Publications & Resources
Our faculty, students and researchers work together everyday to contribute to a better world by grappling with urgent problems we are facing in India. We conduct rigorous work to produce high quality learning resources and publications to contribute to public discourse and social change. Here, we feature a sample from our work for everyone to access. You can explore featured resources, policies, and the latest publications from the University.
To explore all the work of our University, please visit our publications repository.
University Working Paper Series
The persistent nucleus: atoms, power and energy policy discourse in the anthropocene
in Azim Premji University
- Published
- Authors
Abstract
Despite economic debacles, recurring “accidents”, reactor core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima and the cautious academic reflection it has engendered, civilian nuclear power continues to enjoy legitimacy in energy policy discourse. This may not be the case in all countries. But it is so in a number of influential states, such as, prominently, all the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Why does nuclear power persist in these and other key countries, such as India or Iran and Japan? How is it that economic costs, technology risks and weapons proliferation concerns point in one direction while energy policy and technology choice moves in the other? We suggest that for an important set of select countries this divergence can be ascribed to a “discourse of power” that is pegged to domestic concerns and, more importantly, to international relations. This discursive process constructs energy and material abundance as the cornerstone of social stability, political power and ultimately national sovereignty and geopolitical influence. The atom’s energy remains prominent in such imaginaries of abundance, more so in contexts of fossil energy insecurity and climate change. The questioning then of nuclear power by environmental and social concerns has to also question this discourse of power. The latter’s sanguinity vis-a-vis abundant energy needs to be problematised. This is not the case today in international relations. Practitioners focus on the consequences of environmental deterioration. The problem of climate refugees, for example. This paper argues that realist frames of power and self-interest in international relations be acknowledged explicitly as drivers of the discourse of power and in turn the socio-ecological consequences that ensue from this pursuit of cheap and abundant energy. To challenge nuclear power ultimately is to also challenge this medieval yet dominant norm of power play that pervades large swathes of international relations.
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University Working Paper Series
A call for development of a growth standard to measure malnutrition of school-age children
in Azim Premji University
- Published
- Authors
Abstract
There is no globally established standard for measuring malnutrition among children aged 5 – 18 years. Growth references are used as a standard but there are many limitations to using such references to assess nutritional status of Indian children. As per the World Health Organization, standards and references both serve as a basis for comparison, but each enables a different interpretation. A standard defines how children should grow; and deviations from the pattern it prescribes are evidence of abnormal growth. A reference, on the other hand, does not provide a basis for such value judgments, although in practice, references often are mistakenly used as standards. This paper has conducted a methodological review of prevalence of malnutrition from openly accessible literature pertaining to assessment of nutritional status of school-going children in India from the year 2000 to 2016. The methodological review reveals that a combination of different national and international references have been used in assessing nutritional status of Indian children. International references includes NCHS 1977, CDC 2000, WHO 2007, IOTF 2012 extended Body Mass Index (BMI) cut- offs, Gomez classification, Waterlow’s classification and national references such as — Agarwal standards, ICMR reference values, IAP reference and BMI cut-off for overweight & obesity of Indian children. A new national growth reference has been recently developed by Marwaha and others (2011) for BMI, but no assessment of nutritional status using this reference was found. Each of these methods was then applied to a database containing height, weight, age and sex of 5340 school-going children. Though there are three nutritional indicators for school-age children, majority of the study conducted used only BMI chart to assess nutritional status. Therefore BMI-for-age is considered for the analysis to i) understand the methodological application of the above growth references ii) compare the differences in nutritional status and iii) recommend an appropriate growth reference (from those available) to assess the nutritional status of Indian school-age children. The literature review also reveals that malnutrition among school-age children is prevalent in India. There is no national level data available to support this judgement across regions, gender and caste. Given a likely high prevalence of malnutrition, this paper calls for the development of a growth standard to measure malnutrition among school-age children in India. Though this paper is focused on malnutrition, it simultaneously provides similar importance to over growth. A growth Standard therefore fills up such gaps in measuring double burden of malnutrition i.e. under-nutrition and over-nutrition.
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University Working Paper Series
Lakes of Bengaluru : the once living, but now endangered peri-urban commons
in Azim Premji University
- Published
- Authors
Abstract
Cities of the Global South are expanding both spatially and demographically. While urbanization may contribute to economic growth and employment generation, the impacts of urbanization on sustainability of cities is manifold. One area that is witnessing rapid land use change as a result of urbanization is the peri-urban interface of cities in India. This is especially true in the case of natural spaces that are also common pool resources. In this working paper, we examine the transformation of lakes in the peri-urban interface of Bengaluru city in the south Indian state of Karnataka. Based on GPS observations and interviews, we found that lakes in our study area varied in status and use: ranging from those in a good condition that served multiple uses to those converted to other forms of land use, resulting in loss of all services. We also accessed archival information to underscore the role that one of the lakes in the study area played in serving as a source of water during a time of scarcity. Using the example of lakes in Bengaluru, this paper presents the threats faced by commons in the peri-urban interface of rapidly expanding cities in the Global South. These threats are not restricted to changes to land use alone, but also concern their transformation into recreational sites at the cost of users who depend on them for livelihood and subsistence. We argue for management of the lakes in the peri-urban interface not only as ecosystems that supports ecological and economic uses, but as commons that are a reflection of the diversity and heterogeneity that cities such as Bengaluru represent.
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