Cities are characterised by social and cultural diversity. The management of urban wildlife requires developing a better understanding of cultural beliefs associated with wildlife in diverse urban settings. We document a range of cultural beliefs associated with the slender loris (Loris lydekkerianus), an endemic, nocturnal primate, in the Indian megacity of Bengaluru. Many residents associate the loris with practices such as black magic, and they believe that the animal’s call is a bad omen that brings death and misfortune. Others consider it a harbinger of good luck that offers protection to young children. These superstitious beliefs may motivate illegal wildlife trafficking of the loris. Urbanisation has led to changes in these perceptions, and many respondents now report that they consider these beliefs to be old-fashioned superstitions that hold no place in a modern city. This study contributes to knowledge on changing urban attitudes to wildlife, which is vital to developing conservation strategies that involve local residents.

Utilising data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the researchers estimate quarterly changes in urban labour market flow over the period 2018 to 2022 and the impact on unemployment rates for men and women. Their analysis provides non-intuitive explanations for established findings as well as points out important questions for further study. Both men’s and women’s unemployment rates have reduced in 2022 compared to 2018, showing rapid reductions following the high levels reached during the lockdown. Women’s unemployment rates have consistently been higher than men’s throughout this period. The gap between men’s and women’s unemployment rates reduced during the lockdown, but has shown signs of increasing since 2021, even as unemployment rates have fallen. For women, flows from the labour force to non-participation play a larger role in explaining changes in unemployment rates as compared to men. Flows from the labour force to non-participation, however, have reduced since the pandemic, providing an explanation as to why labour force participation rates have increased, namely, women staying for longer in the labour force rather than more women entering it. Despite rising labour force participation rates, the gender gap in unemployment rates has risen, in contrast to developed economies.

Authors:

• Paaritosh Nath
• Rahul Menon

Due to the heavy-quark symmetry of Non-Relativistic Quantum Chromodynamics (NRQCD), the cross-section for the production of η_c can be predicted. This NRQCD prediction when confronted with data from the LHCb is seen to fail miserably. We address this LHCb η_c anomaly in this paper using a new approach called modified NRQCD, an approach that has been shown to work extremely well for studying J/​ψ, ψ′ and χ_c production at the LHC. We show, in the present paper, that the predictions for η_c production agrees very well with LHCb measurements at the three different values of energy that the experiment has presented data for. Modified NRQCD also explains the intriguing agreement of the LHCb η_c data with the colour-singlet prediction. The remarkable agreement of the theoretical predictions with the LHCb data suggests that modified NRQCD is closer to apprehending the true dynamics of quarkonium production.

The comprehensive environmental pollution index has been applied to identify and monitor industrially polluted clusters in India. In the calculation of the CEPI, there is a health parameter (Component C), which uses local health-related data. The article draws attention to the gaps in the design and guidelines to calculate Component C.

Drawing on results from a panel of 2778 workers interviewed during and after the 68-day hard lockdown imposed in India, the following study examines the livelihood impact of the pandemic and the extent of subsequent recovery or lack thereof. Focussing specifically on workers located in the informal economy, the study is a useful addition to the burgeoning body of work on the economic impacts of Covid-19 by providing an insight into the employment and earnings recovery of those located at the margins. These findings are spliced across socio-economic groups to showcase the differential impact of the pandemic on different demographics within the informal sector.

Authors:

• Paaritosh Nath
• Nelson Mandela S
• Aishwarya Gawali

India’s 2009 Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act presents an idealised social contract which assigns roles to multiple actors to uphold a mutual duty, or collective responsibility, to secure children’s access to a quality school education. This article explores how the social contract assumed by the RTE Act misrepresents the conditions required to enact mutual responsibilities as well as actors’ agreement to do so. Qualitative data from Bihar and Rajasthan show how state actors, parents, community groups and teachers negotiate and contest the RTE Act norms. The analysis illuminates the unequal conditions and ever-present politics of accountability relations in education. It problematises the idealisation of the social contract in education reform: it proposes that if the relations of power and domination through which ​‘contracts’ are entered into remain unaddressed, then expressions of ​‘mutual’ responsibility are unlikely to do other than reproduce injustice. It argues that policy discourses need to recognise and attend to the socially situated contingencies of accountability relations and that doing so would offer an alternative pathway toward addressing structural inequalities and their manifestations in education.

This case study is of ​“India’s First Fully Solar Powered Village”2 — Dharnai. It is a case of the promises of and challenges facing the realisation of ​“energy democracy” — the idea that distributed renewable energy systems have the potential to democratise the economy and society.

When the pandemic hit, the Indian economy was already in the most prolonged slowdown in recent decades. On top of this, there were legacy problems such as a slow rate of job creation and lack of political commitment to improving working conditions which trapped a large section of the workforce without access to any employment security or social protection.

The pandemic has further increased informality and led to a severe decline in earnings for the majority of workers resulting in a sudden increase in poverty. Women and younger workers have been disproportionately affected. Government relief has helped avoid the most severe forms of distress, but the reach of support measures is incomplete, leaving out some of the most vulnerable workers and households. 

The report was released on 5 May 2021- you can watch the recording of the online event here.

Modern India has a history of a vibrant and active social sector. Many local development organisations, community organisations, social movements and non-governmental organisations populate the space of social action. Such organisations imagine a different future and plan and implement social interventions at different scales, many of which have lasting impact on the lives of people and society. However, their efforts and, more importantly, the learning from these initiatives remains largely unknown not only in the public sphere but also in the worlds of ​‘development practice’ and ​‘development education’. This shortfall impedes the process of learning and growth across interventions, organisations and time.

What does evolution by natural selection mean? How does ​‘survival of the fittest’ explain the transformation of male clownfish into females? Or the many non-combative, non-competitive, and seemingly friendly interactions observed between ants and plants? Does it provide clues to the identity of the mysterious descendants of dinosaurs in today’s world? These are some of the questions we explore in our theme section ​‘Evolution revisited’. In Annals of History, relive unsung surprises in the process of discovery of penicillin with interactive resources designed for the science classroom. How do we use pendulums to illustrate fundamental concepts in mechanics? How do we recognize and clarify incorrect student conceptions of the science of everyday phenomena? Find out with the detachable activity sheets & concept builders in ​‘The Science Lab’.

With the lack of official government data on unemployment and other labour market indicators, the most viable and recent source have been the regular household surveys conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE). Given the differences in methods in data collection, it becomes exceedingly important to establish some comparability between the government and the CMIE datasets. This paper attempts to do that using two methods. First we fit a model of employment status on the CMIE data and see how well it predicts outcomes in the older Labour Bureau 2015 – 16 and NSS 2011-12 data. Then we compare state-level estimates of broad labour market indicators from CMIE 2016 and Labour Bureau 2015 – 16 datasets. The broad results are that despite differences in methodologies, the estimates for men are quite comparable between the surveys, while measures of women’s participation in the labour force seem particularly sensitive to the way questions are asked in surveys.

Authors:

• Rosa Abraham
• Anand Shrivastava

The problems of India’s development and governance are routinely linked to the logic of India’s electoral democracy. As a result, a great deal is known about elections, but paradoxically our knowledge of politics and society between elections is relatively underdeveloped. As much as anything else, development and governance outcomes are shaped by how the government functions between elections; including how it relates to citizens on a regular basis, how it provides routine public services to them, and how public order is maintained. Further, governance processes are nested in the social and political relationships between citizens and government functionaries.

Author:

• Anumeha Yadav

A striking feature of the Indian economy has been the relatively small contribution made by the manufacturing sector to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and, more importantly, to employment. In 2013, manufacturing accounted for only 16.5 per cent of India’s GDP, compared to 29.7 per cent of China’s.3 According to the National Sample Survey (NSS) on Employment and Unemployment, India’s manufacturing sector provided employment to 61.3 million in 2011-12, which was only 13 per cent of the country’s total workforce of 472.5 million in that year.

Authors:

• Jayan Jose Thomas
• Chinju Johny

This study is the outcome of the experience of the Shramajivi Mahila Samity, an independent, non-party mass organisation of mainly rural working women in West Bengal. Shramajivi Mahila Samity works on gender discrimination and rights of women. It does not run any direct income generating programmes. However, in the 28 years of our work in rural Bengal, we have seen women contributing in myriad ways to the economies of their families. They are an irreplaceable element in the survival of their families, often making the difference between starvation and subsistence. We have always been surprised by the official statistics which show West Bengal as having one of the lowest female labour participation rates in the country. It has led us to believe that there is a gross misunderstanding about women’s work and the importance of unpaid work in the economy of a poor household. In the past few decades, we have seen more and more women in rural Bengal joining paid work. We have seen that men are migrating and the agricultural labour force in many areas consists now almost entirely of women. We were therefore surprised to read about a debate on falling female labour particpation rate at the national level. It did not match our own work experiences. It has led us to the present study, which we hope will be able to shed some light on what is actually happening to women from the rural working class in West Bengal.

Author:

• Anuradha Talwar

In India, the relative importance of the handloom sector, one of the largest employers following agriculture, has been declining for last few decades. The All India Handloom Census data for the year 2009-10 however showed a rather modest decline in the number of weavers in West Bengal, in contrast to a 33% decline at the national level in the same year. But share of handloom income in total household income for the weaver households in the state has decreased significantly pointing to considerable occupational diversification among them. Based on a qualitative field study in three districts of West Bengal — namely, Hooghly, Nadia and Purba Bardhaman — this essay presents findings related to the condition of handloom weavers in West Bengal and in the light of the findings, examines two issues— intra-sector and inter-sector mobility of labour as well as weavers’ response to changing market conditions. The paper argues for a more labour-focused approach in place of currently dominant tradition-focused understanding of the sector.

Authors:

• Rajesh Bhattacharya
• Sarmishtha Sen

This study focuses on the Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Bawal-Tapukara-Neemrana industrial belt in Haryana and Rajasthan, which is an important ​‘node’ or part of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) and a major destination of capital in the last few decades. The study is based on primary survey work of qualitative nature of over 6 months from September 2017 to March 2018. Primary respondents are workers of different segments, plant-level Trade Union leaders and Trade Union activists of the belt, with some inputs from secondary literature, workers magazine and data published by the companies and the government.

Authors:

• Amit
• Nayanjyoti

After independence in 1947, India embarked on an ambitious path of industrialisation, following the standard modern developmental prescription drawn from the experience of the so-called developed countries. Since the inauguration of the reform era in 1991, this model of development, duly globalised, has been reinforced by the decisions made by metropolitan policy elites both within and beyond India.

Author:

• Aseem Shrivastava

Domestic workers (henceforth, DW), are a part of the large ​‘informal’ sector of urban economy and society in India.ii According to the NSSO data, over the last two decades, the DW populationiii has emerged as the second largest urban informal workforce (Chen and Raveendran 2011), next only to ​‘home based workers’ (artisans and petty commodity producers). According to the NSS 68^th round (July 2011- June 2012), it is estimated that 41.3 lakhs workers work in the households of others, and an overwhelming 27.9 lakhs of this total are women.iv An increasing number of studies are emerging about DWs around the world including the phenomenon of international migration of DWs for work. This paper is a critical commentary on the collectivization of DWs, based upon an ongoing empirical study that combines ethnographic and quantitative inquiry among DWs in different parts of Bengaluru, India. Our aim here is to provide readers with general insights into some of the key struggles of and prospects for domestic workers in a particular context – DWs who work in a mega-city and in multiple homes (rather than as live-ins).

Authors:

• Balmurli Natrajan
• Rajesh Joseph

The policy framework in India has provided support to the micro and small enterprises. In 2006, the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Act 2006 came into existence (msme​.gov​.in). This Act aimed at promoting and developing micro, small and medium enterprises. In India, the MSME sector’s contribution to GDP was 17 percent of GDP during 2004-05 to 2009-10. More recently, a comprehensive policy called the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015 came into existence. This policy supersedes the National Skill Development Policy of 2009. The vision statement of the policy is ​“To create an ecosystem of empowerment by Skilling on a large Scale at Speed with high Standards and to promote a culture of innovation based entrepreneurship which can generate wealth and employment so as to ensure Sustainable livelihoods for all citizens in the country.” Recent policies such as demonetization and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) have created a setback for the micro enterprises that operated in the informal economy based mainly on cash transactions.

Authors:

• Jeemol Unni
• Ravikiran Naik

Despite its weak performance in terms of job creation in recent years, the organised manufacture sector remains vital to employment policy. This paper investigates the aggregate trends in this sector, in employment, output, labour-capital ratio, as well as wage share and wage rates at the three-digit NIC level over a long period from 1983 to 2016 using the Annual Survey of Industries data. We show that three distinct sub-periods can be identified within the overall period. Further, using shift-share decomposition we show that most of the decline in the L/K ratio can be explained by within industry changes. Finally, we analyze industries with respect to their capacity to deliver job growth as well as wage growth.

Authors:

• Amit Basole
• Amay Narayan

This issue of the Learning Curve focuses on one of the most important periods in any individual’s life — early childhood. Whatever differences there may be on any other aspect of education, this is one area on which everyone agrees: that the years between birth and eight are the most significant and can make or break a life. So universal is this that it is equally true in all cultures. You will find focus articles by some of the most well-known and much respected educationists in the country, followed by very practical and hands-on approaches to Early Childhood Education (ECE).