<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review (Dasgupta 2021), henceforth the Review, tells us that we are embedded in Nature and our economies are bounded within Nature. It helps us estimate the value of natural capital and include it in estimations of economic output. The Review’s key messages concern (i) keeping our demands well within Nature’s supply, (ii) moving away from gross domestic product (GDP) towards inclusive wealth as a measure of economic success, and (iii) acknowledging the institutional failure in addressing global environmental problems and resolving them through institutional reforms in the financial and education systems. However, this commentary suggests that the Review is about conserving economics for biodiversity. It offers little opportunity for transformative change in our thinking and acting, to change our relationship with Nature so that we can conserve its diversity and dynamism. This commentary suggests possible ways forward, drawing upon lessons on non-linear behaviour, emergent properties, and complexity in Nature. These include looking to niche communities that live within the limits set by Nature, learning from various environmental social sciences on how to maintain and promote the aggregate stocks and funds of Nature; and finding ways to include economic activity and output in value frameworks of sustainability, justice, and diversity. © Raina 2021.

International Relations and Governance Studies

(SoHSS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Fulltext

Ecology, Economy and Society

Conserving economics for biodiversity: Reflections on “the dasgupta review”

This paper argues that what we do to conserve biodiversity depends on how we know biodiversity. The former Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is concerned that national policymakers may not take the findings of this global assessment (GA) seriously because of ‘squabbling scientists.’ The paper explores the contentious issues in IPBES, about presenting knowledge to policymakers, and about the integration of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) into this global scientific knowledge creation. It asks why IPBES fights shy of addressing the dialectical relationship between how we know and how we act on the environment. Given that biodiversity is best understood and conserved by local communities, we present a case study of the protocols or policies of the Maldhari community in the Banni grasslands in India. The institutions or norms of the Maldhari ‘way of life’ govern and co-create their knowledge and policy decisions or protocols for biodiversity and livelihoods. The IPBES conceptual framework places these institutions that govern knowledge generation and policy-making outside and distinct from the direct drivers of nature and human well-being. If IPBES findings are to be taken up by nation states, we need astute policy makers who understand institutions and are capable of public engagement and co-creation of knowledge and policy. The paper makes a plea for building on the IPBES report with national and local public engagement, to enable knowledge-policy relationships of co-ownership and action for biodiversity conservation. © 2020, Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature.

World University root node

Sustainability Science

How we know biodiversity: institutions and knowledge-policy relationships

The critique of growth is one of the defining features of ecological economics. Yet ecological economists have had relatively little to say about “post-growth” in the global South. In this article, we propose a new definition of post-growth as the combined application and theorization of degrowth, agrowth, steady-state economics and post-development. We then discuss – with special reference to India – seven ways of thinking about post-growth in the global South. Starting with the basic observation that the current patterns of growth-fueled “development” are ecologically, socially and financially unsustainable, we argue that serious post-growth thinking can only be world-systemic and rooted in class analyses. We then point out that the “GDP growth against poverty” connection is debatable and we instead argue, normatively, that an effective post-growth program should focus on fulfilled needs and on wealth redistribution. Against the idea that growth-critical approaches have their origin in industrialized countries, we show that many post-growth ideas have non-Western roots and a substantial number of potential contemporary allies in the global South. Discussing the example of Bhutan, we suggest that preliminary elements of a post-growth program are not as utopian as it might sound. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.

Ecological Economics

Post-Growth in the Global South? Some Reflections from India and Bhutan

Valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services is considered essential to formulate policies for sustainable development. But monetary valuation of BES reinforces the prevalent science-policy relationships that have led to the erosion of biodiversity. The livestock sector with multiple ecosystem services, valued for its contribution to the economy, strong policy and programme agendas, livestock breeding and maintenance sciences is used to illustrate the science-policy interface and the choices made for livestock improvement and for livestock biodiversity.

Economic and Political Weekly

The valuation conundrum: Biodiversity and science-policy interface in India's livestock sector

The Mihir Shah Committee report demands a paradigm shift, bringing the ecosystems perspective to the ways water is governed in India. This article argues that these governance reforms, though essential, are not enough to enable the paradigm shift necessary for sustainability and ecological justice. But it may be a great place to begin.

Water governance reform a hopeful starting point

Governing Agricultural Sustainability: Global Lessons from GM Crops

Institutional rigidities and impediments: Agricultural research and GM crops in India

This chapter explores how the intermediate regime, or the state along with its ideological and functional allies, imposes its own articulation of development on agriculture. It discusses how agriculture as a sector of the economy and a way of life for over a quarter of the population and half the workforce of the world’s largest democracy, is shaped by the power and persistence of a relatively small faction of the population. The chapter explains the evolution of Indian agriculture in three phases of development articulation, and new relationships between the state and agriculture. The governance of agriculture is dictated by the development norms of the intermediate regime. For the regime, agriculture has been fundamental to all development (phase 1), the driver of modernisation for development (phase 2), and is now a game of contending alternatives (phase 3). The persistence of technologies, investment patterns and centralised administration is best illustrated in the state’s understanding of and solutions for rainfed agriculture. © 2016, 2018 selection and editorial matter, Knut A. Jacobsen.

Routledge Handbook of Contemporary India

Agriculture and the development burden

An analysis of the GM crop debate in India

The chapter explores India’s development paradox of economic growth with massive rural poverty and unemployment, using the innovation systems framework as a lens. The innovation systems framework is being promoted in Indian economic decision-making. The framework tells us that innovation happens only when both technological and institutional changes occur. Yet, reconciliation between the narrow S&T-based and broader institutional learning-based approach to innovation has been difficult due to limited appreciation of the stranglehold of institutions over the components of the national innovation system (NIS). This chapter enquires how institutions, the overarching rules or norms that shape economic decisions, were considered in India’s production investments and technological capacities in agriculture and industry, sectors critical to production and consumption opportunities for India’s massive rural population. Norms of surplus extraction from modern technology based agriculture, and of technologically determined linkages between industries govern India’s centralized technological capacities and techno-centric production investments. Based on an understanding of the institutional realities of the economy, India’s NIS should address the aggregate demand constraint and limited opportunities for labour-intensive industrialization, in order to ensure employment and incomes for the rural poor, instead of focusing exclusively on high-tech-based export markets. © Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) 2015.

Emerging Economies: Food and Energy Security, and Technology and Innovation

Technological and institutional change: India’s development trajectory in an innovation systems framework

Climate change is a bag of nettles in India’s contentious, iniquitous and unsustainable agriculture sector. Climate change is expected to adversely impact agriculture through increased temperatures, inter-and intra-seasonal changes in precipitation and temperature regimes, and sea level rise. The expected result is an overall decline in food grain production in the country. © 2012 Selection and editorial material, Navroz K. Dubash.

Handbook of Climate Change and India: Development, Politics and Governance

Agriculture in the environment: Are sustainable climate friendly systems possible in India?

Rural India finds mention in every document on poverty, inequality, malnutrition, unemployment and disguised employment, agriculture and artisanal livelihoods and gender relationships. Almost all these refer to limited capacities for economic growth and development. Thereby, technologies and investments in people and infrastructure for these have become the bedrock of rural development efforts in the country. This theme presents an overview of S and T strategies for rural development in India. The focus is on understanding S and T capacities that exist and how knowledge and technologies are accessed and used for rural development. India is rural (2000–01 to 2004–05) • Rural population of 830 million–in 1100 million • Cultivators + main and marginal workers–430 million • Urban literacy rate (81 per cent); rural (61 per cent) • Female literacy 45 per cent in rural areas (70 per cent in urban areas) • Malnourished–49 per cent of children and 39 per cent of women in rural India (36 per cent and 20 per cent in urban areas) • Rural infant mortality rate–61 (37 in urban areas) in 1000 Overall rural development efforts in India focus on: • Provision of basic infrastructure facilities in the rural areas, for example, schools, health facilities, roads, drinking water, electrification etc. • Improving agricultural productivity in the rural areas. • Provision of social services like health and education for socio-economic development. © National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies.

India: Science and Technology

Rural development - science and technology (S and T) strategies and capacities

Situating ethics in technology and science

The 2008 food crisis sets the stage for this paper, which explores the processes involved in the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development. The insights drawn are situated in an historical recognition of the interface between agricultural crises and agricultural knowledge. The paper offers a window on both ongoing debates in agricultural science and the experiences of other recent international assessments of energy, the environment, and climate change. It is concerned with analysing how the iaastd was designed and written, for what it can tell us about the conclusions drawn and controversies raised. The democratic practices underpinning the set of iaastd reports and the integrated approach to agricultural knowledge, science, and technology, commodity production, and environmental and social goals, are central for understanding contemporary debates about agricultural knowledge.

A messy confrontation of a crisis in agricultural science

A draft bill on public funded research and development prepared by the department of biotechnology proposes grant of financial incentives to scientists to patent and sell their own research. This is a good example of how legal tinkering or half-baked institutional changes based on inadequate analysis of the existing system will instead restrain science.

Policy bungling on incentives for public sector s and t

There is increasing demand for institutional reform in the agricultural sciences. This paper presents lessons from the content and directions in soil science research in India, to make a case for institutional reform in the agricultural sciences. It demonstrates how existing institutional and organizational contexts shape the research content of the soil sciences and its sub-disciplines. These contexts also shape the capacity of the soil sciences to understand and partner with other components of the wider natural resource management (NRM) innovation systems. The professional association has received little attention in the innovation systems literature, even within the nuanced, context specific and historically sensitive accounts of innovation. As a professional association, the Indian Society of Soil Sciences (ISSS) plays a limited role currently, with little engagement with the key professional and social issues that confront the soil sciences. The ISSS is presented here as a potential actor in the NRM innovation systems. The paper argues that with the involvement of the ISSS, the existing discipline-based, commodity oriented, linear and instrumentalist problem solving approach in the soil sciences can be reformed to a learning and partnership based innovation systems approach, enabling professional excellence, field level technology utilization, along with substantial policy and donor support. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Research Policy

The soil sciences in India: Policy lessons for agricultural innovation

This paper locates impact assessment research within the disciplinary constructs of agricultural economics, the institutions (rules of the game) and organizations (structures governed by these rules/norms) of agricultural innovation. The paper analyses the disciplinary limitations in impact assessment research. In the hard science culture of agricultural research the social sciences, closer to the reality of complex technological contexts, are less prestigious. Agricultural economics, the disciplinary root of impact assessment, imposes a major constraint by making institutional contexts and variations intractable and analysed at best as disturbances. Sophisticated econometric methodologies substitute for information on institutions, systems components and relationships. The paper presents an analytical framework to distinguish between the institutional and organizational variables in the agricultural innovation system. The case study of institutional and organizational change in Indian agricultural research and extension is used to demonstrate the role of institutions in determining the impact of agricultural science and technology. Impact assessment research is institutionally conditioned to look for end point consequences of research, such as yield increase, cost reduction, or farm income. This body of knowledge ignores crucial requirements such as the institutional framework (hierarchy for instance) and actors that facilitate these end point impacts. Mainstream impact assessment literature is not concerned about the important relationships among these institutions and actors, or about the impact of knowledge on these institutions and organizations. In the quest for end point consequences, estimated often as rates of return to investment, impact assessment has overlooked important requirements and relationships within agricultural innovation systems. An analysis of institutional learning using the key elements of an evaluation culture as proposed by program evaluators is used to demonstrate the need for impact assessment to engage with institutional questions and build the capacity for institutional learning. There is a felt need to move from impact assessment to a larger evaluation culture. Agricultural research evaluation has much to learn from regular program evaluation. This calls for more social science research besides neoclassical agricultural economics, and active interaction among the natural and social scientists, extensionists, farming communities, policy makers and other actors. Effective evaluation in general and impact assessment in particular depends on the institutional learning capacity of the actors, especially scientists and policy makers. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Agricultural Systems

Disciplines, institutions and organizations: Impact assessments in context

Modern agrobiotechnology is developing at a crucial phase in the history of agricultural science. The conventional green revolution paradigm is being forced to shift to a more ecologically just and politically sound paradigm of sustainable agriculture. Within agricultural innovation systems, the decisions in agrobiotechnology, be they on research directions, allocations or release of research products, will now depend on a judicious mix of public opinion, regulatory and political safeguards, new partnerships and organizational formats, social contracts and scientific judgements. This entails changes both in the expectations from science and in the existing policy processes and instruments. Agricultural biotechnology is now marked by new research and development partnerships demanding new capabilities in the social sciences to analyse relationships between science, technology and society.

Biotechnology and Development Monitor

Innovation capability for agrobiotechnology: Policy issues

This article examines the crucial role of scientific expertise and authority, in evaluation as well as in research decision-making. The case of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is used to demonstrate how the bureaucratic imperatives in a public research system can thwart the cause of scientific authority and accountability. Research decision-making is a function delegated to different points, or "nodes", vested with scientific expertise and the power to make decisions. Scientific expertise is the basic asset used by the nodes, which may be individual scientists and/or groups, boards or organizations. Patronage or decision-making in the ICAR is, for the most part, vested in bureaucratic nodes, marking the dichotomy in the organization between scientific and administrative or financial decision-making. The concluding section of this article highlights the social reproduction of bureaucratic nodes, which perpetuates the marginalization of evaluation. The nodes in the ICAR rely on bureaucratic decision-making not validated by evaluations or assessments using scientific expertise. It is argued that stringent evaluation can replace bureaucratic authority with scientific expertise and authority, thereby bringing more accountability to the system of patronage of science.