Showing papers in "Economic and Political Weekly in 2009"

Food and nutrition in India: facts and interpretations.

Abstract: This paper reviews recent evidence on food intake and nutrition in India. It attempts to make sense of various puzzles, particularly the decline of average calorie intake during the last 25 years. This decline has occurred across the distribution of real per capita expenditure, in spite of increases in real income and no long-term increase in the relative price of food. One hypothesis is that calorie requirements have declined due to lower levels of physical activity or improvements in the health environment. If correct, this does not imply that there are no calorie deficits in the Indian population – nothing could be further from the truth. These deficits are reflected in some of the worst anthropometric indicators in the world, and the sluggish rate of improvement of these indicators is of major concern. Yet recent trends remain confused and there is an urgent need for better nutrition monitoring.

Women workers and perceptions of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India

Abstract: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which entitles rural households to 100 days of casual employment on public works at the statutory minimum wage, contains special provisions to ensure full participation of women. This paper, based on fieldwork in six states in 2008, examines the socio-economic consequences of the NREGA for women workers. In spite of the drawbacks in the implementation of the legislation, significant benefits have already started accruing to women through better access to local employment, at minimum wages, with relatively decent and safe work conditions. The paper also discusses barriers to women’s participation.

Deepening health insecurity in India: evidence from National Sample Surveys since 1980s.

Abstract: Drawing on evidence from the past morbidity and health surveys (1986-87 to 2004) and consumer expenditure surveys (1993-94 to 2004-05) of the National Sample Survey Organisation, this paper argues that public provisions of healthcare in India has dwindled to new lows. Outpatient and hospitalisation care in India in the past 20 years has declined drastically, leading to the emergence of private care players in a predominant way. While healthcare costs have shot up manifold in private provisioning, government health facilities are increasingly compelling patients to look for private outlets for procuring drugs and diagnostics. Due to these developments, millions of households are incurring catastrophic payments and are being pushed below poverty lines every year.

Secret of Gujarat's Agrarian Miracle after 2000

Abstract: Semi-arid Gujarat has clocked high and steady growth at 9.6% per year in agricultural state domestic product since 1999-2000. What has driven this growth? The Gujarat government has aggressively pursued an innovative agriculture development programme by liberalising markets, inviting private capital, reinventing agricultural extension, improving roads and other infrastructure. Canal-irrigated South and Central Gujarat should have led Gujarat’s agricultural rally. Instead it is dry Saurashtra and Kachchh, and North Gujarat that have been at the forefront. These could not have performed so well but for the improved availability of groundwater for irrigation. Arguably, mass-based water harvesting and farm power reforms have helped energise Gujarat’s agriculture.

Power, inequality and corporate social responsibility: The politics of ethical compliance in the South Indian garment industry

Abstract: Based on fieldwork in the Tiruppur garment manufacturing cluster in Tamil Nadu, this paper focuses on the ways in which ethical corporate regulations are shaped by and constitutive of power relations and inequalities in the global market. It explores the ways in which standards imposed on supply firms help to generate not only measurable and auditable changes in conditions of work, but also to mould social relationships between different actors in transnational production chains. It argues that codes and standards do not merely contribute to the manufacture of commodities to specified standards; they also generate new social regimes of power and inequality.

Economic liberalisation and Indian agriculture: a statewise analysis.

Abstract: This study of the performance of agriculture at the state level in India during the post-reform period (1990-93 to 2003-06) and the immediate pre-reform period (1980-83 to 1990-93) shows that the post-reform period has been characterised by deceleration in the growth rate of crop yields as well as total agricultural output in most states. By ending discrimination against tradable agriculture, economic reforms were expected to improve the terms of trade in favour of agriculture and promote its growth. The paper also discusses the cropping pattern changes that have taken place in area allocation as well as in terms of value of output. The slowdown in the process of cropping pattern change means that most government efforts to diversify

Displacement and relocation of protected areas: a synthesis and analysis of case studies.

Abstract: Antoine Lasgorceix (antoine.lasgo@hotmail.com) has been an intern with Kalpavriksh, an environmental action group based at Pune and Ashish Kothari (ashishkothari@vsnl.com) is with Kalpavriksh. Relocation of human populations from the protected areas results in a host of socio-economic impacts. In India, in many cases, especially relating to tribal communities that have been relatively isolated from the outside world, the displacement is traumatic from both economic and cultural points of view. This paper provides brief case studies of displacement (past, ongoing, or proposed) from protected areas, number of villages/families displaced, the place where these villages/families were relocated to, governance of the relocation process, and the kind or nature of relocation (voluntary, induced or forced). It finds that not even a single study shows the ecological costs and benefits of relocation, comparing what happens at the old site to what happens at the rehabilitation site. This is a shocking gap, given that relocation is always justified from the point of view of reducing pressures and securing wildlife habitats. Relocation of human populations from within areas notified for wildlife conservation (protected areas or PAs) has been undertaken in several countries, as a means of trying to reduce pressures on wildlife. It is not the aim of this essay to dwell on the ecological and social justifi cation for such relocation. Instead, it attempts to describe and analyse the full range of relocation cases in India in the last few decades, discuss the impacts of these displacements from both environmental and livelihood perspectives, and offer recommendations on the way to enhance the process by which relocation decisions are taken and implemented.1

Beyond the Factory: Globalisation, Informalisation of Production and the New Locations of Labour

Abstract: are two contradictory views on the impact of globalisation on labour activism. It is widely argued that globalisation has considerably weakened labour movements all over the world. With labour tied to specific geographical locations, increasingly footloose capital has made economies, especially the developing ones, vulnerable to capital strike the threat of capital moving out to places more attractive in terms of wages and standards, thus unleashing a race to the bottom. Labour, unlike in the second half of the 20th century, now has to passively adapt to the terms dictated by freely mobile global capital. This view, however, has not gone uncontested. There is a counter perspective in which it is asserted that while globalisation has undoubtedly undermined the conditions that made traditional trade unionism associated with Fordist mass production possible, the very forces of globalisation themselves have opened up new terrains where radically new forms of labour activism can be imagined. Globalisation may have created conditions that are debilitating for labour in the traditional sense of working class power but, at the same time, it has potentially empowered the working class in ways that the 20th century pre-globalised world did not allow. As Silver (2003) and Webster et al (2008) argue, the complex global network of production based on outsourcing and subcontracting that is emerging and consolidating is actually making global capital more vulnerable than before to disruptions in the global circuit of production and circulation, thus increasing the bargaining power of the working class. In this otherwise illuminating debate, labour, it must be noted, is characterised as wage-labour, and employment as wageemployment. In other words, it focuses exclusively on employment based on capitalist production relations that are rooted in the separation of capital and labour. The reality of developing countries today, however, does not answer such a monist characterisation of labour. It is now well known that developing economies are marked by the existence of an overwhelmingly large volume of economic activities that fall within what is described as the informal sector. It is an economic space in which workers engage in economic activities in ways that are very different from the capitalist organisation of production. In particular, the prevalent form of labour in the informal sector is self-employment, which is different from the usual wage-based employment resting on the alienation of labour from capital. Decades ago, Theodor Shanin, in introducing A V Chayanov's The Theory of Peasant Economy, wrote,

Urban spaces, Disney-Divinity and Moral Middle classes in Delhi

Abstract: A presentation of an ethnography of the relationship between urban spaces, new cultures of consumption, the state, and the making of middle class identities in India. Firstly, the discussion explores the making of new urban spaces by focusing upon the Akshardham Temple complex on the banks of the Yamuna river in Delhi. Surrounded by a network of flyovers, highways, toll-ways, and residential developments, the complex is designed as a hi-tech religious and nationalist theme park. The Delhi government-sponsored bhagidari (sharing) scheme that brings together representatives of the Residents’ Welfare Associations, Market Traders Associations, and key government officials at periodically organised workshops forms the second site of focus.

Pulses Production technology: Status and way forward

Abstract: India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world. However, pulses production has been stagnant at between 11 and 14 million tonnes over the last two decades. Per capita pulses consumption over the years has come down from 61gm/day in 1951 to 30 gm/day in 2008. This paper analyses the status of pulses production technology, constraints in cultivation of pulses and the possibilities of increasing production. It emphasises the expansion of area under short duration varieties, development of multiple disease/pest resistance varieties, use of micro-nutrients like zinc and sulphur and increase in area under rabi pulse crops to increase pulses production. The minimum support price is not effective for pulse crops; prevailing market prices should be taken into account while fixing the msp to bridge the gap between demand and supply.

Copenhagen: climate of mistrust.

Abstract: negotiations first provide a brief encapsulation of events, followed by a discussion of the key negotiation issues that took centre stage. It then provides a political interpretation of the Copenhagen Accord and its future prospects. The reflections locate the process in the context of the larger, and unresolved tensions between the North and the South. The article concludes with an outline of what the Copenhagen experience suggests is needed in the Indian climate debate.

Kosi embankment Breach in Nepal: Need for a paradigm Shift in responding to Floods

Abstract: The breach of the Kosi embankment in Nepal in August 2008 marked the failure of conventional ways of controlling floods. After discussing the physical characteristics of the Kosi River and the Kosi barrage project, this paper suggests that the high sediment content of the Kosi River implies a major risk to the proposed Kosi high dam and its ability to control floods in Bihar. It concludes by proposing the need for a paradigm shift in dealing with the risks of floods.

Piped water supply to Greater Bangalore: putting the cart before the horse?

Abstract: Cities in India are moving towards commercially viable models of urban water and sanitation delivery to fill the widening gap between demand and supply Cost recovery through upfront beneficiary contributions is increasingly becoming a key consideration in the provision of piped water and sewerage This paper examines the Greater Bangalore Water and Sanitation Project, a project that aims to extend piped water from the Cauvery to over two million residents in peri-urban Bangalore The paper critically evaluates the project and makes four interlinked arguments: (1) Upfront payments from citizens have not guaranteed timely and satisfactory service (2) The project’s financial model is disconnected from actually existing settlement and urbanisation patterns, thus delaying water delivery and undermining accountability (3) The project’s highly centralised decision-making process has resulted in low political buy-in and public acceptance (4) Modifications to the original financial model have been crucial in sustaining credibility and getting the project off the ground

Recovering from psychosocial traumas: the place of dargahs in Maharashtra.

Abstract: Dargahs have come under attack in recent times, following the tragic death of 25 mentally ill people at Erwadi in Tamil Nadu. The tragedy invited a Supreme Court suo motu intervention against local healing shrines all over the country that also included reform of the mental health system in general. This set of medico-legal events has led to the exclusive targeting of local healing shrines by various statutory agencies evoking human rights, ignoring the primary intent of the court that was reform of the mental health system in general. Against this context, we are presenting case studies of dargahs in Maharashtra which serve the purpose of healing from psychosocial traumas and argue for a more deliberate response to the vexed question of mental healing and overall health.

Real estate and agricultural wetlands in Kerala.

Abstract: Wetlands are an important part of the ecosystem and are also the most threatened part of it (Turner 1991). Conserving wetlands as shields against scarcity of water, floods, environmental pollution, and distress of micro-climatic vagaries is therefore important. Kerala has the largest proportion of land area under wetlands among all the states of India. Compared to other states of the country, wetlands in Kerala are under severe anthropogenic threats primarily because of high population density and the peculiar distribution of human habitations in the state. According to Nair and Sankar (2002), who mapped the wetland systems of Kerala using Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite data, the state has a total of 217 wetland units of which 157 units extend over more than 56.25 ha. In an agriculture-based economy with

Local democracy and clientelism: implications for political stability in rural West Bengal.

Abstract: This paper examines factors underlying the unusual stability of political power in rural West Bengal, using data pertaining to the functioning of local democracy from a household survey conducted by the authors during 2003-05. It examines patterns of political awareness, participation, distribution of benefits by gram panchayats, and voting across households of varying socio-economic characteristics. The main findings are that (i) political participation was high on average; (ii) within villages panchayat benefits flowed to poor and scheduled caste/scheduled tribe groups on par or better, compared with the rest of the population; (iii) distribution of benefits across villages was biased against those with more landless households; and (iv) the lasting political success of the Left owed partly to a clientelist relationship of the party with the voters, and partly to the gratitude of voters of low socio-economic status arising out of broad-based changes.

Holistic Engineering and Hydro-Diplomacy in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin

Abstract: The worldwide paradigm shift in river basin management has not affected policymakers in south Asia. Hydro-diplomacy in the Ganges-BrahmaputraMeghna basin is still based on reductionist engineering, and looks at marginal economic benefits, without showing any concern for the long-run implications for livelihoods and ecosystem. The governments in the river basin are already facing the challenge of extreme poverty, despite the countries experiencing high levels of precipitation. This paper discusses the lacunae of the reductionist engineering paradigm, and stresses the need for a holistic framework in ecological engineering and for hydro-diplomacy in the basin. This framework is based on a new transdisciplinary knowledge base created by the emerging science of eco-hydrology, economics, and new institutional theories. T he Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basin in south Asia (Figure 1, p 51) poses several complex challenges to the existing notions of development and hydrodiplomacy. Spread over the south Asian nations of Bangladesh, Bhutan, I ndia, Nepal, and vast areas in the Tibet region of China, the GBM basin (17,45,400 sq km) is the second largest hydrological system in the world after the Amazon. The rivers in the basin collect w ater emerging from both the northern and southern aspects of the Himalaya. The total run-off of the basin gets discharged through numerous channels that drain into the Bay of Bengal and spread roughly between the two mega-cities of Dhaka in Bangladesh and Kolkata in eastern India. The annual run-off of the basin is about 1,150 billion cubic meters (BCM) and the peak outflow is 1,41,000 cumecs at the estuary. The two major rivers of the hydrological system are the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. These two rivers and their tributaries flow beyond national boundaries and are prone to disputes that are a common feature of international transboundary water-courses around the world. The Ganges originates in the gaumukh (mouth of a cow) glacier in the southern aspect of the Himalaya in the Indian state of Uttarakhand and flows south-eastwards towards Bangladesh. Before crossing over from India to Bangladesh, the Ganges

Assessing Gujarat's 'Chiranjeevi' scheme.

Abstract: More than 5,000 women die every year in Gujarat due to pregnancy complications in remote and tribal areas. The state, which faces an acute shortage of qualified gynaecologists in public health facilities, devised the Chiranjeevi Yojana wherein women below poverty line can go to empanelled private nursing homes at the government's cost. A survey in Surat district shows that empanelled private providers are situated in urban areas and most

Sectoral Labour Flows and Agricultural Wages in India, 1983-2004: Has Growth Trickled Down?

Abstract: We would like to thank Paul Beaudry, Andrew Foster, Shubashis Gangopadhyay, Peter Lanjouw, Dilip Mookherjee, Suresh Tendulkar, Alessandro Tarrozi, the participants of the World Bank workshop on Equity and Development (7-8 December 2004) and the participants of the “Workshop on the Indian Economy: Policy and Performance 1980-2000” held at the Centre for India and South Asia Research, University of British Columbia in Vancouver (in June 2005) for their helpful comments. We are grateful to the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute for financial support through the SHARP programme and to India Development Foundation, Gurgaon, for their hospitality and generous support.Mukesh Eswaran (

Groundwater: towards an aquifer management framework.

Abstract: This article outlines an "aquifer management" approach towards utilisation of groundwater resources, which are rapidly being depleted across the country. The question of groundwater governance in India is twofold. First, we need to substantially support and empower the community-based systems of decision-making. Second, the existing legal framework and groundwater management institutions have to be fundamentally re-engineered to play a role facilitating and enabling community action.

limits and p ossibilities of Middle class associations as Urban collective actors

Abstract: Studies on Resident Welfare Associations draw attention to their predominantly middle class and exclusive character. Based on survey and ethnographic data on such associations across diverse neighbourhoods in Bangalore, this paper reveals the fractured, often contradictory, nature of claims made by different sections of middle class. The category urban "middle class" is too homogeneous to account for the multiple locations, interests, and varied access to power of different sections. Homogenising the middle class produces a "middle class-urban poor" dualism which elides critical factors shaping middle class mobilisation, internal conflicts, and local histories and geographies of development of specific neighbourhoods that are integrally linked to land values. This mapping of middle class action also contributes to our understanding of the process of structuration of urban spaces as new strategies are deployed to transform Indian cities.

Right to Food Act: beyond cheap promises.

Abstract: The Congress' eagerness to make good on this promise can be traced to the widely- held view that the National Rural Employ- ment Guarantee Act (NREGA) played an important role in the victory of the party in the recent elections. Another reason could be the electoral success of those state governments where similar provisions of inexpensive foodgrains are already in place, indicating that there is "political capital" to be gained through such policies. Whatever the reasons behind the Con- gress' willingness to give priority to its food security promises, it provides an ex- cellent opportunity to put in place a com- prehensive Right to Food Act (hereafter, RTF Act) that would help to deal with the country's dismal record on nutrition and health. India's food security and nutrition indicators are among the worst in the world. Worse, some of these indicators

Medicine, State and Society

Abstract: The demand for cure and for the care of a growing range of health conditions which elude any particular system of medicine has made pluralism in therapeutic options a way of life. The spread and continuity of indigenous systems of medicines, namely, ayurveda, siddha and unani, have thrown up a lot of concerns as well: how to incorporate these systems into a centralised health infrastructure; their expansion through the pharmaceutical industry for herbal products, massage centres and spas; the relations and negotiations between the practitioners of different coexisting systems of medicine; the position of psychosocial and spiritual dimensions of cure and care in contemporary forms of indigenous systems of medicine and the debate on notions of efficacy in multiple, coherent systems of medicine. All these are worth serious study as they raise fundamental questions not just about isms, but about organising healthcare in India. A framework for the analysis of isms requires not only recognising the presence of diverse medical systems, but engaging with them as live and efficacious traditions. The collection of papers in this special issue attempts to address some of these matters.

Corporate retail: dangerous implications for India's economy.

Abstract: Rather than being a panacea for Indian agriculture, corporate food provision will likely accelerate many key elements of India’s agricultural crisis. It will produce a decline in land productivity, reduce food security, adversely affect price stability and will tend to negatively impact employment and credit relations. This paper explores the changes in class and social relations that come about with the transition to a corporate system of food provisioning. It considers the potential impacts of such changes in the Indian context.

Of control and factions: the changing 'party-society' in rural West Bengal.

Abstract: The changing conditions in two villages of West Bengal - Galsi and Adhata - give a picture of the emerging issues and dynamics of the state's rural political economy. This paper attempts to explain these complexities in the light of the idea of a "party-society". It also shows that the initial impetus of land reforms failed to result in productive investments in agriculture and the marginalised sections feel increasingly alienated from the institutional politics of the party-society

Adjustment of pricing: evidence from Indian manufacturing

Abstract: In India, manufacturing plays a significant role in economic development, growth and as a source of employment. This paper analyses the pricing behaviour in Indian manufacturing sector considering both domestic and external variables. Price adjustment models are developed based on Industrial Organization literature and are examined with 28 manufacturing industries at the 3-digit level over the period from 1963 to 2001. Domestic structural factors are found to be important in determining speed of price adjustment.

New Policy Framework for Rural Drinking Water Supply – The Swajaldhara Guidelines

Abstract: This article discusses the central government policy for drinking water supply in rural areas. It examines its evolution from the 1970s onwards and focuses, in particular, on the reforms of the past decade, looking more specifically at the Swajaldhara Guidelines. These reforms are of capital importance because they seek to completely change the rural drinking water supply policy framework.

A climate agreement beyond 2012.

Abstract: greenhouse gases need to decrease sometime during the coming decade, and fall sharply thereafter, if we are to avoid disastrous and irreversible climate change. While industrialised countries generally emit much more per capita than developing countries, some of the latter have per capita emissions approaching the world average. This paper proposes that these advanced developing countries take on commitments to limit future emissions increase to improvements in the gross domestic product or, better yet, the Human Development Index, noting that some countries have achieved much more emission-efficient development than others. Recognising differences in the accuracy of greenhouse gas emissions accounting, we propose

Passages from nature to nationalism: Sunderlal Bahuguna and tehri Dam opposition in Garhwal.

Abstract: This paper is part of a larger work on Green and Saffron. An earlier version was presented at a workshop on “Rethinking Environmentalism”, Department of Sociology, University of Delhi, December 2001. The author expresses his appreciation to Mahesh Rangarajan, Ramachandra Guha, Dilip Menon, Gyan Pandey, Narayani Gupta, Jean Dreze, Amita Baviskar, Vasant Saberwal, Jeremy Seabrook, Aditya Nigam and Charu Gupta for their comments on earlier drafts.

Putting Civil Society in Its Place

Abstract: The civil society argument about representing people and their needs has now been around for about 25 years. The problems of the world remain as intractable, even as the numbers of agents who seek to negotiate the ills of the human condition have expanded exponentially. In popular imagination, it is still the State that seems to occupy a central position. And it is clear that there are certain problems that only the State can resolve, and should be resolving. Is it time that we begin to reconsider the role of civil society? Is it time to once again put civil society in its place?