Institutions and abused women: an interactional model to access justice in India

The discourse on domestic violence has steadily moved from solely the realm of private family affairs into the institutional domain, through changing perceptions and the enactment and enforcement of laws. This article aims to understand how women approach institutions and how institutions perceive, translate, and respond to complaints within human rights discourses. The study analysed all cases registered in a family counselling centre in Rajasthan, India, with ten cases then randomly selected for in-depth interviews. The institutions are a catalyst of social change; however, they need to partner with specialists for medical interventions, and network with line departments more effectively to improve social resilience.     

Institutionalising mechanisms for building urban climate resilience: experiences from India

This paper examines how mainstreaming of urban climate change resilience – a crucial consideration in an increasingly urbanised world – is occurring at both the city and national scale, using the case of an internationally-funded resilience-building initiative in India. Surat city's newly-established Climate Change Trust illustrates the importance of an institutionalised mechanism for coordinating and sustaining climate initiatives. Concurrently, climate resilience is being mainstreamed into the national urban development agenda, through a network of Indian institutions. These two nascent mechanisms offer avenues for local city-level experiences to inform national directives, driving and sustaining the urban climate adaptation agenda across India.     

Beyond toilets and targets: sanitation mission in India

In an attempt to address Sustainable Development Goal 6, the Government of India’s initiative, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), aims to make India open-defecation free by 2018. This viewpoint analyses the consequences of SBM from the perspective of women and water in the context of toilets. With the construction of toilets for 2.4 million people, the vulnerability of women is expected to worsen as available water is scarce. The viewpoint concludes that construction of toilets as a target is difficult to achieve and sustain without green technology design that overcomes the constraints of water and women.     

Financial services to the poor: the microfinance dilemma in Andhra Pradesh

In India, microfinance and associated strategies of forming self-help groups came about in response to a newly independent nation and its need to include the rural non-banking population into national structures of development and governance. This article examines how the rapid growth of microfinance institutions during the last two decades – especially in the context of the more recent transition from non-profit to for-profit non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) – has led to a significant increase in the delivery of financial services to the rural poor. In Andhra Pradesh, the simultaneous existence of some of India’s most prominent microfinance institutions (MFIs) and their mobilisation of self-help groups – with state backing and linkages to banks leading to relatively easy availability of funds – has led to a tremendous surge in the availability of credit across the state.     

An exploration of the financial practices of tribal communities in Jhabua,India

Tribal communities of India have been facing financial challenges for many years, and these have increased alongside commercialisation led by industrialisation. The major reason for this is that tribal communities are neglected by the state, which has had a negative impact on their livelihoods and financial status. The state has made some attempts to promote these communities, but these have been unsuccessful. Against this background, this article explores the financial practices of tribal communities in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, India and presents a microfinance model which could be suitable in the Jhabua context.     

Critical aspects of social networks in a resettlement setting

Each year, more than 30 million people worldwide are displaced by disaster, development, and conflict. The sheer magnitude of displacement points to a need for wider application of social science theories and methodologies to the special problems posed by these crises. We are convinced that social network analysis of the structure and development of social relations can help to identify variables and patterns essential to maintaining or fostering social (re)articulation in resettlement. The research model we propose applies advances in network methodology to emerging theory on structural gaps in networks in the context of forced displacement and resettlement.     

Reaching the unreached? Good governance and welfare reform politics in Delhi,India

Good governance scholarship has been preoccupied with the donor-driven conditionalities imposed on aid-receiving developing countries. Limited attention has been given to power struggles and resistance from government actors (bureaucrats and politicians) to embrace internally driven good governance programmes. To address this gap, this article ethnographically examines a good governance initiative of the Delhi government (India) to reform its welfare system in partnership with NGOs. The study indicates that the conflict between government and non-governmental actors over the authority to govern the poor eventually maintained the status quo of the welfare system while the poor remain marginalised.     

Receiving information about rice seeds on mobile phones in eastern India

This article examines how farmers use mobile phones to obtain information about rice varieties in eastern India and investigates if this contributes to rice varietal replacement. The findings show that farmers located farther away from the market were more likely to pay for the calls. Moreover, about 26% of the farmers who had to pay to receive calls purchased seeds of at least one rice variety that they had never planted before, while less than 16% of farmers who received no calls did so. Regression results confirmed that paying charges to receive rice varietal information is associated with varietal replacement.     

Women on Wheels: empowering women through an innovative training and employment programme

Significant victories have been won due to the development sector’s engagement with gender inequality as a political project, but regressive shifts have also led to development being conceptualised as a managerial issue rather than as a process of social change. This article uses empirical research conducted in New Delhi, India with an organisation that trains and employs poor urban women as commercial drivers to discuss how an obsession with “cost effectiveness” and “scale” can delegitimise the valuable work of some organisations. This article encourages re-engagement with gender equality as a complicated social issue rather than as a technical-rational management project.     

Which aid initiatives strengthen food security? Lessons from Uttar Pradesh

This study contributes to existing research on the relative effectiveness of aid initiatives in addressing food insecurity in India. Specifically, it compares the effects of crop, livestock, credit, and WASH interventions implemented by a development NGO with the impacts of a public direct-transfer scheme on food security among communities in Uttar Pradesh. The NGO’s agricultural and WASH interventions and the government’s Antyodaya ration-card scheme appear to have the largest positive influence. Their positive impact can be enhanced by the presence of good governance and by the simultaneous application of several beneficial initiatives.     

Towards an era of official (involuntary) accountability of NGOs in India

In the recent past, governance reforms in India have resulted in the government and corporate sectors making serious efforts to enhance and showcase their accountability to their principals, namely citizens and shareholders. Similarly, NGOs have been pushed to demonstrate their accountability to multiple stakeholders, namely donors, communities and most importantly, the state. This viewpoint highlights this transition and also reflects on the changing contours of NGO accountability debates in India.     

Agricultural research organisations’ role in the emergence of agricultural innovation systems

Poor farmers seldom benefit from new agricultural technologies. In response, research and extension approaches based on agricultural innovation systems are popular. Often agricultural research organisations are the network brokers, facilitating the emergence of the innovation system. Based on an analysis of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) initiative in Mexico, this viewpoint suggests that such organisations are more often suitable network brokers when the objective is the development and scaling out of a technology by itself. When the objectives are multi-faceted and include extension and education, other actors are better placed to be the network broker.     

A praxis-based global ethical discourse on development and women

This article explores a praxis-based moral approach to the study of development and women. Drawing upon an illustrative case-study of Ankur Kala – a non-governmental organisation devoted to the development of destitute women in Kolkata, India – the article shows how studying actual development practices on the ground generates valuable insights without which our ethical understanding of women's development globally would be incomplete.     

Community grain banks and food security of the tribal poor in India

Given the context of failure of many of the programmes aimed at providing food security for tribal communities, this paper deals with the question, can grassroots-level experiments like community grain banks provide food security for the tribal poor? This paper examines the working of community grain banks established by Bapuji Rural Development and Enlightenment Society (BREDS) in India and concludes that community food grain banks demonstrate as an effective mechanism to ensure food security for the tribal poor, especially those who were excluded from the reach of government programmes.

Banques de céréales communautés et sécurité alimentaire des pauvres tribaux en Inde

Étant donné le contexte d’échec de nombre des programmes visant à assurer la sécurité alimentaire des communautés tribales, cet article traite de la question suivante : les expériences au niveau de la base populaire comme les banques de céréales communautaires peuvent-elles assurer la sécurité alimentaire des pauvres tribaux ? Cet article examine le fonctionnement des banques de céréales communautaires établies par la Bapuji Rural Development and Enlightenment Society (BREDS) en Inde et conclut que les banques de céréales alimentaires se révèlent être un mécanisme efficace pour garantir la sécurité alimentaire des pauvres tribaux, en particulier ceux qui ont été exclus de la portée des programmes gouvernementaux.

Bancos comunitarios de granos y seguridad alimentaria de las etnias pobres de India

Tomando en cuenta el contexto de fracaso de muchos programas dirigidos a proporcionar seguridad alimentaria a las comunidades étnicas, el presente artículo plantea la interrogante en torno a si experimentos realizados a nivel de base, como los bancos comunitarios de granos, ofrecen seguridad alimentaria a las etnias pobres. En este sentido, el artículo examina el desarrollo de los bancos comunitarios de granos establecidos por la Sociedad para el Desarrollo y la Iluminación Rural de Bapuji (breds) en India. Las conclusiones indican que dichos bancos constituyen un mecanismo efectivo para garantizar la seguridad alimentaria de las etnias pobres, especialmente de aquellas que habían sido excluidas del alcance de los programas gubernamentales.

Bancos comunitários de grãos e segurança alimentar de comunidades tribais pobres na Índia

Dado o contexto do fracasso de muitos dos programas destinados a oferecer segurança alimentar para as comunidades tribais, este artigo lida com a seguinte questão: experimentos de base, como os bancos comunitários de grãos, fornecem segurança alimentar para as comunidades tribais pobres? Este artigo examina o funcionamento de bancos comunitários de grãos criados pela Bapuji Rural Development and Enlightenment Society (BREDS) na Índia e conclui que os bancos comunitários de grãos de alimentos mostram ser um mecanismo eficiente para garantir a segurança alimentar para as comunidades tribais pobres, especialmente para aquelas que estavam fora do alcance de programas governamentais.     

Displacement,resettlement, and livelihood restoration: safeguard standards in practice

This article presents a case study of development practice based on the author’s experience of designing a livelihood restoration plan and monitoring its implementation. The plan was based on safeguard standards of a multilateral development bank that funded a private sector renewable energy project on land belonging to a vulnerable community in Central India. Illustrating the challenges faced in implementing and monitoring this plan and the reasons for its failure, the article argues that a complex set of institutional and individual relationships determine the way in which safeguard policies are translated into practice by diverse and interrelated actors.     

Social construction of capabilities and intersectional complexities in a Tamil village

India is an ethnographic museum, well-known for its national motto of “unity in diversity”. It is a country of diverse hierarchies where the social reality is intersected by the varied grades of caste and class, among others. Against this backdrop, this article conceptualises the intersections of primordial identities. The concept of intersection underscores how diverse social positions interact in a Tamil village in India. As intersectionality is “the mutually constitutive relations among social identities” (Shields 2008), the interactions of caste, class, and gender in education are conceptualised to understand the formation of capabilities.     

The global financial crisis and self-help groups in rural India: are there lessons from their micro savings model?

The global financial crisis is envisaged to have impacted some Southern countries, including India, less severely than most countries in the North. India's expected economic growth of over nine per cent was brought down to just over five per cent. In the aftermath of the crisis, a positive growth figure itself sent optimistic signals. But in a country where nearly 80 per cent of the population – mostly in rural areas – lives on under US$2 a day with a high level of social and economic vulnerability, the effects of the crisis threaten to push many into deprivation. Yet, scattered evidence suggests the emergence of savings-led self-help groups for women amongst the poorest and socially excluded communities to overcome financial vulnerabilities. Grounded in participatory methods, the focal point this is the individual rural woman driving the well-being and the poverty agenda. The paper considers if there are lessons that can be drawn from this micro-level shift for the larger global crisis.

La crise financière mondiale et les groupes d'entraide en Inde rurale : y a-t-il des enseignements à tirer de leurs modèles de micro-épargne ?

On estime que la crise financière mondiale a eu un impact sur certains pays du Sud, y compris l'Inde, moins important que sur les pays de l'hémisphère Nord. La croissance économique prévue de l'Inde de plus de neuf pour cent a été réduite par la crise à juste un peu plus de cinq pour cent. Au lendemain de la crise, un chiffre de croissance positif a lui-même transmis des signaux optimistes. Mais dans un pays où presque 80 pour cent de la population – principalement en milieu rural – vit avec moins de 2 $ US par jour, avec un important degré de vulnérabilités sociales et économiques, les effets de la crise menacent de faire sombrer de nombreuses personnes dans l'indigence. Or, des données éparpillées suggèrent l'apparition de groupes d'entraide axés sur l'épargne pour les femmes parmi les communautés les plus pauvres et les plus socialement exclues pour leur permettre de surmonter leurs vulnérabilités financières. Avec comme socle les méthodes participatives, ces groupes ont comme axe le fait que ce sont les femmes rurales individuelles qui impulsent l'ordre du jour de la qualité de vie et de la pauvreté. Cet article demande s'il y a des enseignements à tirer de cette évolution au niveau micro pour la crise mondiale dans son ensemble.

La crisis financiera mundial y los grupos de autoayuda en la India rural: ¿existen aprendizajes de su modelo de microahorros?

Es comúnmente aceptado que la crisis financiera mundial ha tenido un impacto menos fuerte en algunos de los países del Sur como India que en la mayoría de los países del Norte. El crecimiento económico de más de 9% previsto para India se redujo a un poco más de 5%. El hecho de que tras la crisis la tasa de crecimiento haya sido positiva generó señales optimistas. Aún así, en un país donde casi 80% de la población – la mayoría residente en áreas rurales – vive con menos de usd 2 diarios y con un elevado nivel de vulnerabilidades socioeconómicas, los efectos de la crisis amenazaron con dejar a muchas personas en la penuria. Sin embargo, algunas investigaciones indican el surgimiento de grupos de autoayuda encabezados por mujeres y centrados en el ahorro, cuyo objetivo es enfrentar la vulnerabilidad financiera en las comunidades más pobres y socialmente marginadas. Utilizando métodos participativos, el centro de atención de este estudio es la mujer campesina que está impulsando los esfuerzos para lograr el bienestar y superar la pobreza. El artículo analiza la existencia de aprendizajes derivados de este cambio a nivel micro que pudieran ser aplicados a la crisis mundial más amplia.

A crise financeira global e grupos de auto-ajuda na Índia rural: há lições a serem tiradas de seu modelo de micropoupança?

Considera-se que a crise financeira global tenha tido impacto menos severo em alguns países do hemisfério sul, inclusive a Índia, do que na maioria dos países do hemisfério norte. A previsão de crescimento econômico da Índia de mais de nove por cento foi reduzida para apenas um pouco acima de cinco por cento. Na sequência da crise, um próprio dado positivo de crescimento enviou sinais otimistas. Mas em um país em que quase 80 por cento da população – a maioria em áreas rurais – vivem com menos de US$2 por dia, com um alto nível de vulnerabilidade social e econômica, os efeitos da crise ameaçam deixar muitos em situação de privação. Porém, evidências dispersas sugerem a emergência de grupos de auto-ajuda que visam poupar para que as mulheres que estão entre as comunidades mais pobres e socialmente excluídas superem as vulnerabilidades financeiras. Baseado em métodos participativos, o ponto de enfoque são as mulheres rurais individuais dirigindo a agenda sobre bem-estar e pobreza. O artigo avalia se existem lições que podem ser extraídas desta mudança de nível micro para a crise global mais geral.     

Socio-religious communities and fertility patterns in West Bengal,India

This article explores the fertility differential of different religious groups across various socio-economic characteristics. The article is based on primary data collected from a field survey of 2,590 households in the Malda district of West Bengal in India. The mean number of children ever born (MCEB) is used to measure fertility. The analysis shows that there is a major variation in the impact of various socio-economic variables on the number of children ever born among different religious groups. The study findings will be helpful for policymakers regarding the planning for management of different demographic processes.     

Why is basic service access worse in slums? A synthesis of obstacles

Many residents of urban areas face joint obstacles to basic service access, but these barriers are more prevalent and severe in slum settlements. Analyses of obstacles have typically been conducted in a piecemeal rather than synthetic framework and have focused on access to single services rather than the range of services needed to support household welfare. By contrast, this study uses data from fieldwork in four slum settlements situated in Hyderabad, India to develop a typology synthesising the obstacles – economic, spatial, social, institutional, and political – to the full range of service access desired by residents. Economic differences explain little of the access deficit within this population. While social and institutional obstacles are more likely to explain slum formation and residence over the long term, variation in spatial and political factors present the most acute short-term access barriers. The article concludes by suggesting the most promising means for slum residents and supporting stakeholders to overcome multi-faceted obstacles.     

Sustainable rural livelihoods approach for climate change adaptation in Western Odisha,Eastern India

The economy of Odisha is primarily agrarian. Over 80% of the population of Odisha live in rural areas, where levels of poverty are higher than in the state's towns and cities. They depend for their livelihoods on farming and collecting forest products. During the dry season, many migrate elsewhere in Odisha and nearby states in search of temporary work as labourers. Odisha has the highest proportion of inhabitants from scheduled tribes and scheduled castes of all the states in India (39.9% compared to 24% nationally). These groups are marginalised and experience high rates of poverty, low levels of education and poor health. They are highly vulnerable to climate change, due to poverty and dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods in a vulnerable region. The Western Odisha Rural Livelihoods Project sought to reduce poverty by improving communities' water resources, agriculture, and incomes. Communities were involved throughout and are now better able to respond to climate variability (both droughts and heavy rains). The Government of Odisha took full ownership of the project and state and national governments subsequently adopted approaches used by WORLP.