(SoHSS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences

<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 97th amendment to the Constitution inserts a critical point into Article 19(1)(c) by recognising the right of the people to form cooperative societies as a fundamental right. It envisages their insulation from political interference, and infusion of greater managerial skills and autonomy into their functioning. However, there is the possibility of the managerial element overriding the concerns of the members and lack of sufficient room for an effective state intervention when required.

Economic and Political Weekly

The 97th amendment: Some concerns

Sociology

Fulltext

Diogenes

The Politics of Custom: Blood Money, Disputes and Tribal Leadership in Western India

World University root node

English

Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies

SOAS Students Forum on Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Abstract. Ensuring drought resilience for farmers is an important policy concern. Yet, a quantitative treatment of the concept of drought resilience has been lacking in the literature. This paper designs a mathematical model of drought resilience to assess farmers' survival strategies when faced with the prospect of repeated droughts. A key distinction is being made here between consecutive droughts and one-off droughts, as it is the former, which is of most concern to farmers as well as policy makers. The mathematical model is generalized to incorporate the possibility of more than one set of a certain number of consecutive droughts occurring in the future. Findings indicate varying implications for groundwater sustainability when resilience outcomes are directly linked to the length of a farmer's drought planning horizon as well as to the planned minimum consumption during drought years. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Economics

Natural Resource Modeling

Mathematical modeling of drought resilience in agriculture

Maharashtra is facing a severe drought while there are allegations of a massive scam in the execution of irrigation projects. The white paper on irrigation projects, brought out by the state government, glosses over a number of major concerns. Until there is a fundamental shift in state policy based on the willingness to look upon the right to water as being on par with the right to life, the state will continue to frequently face the spectre of drought.

The case of Maharashtra's disappearing water

This paper examines chakri as a distinct category of work in colonial Bengal. It traces the emergence of chakri in Bengal's encounters with colonialism, and the subsequent association of the category with "English education" and the bhadralok (literally, "respectable ones"). Chakri was and continues to be a referent of white-collar jobs in Bengal. In addition, it was crucial to consolidating respectability, as the bhadralok distinguished themselves from those who engaged in manual or menial labour (e.g., peasants, domestic workers etc.). However, a closer look at the terms chakure (employee) and chakor (servant) reveals differing connotations. Characteristics embedded in the notion of chakor - service, servitude and loyalty - noticeably blurred the lines that divided respectable work from manual-menial labour. Yet divisions between these two were maintained, even as the undertones of servant varied morally within the socioeconomic categories of chakure and chakor. At the same time, this study extends beyond immediate concerns of livelihood in order to encompass broader yet interrelated realms of citizenship and nation building. © 2013 by Studien Verlag Ges.m.b.H.

Osterreichische Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaften

Conceptualizing work/employment in India: A study of Chakri in Colonial Bengal (19th-20th centuries)

This text chronicles the 1971 war in South Asia by reconstituting the memories of those on opposing sides of the conflict. The book challenges assumptions about the nature of conflict and exposes the ways in which the 1971 conflict is still playing out in the region. Introduction: Memories in conflict – Call to arms : Bengali nationalist rebellion – Military inaction : power without responsibility – Military action : "Operation Searchlight" in Dhaka – Uncivil war : mobs, mutinies and madness – Village of widows : "securing" the countryside – Hounding of Hindus : the politics of minority persecution – Hit and run : sabotage and retribution – Fratricide : death squads at war's end – Words and numbers : memories and monstrous fables – Appendix 1: Bibliographical note – Appendix 2: List of interviewees.

International Relations and Governance Studies

Islam and Civilisational Renewal

Sarmila Bose , Dead Reckoning : Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War

Its ubiquity notwithstanding, contemporary India's ‘great power' discourse does not appear to reflect the concerns of the Indian multitude. Recognizing this condition and approaching the discourse as a political phenomenon that has real effects, this article makes the following suggestions. First, India's great power discourse comes into existence through a pedagogical project wherein the discourse's core assumptions about India's role and purpose in world affairs appear uncritically emulated from the historical experience of other great powers, primarily the United States. Second, even though the discourse is rooted in a historical experience external to the nation, it would be misleading to term the discourse as a ‘wholly emulated' one. The agential participation of at least some Indian nationals in carrying out the emulation makes it a ‘more emulated and less national' discourse. Third, though it is ‘more emulated and less national,' the project normalizes the discourse by erasing the signs of its emulation; so that it can be passed off as a ‘wholly national' discourse. This allows the discourse to appropriate the entire imaginative space of the Indian nation and, therefore, of India's international relations. Fourth, once aware of these workings of the pedagogical project, we can wonder how a democratic—that is, a ‘more national and less emulated'—idea of India's role and purpose in world affairs could look like.

Jadavpur Journal of International Relations

Emulated or National? Contemporary India's ‘Great Power' Discourse

Climate change is forcing large scale structural changes in agrarian sectors in the developing world by adversely affecting water resources and threatening the viability of future agriculture. In the most drought affected regions, farmers must explore alternative skills for themselves and their children when faced with unsustainable livelihoods. In this paper, a stylized decision model of skill acquisition is developed in which farmers face the risk of an irreversible loss of groundwater due to climate change. Findings indicate that the risk of groundwater loss promotes higher efforts towards skill acquisition, in general, but skill seeker's own learning capabilities play an important role in determining the eventual outcome. Additionally, groundwater resources are depleted to fund skill acquisition through education, but when rate of skill depreciation is large or differences between skilled wages and agricultural income are small, groundwater depletion is delayed. A non-linear relationship between skill acquisition and groundwater sustainability emerges. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research

Climate Change and Human Capital Accumulation: Educational Decisions under Resource Scarcity and Uncertainty

Watershed Development (WSD) programs in rainfed dryland agriculture in India have been introduced in an effort to promote more sustainable management of the surface and groundwater resources, and to improve the livelihoods of farmers. This paper outlines the planned research for a project exploring the impacts of WSD at the meso-scale (∼100 km 2). The aim of the project is to develop and apply integrated models to assess cost effectiveness and water-related equity outcomes of stakeholder defined WSD scenarios; and to integrate and apply, in collaboration with project partners, the knowledge arising from the project at local, state and national policy levels. © IWA Publishing 2012.

Water Practice and Technology

Impacts of meso-scale Watershed Development in Andhra Pradesh (India) and their implications for designing and implementing improved WSD policies and programs