill

This article presents the findings of a survey conducted in 2000 in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), where quotas – 33 per cent of seats - for women have been implemented since 1995. [CSH Oc...

by Stephanie Tawa Lema-Rewal | On 30 Sep 2008

A New Era of World Hunger?- The Global Food Crisis Analyzed

This paper is an account of the main streams discussed in an international conference, held in New York in April 2008, organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and Global Policy Forum, which cons...

by James A. Paul | On 24 Sep 2008

Pakistan Budget in Brief 2008

Budget in Brief is designed to summarize the detailed information into an overview comprising essential information about expenditure and receipt and the resulting budget balance.

by Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan, | On 22 Sep 2008

Can Tourism be a Vehicle for Conservation? An Investigation from the Mangrove Forests of the Indian Sundarbans

The Sundarban National Park is among five Natural World Heritage Sites in India and part of the world’s largest mangrove eco-system. The remote island communities that surround the Park are dependent...

by Indrila Guha | On 16 Sep 2008

Can Insurance Reduce Catastrophic Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure

It is argued that for households below poverty line any expenditure on health is catastrophic as they are unable to attain the subsistence level of consumption. Thus, zero percent is taken as a thres...

by Rama Joglekar | On 15 Sep 2008

Human rights in retreat

Is there not a worse situation today than during the Emergency? There was no colonization of the country by the foreign powers, with agriculture, industry, education, defense, health and trade being a...

by P.B. Sawant | On 05 Sep 2008

An Investigation of Incongruency and Distraction Hypotheses: The Context of Dubbed TV Commercials

The current study seeks to understand the effectiveness of commercials that are basically nation-wide commercials dubbed in the regional languages, while not changing any part of the visual: thus they...

by Venkatesh P | On 16 Aug 2008

Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007–2012) Volume II Social Sector

Eleventh Five Year Plan 2007-12

by Planning Commission, India | On 06 Aug 2008

Women's Reservation Bill

Women's Reservation Bill

by Parliamentary Research Service PRS | On 24 Jul 2008

Constitutionalising Panchayats: The Response of State Legislatures

This article is an attempt to look at debates in the light of the Assemblies' tryst with panchayats. It should be noted that it is not an evaluation of what transpired in the state Assemblies. In view...

by Girish Kumar | On 03 Jul 2008

SEPHIS e-Magazine Global South, Volume 3: No.4: April 2008

Debolina Dutta and Oishik Sircar: From Sex Worker to Entertainment Worker: Strategic Politics of DMSC Madhurima Mukhopadhyay: Virginity Lost and Regained: Hymenoplastic Honour in Urban India Nandit...

by SEPHIS | On 15 Jun 2008

Poverty targeting in public programs: A Comparison of Some Nonparametric Tests and their Application to Indian Microfinance

Many popular social programmes have limited coverage among households at the very bottom of the income and wealth distribution. If a programme reaches the poor, but neglects the destitute, the (pre-...

by Isha Dewan | On 12 Jun 2008

Inclusive Growth in Andhra Pradesh: Challenges in Agriculture, Poverty, Social Sector and Regional Disparities

The important elements of inclusive growth are: agricultural growth, employment generation and poverty reduction, social sector (health and education) and reduction in regional and other disparities...

by S.Mahendra Dev | On 31 May 2008

Gujjar protest and Reservation Politics

Successive governmental commissions have held that Gujjars do not meet the criteria for inclusion in the Scheduled Tribes. The Gujjar protest has ramifications beyond the States where they live. If th...

by Asian Centre for Human Rights ACHR | On 28 May 2008

Mahabharat – A true-to-life Epic

The Mahabharata is a living epic. It has like other epic stories been retold in different times by different authors who have incorporated in the retelling the social understanding of the time. For i...

by C.N. Subramaniam | On 26 May 2008

Book Review: Psychoanalytic Polyclinics: Progressive Institutions?

Review of Freud's Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918-1938 by Elizabeth Ann Danto. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

by Eric J. Engstrom | On 14 Apr 2008

Divided Destinies, Unequal Lives: Economic, cultural and Social rights and the Indian State

On 10th July, 1979, India - by ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) - became a State party to this treaty body. Reporting guidelines of the Covenant re...

by Peoples Collective PCESCR | On 10 Apr 2008

Innovation and Growth: Role of the Financial Sector

A brief overview is provided about India’s long-term growth performance. Then an attempt is made to set out the conditions for successful innovations. To assess the role of innovations in the Indian...

by Rakesh Mohan | On 03 Apr 2008

It’s the Network, Stupid: Why Everything in Medicine Is Connected

Social networking is about more than just friends reunited; it’s a framework for understanding even the most basic of biological processes. Two papers in the month of March PLoS Medicine illustrate t...

by PLoS Medicine | On 26 Mar 2008

Tamil Nadu Budget 2008-09

Speech of Prof. K. Anbazhagan, Minister for Finance, Government of Tamil Nadu, presenting the Budget for 2008-2009 to the Legislative Assembly on 20th March, 2008.

by Tamil Nadu Government | On 25 Mar 2008

ICT and Employment Promotion Among Poor Women: How Can We Make It Happen? Some Reflections On Kerala's Experience

This paper deals with the integration of gender in policies relating to information and communication technology to empower socially excluded poor women as producers of this technology. In this contex...

by Mohanan Pillai P | On 25 Mar 2008

Kerala Budget Speech 2008-09

Budget speech 2008-09 by Finance Minister Dr. Thomas Issac

by Government of Kerala Govt | On 07 Mar 2008

Budget 2008-09 and Children A First Glance

Budget for Children (BfC) is not a separate budget. It is merely an attempt to disaggregate from the overall budget, the allocations made specifically for programmes that benefit children. From 2000-0...

by HAQ Centre for Child Rights HAQCRC | On 04 Mar 2008

Union Budget 2008-09: A Bag of Tricks to Get the Vote

The budget is an election budget. There are lots of sectors which needs more attention. Many questions are raised at the end of the document which the government may fail to answer

by Arun Kumar | On 04 Mar 2008

Book Review: Third World Women in the Digital Diaspora

Review of Radhika Gajjala. Cyber Selves: Feminist Ethnographies of South Asian Women. New York: AltaMira Press.

by Christine Tulley | On 28 Feb 2008

Trends in Religious Differentials in Fertility, Kerala, India: An Analysis of Birth Intervals

The paper examines fertility differentials among the three religion groups, Hindu, Muslim and Christian, and trends in these based on data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-1). [WP No. 167]...

by Manoj Alagarajan | On 26 Feb 2008

Islam at the Ballot Box

So far, no Islamist party has managed to win a majority of the popular vote in any of the Muslim countries where reasonably clean elections are held. If anything, the Islamist share of the vote has be...

by Amir Taheri | On 24 Feb 2008

Women’s Economic Empowerment as the “Magic Potion” of Development?

Boosting women’s relative control of income and other economic resources has so many consequences that positively enhance both gender equality and development that female economic empowerment may be c...

by Rae Lesser Blumberg | On 20 Feb 2008

Livelihood Risks and Coping Strategies: A Case Study in the Agrarian Village Of Cherumad, Kerala

The various dimensions of livelihood risk as informed by a in-depth case study of an agrarian village namely, Cherumad in Kerala is examined. [WP no. 394].

by K.N. Nair | On 06 Feb 2008

Acceptance Speech for the Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The work of the IPCC has helped the world to learn more on all aspects of climate change, and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has acknowledged this fact. [Speech delivered in Oslo]

by Pachauri R K | On 04 Feb 2008

Transport: Then, now, and Tomorrow

A historical survey of transport to demonstrate that transport has always been recognised as of paramount importance for the wellbeing of the whole community, that a combination of collective and indi...

by Ralph Harrington | On 01 Feb 2008

National Policy on the Voluntary Sector

This National Policy on the Voluntary Sector-2007 is the beginning of a process to evolve a new working relationship between the Government and the Voluntary Sector, without affecting the autonomy and...

by Planning Commission, India | On 29 Jan 2008

Toward an Economic Sociology of Chronic Poverty: Enhancing the Rigor and Relevance of Social Theory

This paper focuses on both expanding and refining the analytical scope of the “social” (or non-economic) aspects of chronic poverty, and thereby, to enhance efforts to respond more effectively to it....

by Michael Woolcock | On 25 Jan 2008

Book Review: Symbolic Ordering in Communication Process

Review of The Social and the Symbolic edited by Edited by Bernard Bel, Jan Brouwer, Biswajit Das, Vibodh Parthasarathi, Guy Poitevin; Sage, New Delhi; 2007, pp 481, Rs 895.

by Ratnawali Sinha | On 22 Jan 2008

An Analysis of Fertility Differentials among Caste Groups in Andhra Pradesh

The fertility differentials among caste groups in Andhra Pradesh are examined in the context of characteristics and interaction hypotheses, using the second National Family Health Survey data. Multiva...

by P Ramesh | On 21 Jan 2008

Innovative Indo-US Collaborations – Missed Opportunities

This paper analyzes the situation of the Indo US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture, by using the science studies approach.

by C. Shambu Prasad | On 16 Jan 2008

Transgenics in Indian Agriculture: Experiences so far and implications of KIA proposals on Indian Farmers

KIA proposes to bring a paradigm shift in Indian Agriculture in terms of human resource development, research, technology generation, technology dissemination and commercialization. In the short run,...

by Ramanjaneyulu G V | On 05 Jan 2008

Fair Access To Higher Education Re-Visited:Some Results For Social And Religious Groups from NSS 61st Round Employment Unemployment Survey, 2004-05

Results from the NSS 61st Round Employment – Unemployment Survey, 2004-05 on the issue of fair access to social groups and religion-based population categories. [WP no. 163].

by Sundaram K | On 04 Jan 2008

People’s Health Movement in India

‘Health movement’ as an area of social work has been comparatively a newer tradition that has emerged during last 25 years. In India, today about 10 million people are pushed below the poverty line an...

by Anant Phadke | On 28 Dec 2007

Outline of a Joint Lecture on Action Agenda for Transition to a Just, Equitable, Regenerative and Prosperous Society

The outline of an action agenda to address issues regarding barriers to creating an equitable society that we urgently need to take up. [at XXXI ISSC at SNDT women's University].

by Datye K R | On 28 Dec 2007

Equitable Society : A New Concern For Social Work

Trained Social Workers must be very well aware of Equitable Society philosophy and implementation programmes. They must find opportunity of working with extremely marginalized people.

by Manish Dwivedi | On 27 Dec 2007

Early Childhood Education

Early childhood education is a widely accepted term to describe a program aimed at providing all round development for children between ages of 2 and 6 years. It paves the way for effective learning....

by Sonawat Reeta | On 25 Dec 2007

Child Marriage: Social and Economic Linkages and Opportunities for Intervention

The presentation shows the consequences of child marriage, how to prevent child marriage. [Power Point Presentation].

by Geeta Rao Gupta | On 19 Dec 2007

HDI in Context

The United Nations Development Programme has just put out its latest Human Development Report, containing the human development index (HDI) for 177 countries, with the data being for 2005. India ranks...

by T.N. Ninan | On 03 Dec 2007

National Human Development Report 2001

The process of development, in any society, should ideally be viewed and assessed in terms of what it does for an average individual.For any approach or development framework to be meaningful and effe...

by Planning Commission, India | On 28 Nov 2007

Decentralisation and Issues in Self Governance in Tribal Areas of South Gujarat

To examine the functioning of Gram Sabha and participation of tribal communities therein to asses the status of self governance under the “Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) A...

by Ratnawali Sinha | On 14 Nov 2007

Using Family Histories to Understand the Intergenerational Transmission of Chronic Poverty

A method of collecting family histories that would act as a means of linking households from the panel studies with individual life histories is proposed. The procedure used to construct a three-gener...

by Robert Miller | On 07 Nov 2007

The beast in us all

The tragedies and discrimination that happen in our country in the name of caste shows that there is a beast in all of us.

by T.N. Ninan | On 06 Nov 2007

‘A People United In Development’: Developmentalism In Modern Malayalee Identity

The attempt is to draw upon public sphere debates in Malayalee society in the immediate post-independence decades, more specifically on speech and writing accruing around the distinctiveness of Malaya...

by J Devika | On 23 Oct 2007

Damned Rivers, Damned Lies What the Water Establishment Doesn't Want You to Know

The social, environmental and economic impacts of dams are summarised and outlines better options for water management and energy supply. [IRN Brief].

by International Rivers Network IRN | On 18 Oct 2007

A Review of Trends in Banking Indicators in North Eastern Region of India

The rapid growth in banking indicators in the North Eastern region of India following nationalisation of 14 major banks in 1969 and another six in 1980 based on social banking was sustained or not are...

by Amarendra Sahoo | On 16 Oct 2007

Unorganised Sector Worker's Social Security Bill 2007

A bill to provide for the social security and welfare of unorganised sector workers and for other matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

by Minister of State for Labour and Employment | On 15 Oct 2007

Social Protection Transfers for Chronically Poor People

There are very large numbers of chronically and severely poor people who are not being reached by current development policies, and whose situation is often deteriorating in comparison even with other...

by Chronic Poverty Research Centre CPRC | On 12 Oct 2007

Managing Change in the Nuclear Industry: The Effects on Safety

The nuclear industry is going through a period of unprecedented change. The changes arise from the political and business environment in which the industry must operate, and from within the industry i...

by International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group INSAG | On 08 Oct 2007

Inititaing Public Debate on Reforms in Higher Education

Idea on National Knowledge Commission, what it is and what are they trying to accomplish, ask for the audience support, understanding and also talk about the need for major reforms in University educa...

by Sam Pitroda | On 05 Oct 2007

Interactive Workshop on Qualitative Research: From Data Collection to Data Presentation

Hands-on training in qualitative research in the context of health, nutrition and development. The training included all major steps in qualitative research: deciding objectives, designing tools, data...

by Shubhada Kanani | On 28 Sep 2007

Liberation, May 2007

Paving the Way for BJP-NDA Comeback? BJP’s CD: Fascist Stereotypes Judicial Legitimacy for Hindutva Myths and other articles

by Liberation | On 20 Sep 2007

Going ethical

Many companies have realized the need to talk of, and do something about, corporate social responsibility (CSR), but in many cases this is merely CPR: corporate public relations. The correct thing for...

by T.N. Ninan | On 17 Sep 2007

Broadcast Bill: Content Code

The Ministry expects that putting such a code in place will have the following important positive impact, among others. • The public will be provided with a mechanism through which they can voice t...

by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting MIB | On 16 Sep 2007

Corporate Social Responsibility and Children's Rights in South Asia

Examples of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives within the context of children's issues in India, Nepal and Bangladesh are given. The mapping highlights that children's issues often do n...

by Girish Godbole | On 05 Sep 2007

Sustainability of Community Aquaculture – a Study of Transaction Costs from Sri Lanka

Over the last decade there has been a major push within policy circles to strengthen community initiatives related to natural resources management. The success or failure of such projects is an import...

by Athula Senaratne | On 29 Aug 2007

ACHR Weekly Review: Pakistan: The Land of Religious Apartheid and Jackboot Justice

On 14 August 2007, the United Nations Committee on the International Convention Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) is tentatively scheduled to examine the situation of...

by Asian Centre for Human Rights ACHR | On 11 Aug 2007

Participatory Equity, Identity, and Productivity Policy Implications for Promoting Development

This paper tries to advance the perspective that the poor and the marginalized in society lack a sense of “participatory equity,” by building a new model where a person’s community identity matters, e...

by Kaushik Basu | On 07 Aug 2007

Social Science Research Methods and Knowledge-Claims

This paper explores three important but interrelated issues: The power of example; the fragment as evidence; and finally, the field experience and the possibility of generalisation. These issues are...

by Paramjit S Judge | On 03 Aug 2007

Indian Elderly Among Marginal Sections Programmes and Policies in the Era of Globalisation

This paper is an attempt to bring out different needs of elders from different backgrounds and socio-economic groups. The main aim of the paper is to help policy makers in identifying these difference...

by Habibullah Ansari | On 02 Aug 2007

Women and Food Security in South Asia: Current Issues and Emerging Concerns

The educated and socially empowered Asian Woman is the key to improving the nutrition and mental acuity of young children and that improvement sets in motion lifelong prospects for heightened learning...

by Nira Ramachandran | On 24 Jul 2007

Social Affiliation and the Demand for Health Services: Caste and Child Health in South India

The roles of social affiliation, measured by caste, in shaping investments in child health are assessed. The special setting that is chosen for the analysis – tea estates in the South Indian High Rang...

by Nancy Luke | On 23 Jul 2007

Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption

Increased voter ethnicization, defined as a greater preference for the party representing one's ethnic group, affects politician quality. If politics is characterized by incomplete policy commitment,...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 19 Jul 2007

Man and Woman Talk: Grammatical and Syntactical Similarities and Disparities

Multiple research studies on grammar and syntax used by men and women stress disparities stemming from gender specific styles of “talk”. Borrowing from the existing literature, transcripts of 107 empl...

by Asha Kaul | On 16 Jul 2007

Child Development, the Life Course, and Social Exclusion: Are the Frameworks Used in the UK Relevant for Developing Countries?

It is suggested that there are several aspects of the social exclusion approach that are valuable in both the UK and developing country contexts. A summary of research on the intergenerational transmi...

by John Hobcraft | On 09 Jul 2007

Women, Work and Insecurities in India

The poor women in developing countries are burdened with the dual responsibility of taking care of housework and the need to supplement household income to meet the subsistence needs. The on-going fle...

by Uma Rani | On 05 Jul 2007

Effect of Structural and Conditional Rigidities on Moving a Beneficiary from Passive to Active State: An Empirical Investigation in a Poverty Reduction Programme in Rural India

Most studies on poverty alleviation and reduction programmes emphasize structural bottlenecks, asymmetric information, and rent seeking behaviour. This paper provides an analytical characterization of...

by Arindam Banik | On 19 Jun 2007

Towards Affordable Universal Access to Health Care Through Social Health Protection

The global population covered by some kind of health welfare measure is miniscule. The need to expand coverage can be addressed by a pragmatic strategy rationalizing the use of health financing mechan...

by Xenia Scheil Adlung | On 19 Jun 2007

Three Essays on the Economics and Finance of Terrorism

Aa framework for the analytical treatment of terrorist problems is suggested and then brings out the importance of financial and socio-economic factors. The framework classifies the various causes of...

by Siddhartha Mitra | On 31 May 2007

Social Capital and Economic Well-being

The proposition that social capital expands household welfare is tested by estimating the effects of social interactions on per capita expenditure among a sample of 810 households in northern Banglade...

by Farhad Ameen | On 30 May 2007

Ethics in Organizations: The Case of Tata Steel

The concern for ethical decision-making among the regulators, social groups and managers has substantially increased since failure of some of the prominent business organizations like Shell and Enron...

by Sunil Kumar Maheshwari | On 30 May 2007

Limits of Modern Epidemiological Models: What are the Alternatives?

Modern epidemiology has, by and large, been based on a narrow model of biomedicine and behaviour modification. It fails to answer, for instance the following questions: Why certain populations are inf...

by Vijay Kumar Yadavendu | On 15 May 2007

Code of Ethics: Issues and Dilemmas

The paper discuses the need and importance of having a ethical code of ethics for research work done in the country.

by Ghanshyam Shah | On 08 May 2007

Book Review: Towards a Relevant Social Science

Review of: Alternative Discourses in Asian Social Science: Responses to Eurocentricism by Syed Farid Alatas; Sage Publications, New Delhi.

by Vedapushpa | On 08 May 2007

Time to Mainstream Micro-Pensions in India

The paper has argued that to expand coverage of micro-pensions, social entrepreneurship (along with social responsibility) will be needed by the financial sector, including the MFIs, insurance compani...

by Mukul Asher | On 08 May 2007

Lesons Government Failure: Public Goods Provision and Quality of Public Investment

This paper focuses on government investment and expenditure policies. Going beyond the growth experience, the author also tries to relate the policy experience to the issues of aggregate poverty, in...

by Arvind Virmani | On 25 Apr 2007

Editorial:Union budget 2007-08: A Touch of ‘Magic Realism’

The Budget is ‘exciting’ precisely because it has at least decided to pay a little more than lip service to the so-called social sector. And Finance Ministers then tend to increase allocations for the...

by S Srinivasan | On 08 Mar 2007

Can Singapore Sustain its Current Globalisation Strategy? Singapore's 2007 Budget

Singapore’s 2007 budget reaffirms government’s determination to continue with the current globalization strategy of high growth, high net in-migration and minimal social risk pooling in financing old...

by Mukul Asher | On 05 Mar 2007

Transaction Costs and Institutional Innovation: Sustainability of Tank Aquaculture in Sri Lanka

Freshwater community-based aquaculture was introduce to village irrigation tanks in the dry zones of Sri Lanka in order to off-set the limited supply of animal protein available to residents in inla...

by Athula Senaratne | On 17 Feb 2007

Maria’s Dilemma

There was something bothering Maria. When Maria was younger, there was another man. It was all in the past, but she could never get herself to tell anyone. She did not see anything wrong. It was all i...

by Kishor G. Bhat | On 17 Feb 2007

Ethics in Health Research: A Social Science Perspective

Ethical codes of conduct cannot be effectively implemented in isolation and may be enforced in several different ways. One, is to conscientise the members of the profession to observe the rules, sec...

by Amar Jesani | On 06 Feb 2007

Dynamics of Caste-based Deprivation in Child Under-Nutrition in India

This paper makes an attempt at illustrating the dynamics of caste-based deprivation considering the case of child under-nutrition. It essentially demonstrates the patterns of differentials in nutrit...

by Rudra Narayan Mishra | On 26 Jan 2007

The Writing of the Social Sciences

Doing sociology, writing sociology, is to somehow engage with the subjects of the discourse, to give voice to these subjects. It perforce means that our writing should be sensitive to these voices. Li...

by Sundar Sarukkai | On 25 Jan 2007

Social Medicine in the Twenty-First Century

In its launch issue in October 2004, PLoS Medicine signaled a strong interest in creating a journal that to the social conditions in which people live and work. The socially disadvantaged have less...

by Scott Stonington | On 23 Jan 2007

Is It Ethical for Patients with Renal Disease to Purchase Kidneys from the World’s Poor? PLoS Medicine Debate

In many countries, the number of patients waiting for a kidney transplant is increasing. But there is a widespread and serious shortage of kidneys for transplantation, a shortage that can lead to suf...

by Tarif Bakdash | On 23 Jan 2007

Health Is Still Social: Contemporary: Examples in the Age of the Genome

Social medicine is as important now as it has ever been. The fi eld of social medicine includes various social and cultural studies of health and medicine , and in this article, the focus is o...

by Timothy H. Holtz | On 23 Jan 2007

Recent Social Security Reforms in Asia

This presentation reviews recent social security reforms in Asia-Pacific, with emphasis on countries with major reliance on social insurance schemes. Japan, Korea, Philippines, China, Vietnam, and Tha...

by Mukul Asher | On 12 Jan 2007

How Did Social Medicine Evolve, and Where is it Heading?

This essay briefl y examines some of the diverse developments of social medicine as an academic discipline and its links to political conceptualizations of the role of medicine in society. The...

by Dorothy Porter | On 10 Jan 2007

India: Second NGO Shadow Report on CEDAW: Executive Summary

The 2nd and 3rd NGO Alternative Report on CEDAW -- INDIA has just been submitted to the UN CEDAW Committee and is coming up for review in January 2007 in New York. Each of the chapters in the Reports...

by National Alliance of Women | On 06 Jan 2007

Is There a Global Bioethics? End-of-Life in Thailand and the Case for Local Difference

As developing countries build allopathic medical systems, what should their bioethics be? In this essay, we explore possible answers to this question, ultimately arguing that Western bioethics is insu...

by Scott Stonington | On 03 Jan 2007

Social Cleavages, Multiculturalism and Emerging Space for State in India under Globalisation Regime

This paper focuses on social cleavages based on class , caste,religion and ethnicity in India. It examines the political salience of caste and class conflicts and addresses the translation of social c...

by Sarojini Mishra | On 29 Dec 2006

Pro-Poor Targeting and Accountability of Local Governments in West Bengal

A commonly alleged pitfall of decentralization is that poverty, socio-economic inequality and lack of political competition allow local elites to capture local governments. This hypothesis is empirica...

by Pranab Bardhan | On 27 Dec 2006

Teacher Truancy in India: The Role of Culture, Norms and Economic Incentives

Social scientists often emphasize how ‘culture’ and ‘social norms’ can be important determinants of economic behavior and development. This raises questions of the relative importance of economic ince...

by Kaushik Basu | On 26 Dec 2006

Nurtured from Above and Growing from the Roots: Social Funds and Decentralization in Zambia and Malawi

This paper focuses on two specific social funds, those in Zambia and Malawi, to consider the possible contribution of social funds to decentralisation of government administration. Both social funds...

by JanKees van Donge | On 22 Dec 2006

Liberty and Individualism in Gandhian Perspective: Implications for Sustainability of Societies

Most mainstream intellectuals, particularly economists, have almost dismissed Gandhiji.. Economists are important here because they influence the socio-political thinking the most. In traditional soc...

by Sudarshan Iyengar | On 15 Dec 2006

Dalits Ostracised in Karnataka

In Kadakola, a small village near Basavabagevadi in Bijapur district Karnataka the Chalavadi community, a lower caste is facing a social boycott from the upper caste and including Madigas which is als...

by PUCL Karnataka | On 14 Dec 2006

The Integration of Religious Minorities in China: The Case of Chinese Muslims

This paper discusses the integration of religious minorities in China, in particular, of the Hui Muslims. From the pre-Islamic relations between Arabia and China, to the Song period, the Mongol period...

by Donald Daniel Leslie | On 14 Dec 2006

Gender Disaggregated Analysis of South Gujarat Tribals: Role of Social Capital in Human Development

This paper, based on ‘capabilities’ approach, analyses the ‘development outcomes’ forf ‘tribals’ of rural south Gujarat and examines the relative roles of physical, human and social capital within a...

by Arti Nanavati | On 26 Nov 2006

Analytic and Strategic Review Paper: International Perspectives on Early Child Development

The present work builds on the affirmed desire of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) to be judged on both its scientific rigor and the policy implications that the Commission’s w...

by Stefania Maggi | On 15 Nov 2006

Withering Valli: Alienation, Degradation and Enslavement Of Tribal Women In Attappady

Various policies and programmes implemented avowedly for the benefits of the tribal people have resulted in alienation and degradation of tribesfolk. This detailed study of Kerala's Irular tribal comm...

by Mariamma J. Kalathil | On 20 Oct 2006

Do Television and Radio Destroy Social Capital? Evidence from Indonesian Villages

In "Bowling Alone," Putnam (1995) famously argued that the rise of television may be responsible for social capital's decline. I investigate this hypothesis in the context of Indonesian villages. To i...

by Benjamin A. Olken | On 13 Oct 2006

Who's in Crisis?

If one might attempt a hypothesis, it would be that India’s communist parties would like to adjust to the reality of the day by giving up their old identities and becoming social democratic parties, b...

by T.N. Ninan | On 01 Oct 2006

Encountering Disability: The Making and Unmaking of DEvelopment Categories in the Third World

Abstracts of the theme: The theme of the stream would be the investigation, from a critical legal perspective, of the social and legal construction of disability from a human rights perspective.

by Shilpaa Anand | On 29 Aug 2006

Social Exclusion And Criminal Law

This paper will examine the network of consitutional and penal provisions on the question of social exclusion and will explore the implications of these realities for an understanding of criminology...

by S.R. Sankaran | On 29 Aug 2006

Rethinking the Political Core of an Emancipatory Project in Africa

This paper will begin by reviewing the political assumptions of the nature of citizenship underlying T.H. Marshall’s argument for ‘social rights’; it will provide a critique of human rights discours...

by Michael Neocosmos | On 29 Aug 2006

Ethics in Social Science Research: Reflections from a Student of Economics

If poverty and nutrition are issues also of social justice and the commitment that a democratic state makes to its citizens (namely, ridding the country of hunger and malnutrition and also of ensuring...

by Padmini Swaminathan | On 19 Jul 2006

Ethics in Sociological and Social Anthropological Research: A Brief Note

While there is a considerable body of writing on ethics in social sciences in general, in India ethical issues need to be better debated and discussed. With over 320 universities and 30 social science...

by A. M. Shah | On 19 Jul 2006

Ethics in Social Science Research: A Note for Discussion

Some questions relevant in the context of ethics in social science research are: Does social science have peculiarities which are masked by discussions on science at large? Given the need for objectiv...

by Sudarshan Iyengar | On 19 Jul 2006

Canadian Journal of Sociology

Volume 31, Issue 1, Winter 2006 The Rise of Cohabitation in Quebec: Power of Religion and Power over Religion by Benoît Laplante Refeudalizing the Public Sphere: 'Manipulated Publicity' in the Can...

by University of Toronto Press | On 16 Jul 2006

Our Future: Sustainable Cities--Turning Ideas into Action

In convening the third session of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver, the United Nations Human Settlements Program has asked us to focus our attention on the Sustainable City and consider critical cha...

by Patricia L. McCarney | On 13 Jul 2006

Keynote Address on Social Inclusion and Cohesion

A central challenge facing us here – how do we ensure that the issue of the urban poor, in particular, is given as much attention by the international community, beyond speaking about it?

by L.N. Sisulu | On 13 Jul 2006

Women and Migration: Creating New Identities

The cultural demands made of women by migrant communities struggling to establish a new identity and the stereotypes of women of other races often promoted by host communities are important forces in...

by Delia Davin | On 07 Jul 2006

WCD Thematic Papers I.1: Contributing Paper: Dams and Benefit-Sharing

Historically, hydropower developed in the early 1900s as a local activity with small projects supplying local communities and industry: projects had local impacts and provided local benefits. As dams...

by Joseph Milewski | On 03 Jun 2006

WCD thematic Review I.1: contributing Paper: Assessing the Project- social Impact and Large Dams

This paper looks at a number of questions about the social impacts of large dams. It does not set out original or integrated findings in these matters. Rather, the material here comes from experience...

by Hugh Brody | On 03 Jun 2006

WCD Working Paper: Human Health and Dams

Decisions on infrastructure development that may be critical to people's health status are, however, made without proper consultation of health authorities and experts. When negative health impacts oc...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 01 Jun 2006

Why Are We Opposed to Reservations?

When an Ambani becomes a CEO, when a Gandhi becomes a minister, we do not say it is against merit, when a professor whose son is not able to qualify JEE, is still able to send her child abroad for hig...

by Rahul Varman | On 30 May 2006

The Role and Nature of Non-Contributory Social Security in the Design of Social Protection Strategies for Older People in DCs

Non-contributory social security is increasingly attracting the attention of developing country policymakers and observers, not least as a mechanism to help address the perceived failure of contributo...

by Roddy McKinnon | On 23 May 2006

Sociology in the Context of Globalisation: Issues and Challenges in India

Any exercise in mapping the current status of any social science discipline is a mammoth task, as it involves the normative concerns as well as the personal perceptions of the sociologist who treads t...

by Paramjit S Judge | On 16 May 2006

WCD Thematic Review I.1:Contributing Paper-- Social Impacts of an African Dam: Equity and Distributional Issues in the Senegal River Valley

The story of Manantali Dam begins fifteen years before the dam itself became operational. The story to be told here is that of the social impacts of the Senegal River Development Organisation (OMVS) p...

by Adrian Adams | On 11 May 2006

WCD Thematic Review Social Issues I.1: The Social Impact of Large Dams--Equity and Distributional Issues

The ’social impacts’ of dams may be defined as 'impacts on the lives of individual people or groups or categories of people, or forms of social organisation'. Social impacts are distinct from environm...

by William Adams | On 11 May 2006

Ethics in Social Sciences: Theory and Practice: A National Consultation

What are the critical areas in social science research and intervention which might require systematic attention to ethical issues? A national level consultation on ‘ Ethics in Social Science Research...

by Sunita Bandewar | On 09 May 2006

Affirmative Action: Diverging Perspectives

The debate, on affirmative action seems to be focusing on the meaning and relevance of merit and efficiency. It is being conveniently forgotten that merit is a cognitive ability, the power to perceive...

by Prashant Negi | On 05 May 2006

Weekend Ruminations: Casting for jobs

The reality of caste representation in the corporate sector may not be out of line with what the government would like.

by T.N. Ninan | On 23 Apr 2006

De-colonising the Aesthetic Sense:The story of craft revival in Aruvacode potters’ village

Experiential knowledge is what indigenous knowledge is all about. Unfortunately again the Western intellectuals are reframing indigenous knowledge to suit their purposes. In the course of living with...

by Jinan K.B. | On 21 Apr 2006

Voluntary Organisations, NGOs and the ‘Politics of Development’ in India: A Critical Exploration

This essay studies the domain of politics of development constituted by the state, and attempts to plot the emergence of the voluntary sector, NGOs in particular, as a representative in this contested...

by Swagato Sarkar | On 31 Mar 2006

Two Kinds of Activism: Reflections on Citizenship in Globalizing Delhi

The paper examines two of the most pressing concerns in Delhi: housing and the environment. The paper reviews the activities of Resident Welfare Associations, Sajha Manch, and Delhi Janwadi Adhikar Ma...

by Sanjeev K. Routray | On 14 Jun 2013

Verdict 2004: From Identities to Issues and Interests?

This paper is a humble attempt to take an intellectual and political position while analyzing the 2004 election results in the context of neo-liberal regime in India and also tries to portray whether...

by Maidul Islam | On 31 Mar 2006

Constituting Development: Encountering the deprivation of the ‘poor’ under the ‘reform’ apparatus in India

The paper addresses three main issues: The nature of economic reforms and how growth is segregated within the sectors; secondly, limitations of the poverty line approach to estimate the development of...

by Saji M. | On 31 Mar 2006

Health Inequalities, Social Cohesion and Social Capital: An Exploration

This paper claims that the roots and remedies of health inequalities reflected in the major academic debates that culminated with full force towards the turn of the last century, have done little to u...

by Vijay Kumar Yadavendu | On 30 Mar 2006

Objectivity and Bias in Sociological Studies: A Rejoinder to 'Social Science Knowledge and Its Evaluation'

Does a social scientist need to renounce his ethnicity in order to be objective and unbiased? The issue of how and why scholars choose their subjects and approaches has been debated for almost a centu...

by Darshan Tatla | On 15 Mar 2006

Union Budget : Financing Social Sector Budgets

There has been a perception that since the introduction of what have derisively been called “neo-liberal” reforms, the social sectors i.e. those dealing with education and health, have suffered. Is...

by Ajit Karnik | On 07 Mar 2006

Editorial: Union Budget: Securing its Legacy

Union Budget 2006-07 breaks new ground in many areas, and continues on the path of modernizing the tax system. It also gives deserved recognition to key allocation priorities. But its legacy will be...

by Mukul Asher | On 05 Mar 2006

Union Budget 2006-07: Securing its Legacy

Union Budget 2006-07 breaks new ground in many areas, and continues on the path of modernizing the tax system. It also gives deserved recognition to key allocation priorities. But its legacy will be...

by Mukul Asher | On 04 Mar 2006

Responsive Philanthropy in Mumbai: Corporate Sector and Social Justice Philanthropy

The authors use the framework for social justice philanthropy as elaborated in the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy of America in April 2003 to study the role of four funding organisatio...

by P.G. Jogdand | On 03 Mar 2006

Union Budget 2006-07: Speech

The bulk of the resources must go to the UPA Government’s eight flagship programmes: Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Mid-day Meal Scheme, Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission, Total Sanitation Campaign, National...

by Ministry of Finance | On 28 Feb 2006

Decentralisation on Fallow and Fertile Ground: Preparing the Population for Democratic Self-Governance

Decentralizing authority to democratically elected local government is advised for reasons of efficiency and good governance, but equity may suffer if elites capture decision making at the local level...

by Anirudh Krishna | On 16 Feb 2006

Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research on Human Subjects

Central Ethics Committee on Human Research (CECHR) was constituted under the chairmanship of Honourable Justice Shri M.N. Venkatachaliah by the then Director General, Dr. G.V. Satyavati to consider ...

by Indian Council of Medical Research | On 08 Feb 2006

Social Security Policy in an Era of Globalization and Competition: Challenges for Southeast Asia

There are several themes which emerge from the comparative analysis of social security systems in Southeast Asia. Each country will need to address the limitations of their respective system in relati...

by Mukul Asher | On 06 Feb 2006

What’s Social Policy Got To Do With Economic Growth?

So what’s social policy got to do with economic growth? Quite a lot, it would appear, if one takes the results of cross-country growth regressions at face value, as they are by many social policy anal...

by Ravi Kanbur | On 03 Feb 2006

Social Capital, Diversity and (Economic) DEvelopment: Evidence from Indian IT Industry, Bangalore

This paper addresses two sets of questions related to IT development and lessons to be drawn for other regions both in and outside India. Firstly, based on original fieldwork an additional argument t...

by Florian A. Taube | On 19 Jan 2006

Social Mobility in the Context of occupational Health: Case of Silk Reeling

Karnataka is the single largest producer of silk in the country.As an income generation activity,sericulture has been seen as part of anti-poverty efforts of both the state and central governments. Ho...

by Anand Inbanathan | On 19 Jan 2006

AT Times When Limbs May Fail: Social Security for Unorganised Workers in Karnataka

Policy makers, therefore, often encounter the following questions while formulating the social security schemes. What are the priority social security needs of unorganized workers? What existing mecha...

by D. Rajasekhar | On 13 Jan 2006

Karnataka Yeshasvini Health Insurance Scheme: Towards Comprehensive Health Insurance Coverage in Karnataka?

This is a case study of the Yeshasvini Health Insurance Scheme for rural farmers and peasants in Karnataka. The scheme, now in its second year of operation, covers 2.2 million farmers and peasants w...

by Sarosh Kuruvilla | On 13 Jan 2006

The Dance of Ideas: Dialectical Relationship between Feminism and Philosophy

This paper attempts to delineate the dialectical relationship between feminism and philosophy, and begins by tracing the rise of feminist consciousness. This is because ideas do not exist in abstract...

by Veena Poonacha | On 04 Jan 2006

Approaching Human Phenomena: A Methodological Note

The note is an attempt to make a methodological argument to the students about how to approach the study of human phenomena. Based on the experience of teaching about work, workers and organisations t...

by Rahul Varman | On 20 Dec 2005

Supreme Court Judgement on Unaided Private Colleges

The Supreme Court judgement of Augutst 12, 2005 on four questions regarding higher education in unaided educational institutions including quota and fee structure. Q.1. Unaided educational instituti...

by Supreme Court of India | On 08 Dec 2005

Gandhi’s Economic Thought and Modern Economic Development: Some Reflections

A fresh wave of globalisation since the early 1990s has created both hope and despair. Failure of state has reaffirmed faith in market based institutions. Expansion in trade across national borders an...

by Sudarshan Iyengar | On 07 Dec 2005

The Great Education Muddle: State Failure and Judicial Jigsaw

A comprehensive White Paper on India’s higher education policy for a pragmatic programmatic for at least the next 20 years is urgently needed. Such a Paper should take stock of the present and require...

by P. Radhakrishnan | On 07 Dec 2005

Choosing to Live: Guidelines for Suicide Prevention Counselling in Domestic Violence

Nearly a million people take their own lives every year, more than those murdered or killed in war. Suicide is a problem that affects people of all ages and economic levels, and is recognised by the W...

by Aruna Burte | On 02 Dec 2005

Riots in Mau: Report on an Investigation

On October 13-14, 2005 Mau in Uttar Pradesh, India experienced widespread violence and communal tension. Mau has a long history of communal tensions. It is largely rural district with a minority of...

by Rooprekha Verma | On 16 Nov 2005

Rebuilding China’s Social Safety Net: Why Governance Matters

China has adopted a wide-ranging program of pension reform since the late 1990s. The new pension system has replaced the pre-existing enterprise-based system. This paper analyzes the background of t...

by Minxin Pei | On 08 Nov 2005

Globalisation, Demographic Transition and Reform of Social Safety Nets in India

This paper accepts Rodrik’s premise that globalization and associated changes have increased the urgency of developing social safety nets to: Cushion transition; Help maintain legitimacy of reform, a...

by Mukul Asher | On 08 Nov 2005

Recent Social Security Reforms In Selected Asian Countries

There are considerable variations in the philosophy, coverage, investment policies and performance, design of schemes, governance structures, degree of professionalism and adequacy of benefits among A...

by Mukul Asher | On 11 Oct 2005

Tribal Evictions From Forest Land

During the last few years, there has been a devastating wave of forced evictions of tribal communities from forest land around the country, which needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Unfortunately...

by Jean Dreze | On 10 Sep 2005

Central Transfers To States And Centrally Sponsored Schemes

The Indian Constitution assigns specific tax and expenditure responsibilities to the Centre and States. In practice, however, the Centre often operates in the sphere of the States. For instance, it...

by Naresh C. Saxena | On 09 Sep 2005

American Psychological Associaltion Code Of Ethics:Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Marriage And Family Counsellor

The Ethics Code is intended to provide standards of professional conduct that can be applied by the APA and by other bodies that choose to adopt them. Whether or not a psychologist has violated the Et...

by American Psychological Association | On 01 Sep 2005

The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Bill, 2005: LOK SABHA DEBATE

The National Common Minimum Programme of the Government, among other things, seeks to give complete legal equality for women in all spheres, by enacting a new legislation that gives equal rights of ow...

by Lok Sabha | On 31 Aug 2005

Property Rights Of Women: Proposed Reforms Under The Hindu Law --174th Report

The recommendations contained in the Report are aimed at suggesting changes in the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 so that women get an equal share in the ancestral property. With a view to giving effect...

by Law Commission India | On 31 Aug 2005

Seventh Report On The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Bill, 2004

The earliest legislation bringing females into the scheme of inheritance is the Hindu Law of Inheritance Act, 1929. Subsequently, the Hindu Women's Right to Property Act, 1937 brought significant chan...

by Parliamentary Standing Committee Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice | On 31 Aug 2005

The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Bill, 2004

Introduced in the Rajya Sabha Monsoon Session, 2005. Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 deals with devolution of interest of a male Hindu in coparcenary property and recognises the rule of d...

by Minister Law and Justice | On 31 Aug 2005

The Working Of Democracy

Despite its many limitations, the processes of mobilization of socially diverse groups representing diverse constituencies and interests itself manifest a democratic practice at the lower level. Metho...

by Mukta Singh Lama | On 29 Aug 2005

Political Economy And Social Movements

This note attempts to analyse the social and political environment in which the various social movements, including the Maoist struggle, have emerged.

by Arjun Karki | On 29 Aug 2005

SAARC - Twelfth Summit Declaration 2004

12th SAARC Summit Declaration Islamabad January 2004

by Anonymous | On 13 Aug 2005

SAARC Social Charter

Re-affirms that the principal goal of SAARC is to promote the welfare of the peoples of South Asia, to improve their quality of life, to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural deve...

by Anonymous | On 13 Aug 2005

Gender, Caste, Class, and Health Care Access

The research discussed in the report revisits the notion of access to health care in Koppal, an economically disadvantaged district in northern Karnataka. This issue is important to households experie...

by Aditi Iyer | On 08 Aug 2005

Understanding Deoband Locally: Interrogating Madrasat diyā’ al-‘ulūm

Scholarship on Islamic education in India has largely focussed on the colonial period which has contributed to a relative paucity of works on ways in which madaris have organised themselves and contr...

by Arshad Alam | On 08 Aug 2005

Role Of Pension Regulator

In developed financial and capital markets all financial intermediaries such as banks, insurance companies, and pension funds are well regulated. India is the first country in Asia to establish an ind...

by Mukul Asher | On 06 Aug 2005

The Influence of Organizational Structure, Membership Composition and Resources on the survival of Poor People’s Social Movement Organizations

Membership-based organizations of the poor, to be effective, must survive. Although numerous analyses have considered the organizational factors that shape a social movement group’s risk of mortality,...

by Edward Walker | On 05 Aug 2005

Membership-Based Organizations Of The Poor: The South African Experince

The broad question this paper seeks to address is whether the notion of a membershipbased organisation of the poor (“MBOPs”) has practical application in modern day South Africa. There are some obviou...

by Jan Theron | On 31 Mar 2005

Informal Governance and Organizational Success: The Effects of Noncompliance among Lima’s Street Vending Organizations

The successful representation of poor people on the part of membership based organizations depends partly on internal governance structures that are responsive to members’ needs and aspirations. Among...

by Sally Roever | On 31 Mar 2005

Voice Lessons:Local Government Organizations, Social Organizations, and the Quality of Local Governance

As part the Local Level Institutions study of local life in villages in rural Indonesia information was gathered on sampled household’s participation in social activities. We classified the reported a...

by Lant Pritchett | On 31 Mar 2005

Membership-Based Organizations as a Reflection of Power Structures in Rural “Community”: Experience

The analysis and reflections presented in this paper are the outcome of the authors work in various districts of rural Sindh between 1996 and 2002. The nature of this work has revolved around working...

by Themrise Khan | On 31 Mar 2005

Organizations of the Poor: Conditions for success

Based on the undocumented field experiences of FAO staff working with rural institutions in developing countries and project documents produced by UN agencies, this paper provides an overview on some...

by E Crowley | On 30 Mar 2005

The Influence of Organizational Structure, Membership Composition and Resources on the Survival of Poor

Membership-based organizations of the poor, to be effective, must survive. Although numerous analyses have considered the organizational factors that shape a social movement group’s risk of mortality,...

by Edward Walker | On 30 Mar 2005