Sustainability labelling as a tool for reporting the sustainable development impacts of climate actions relevant to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement

The architecture of global carbon markets has changed significantly since the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals were both agreed in 2015. Voluntary, international cooperative approaches established in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement allow Parties to work together to achieve the targets set out in their respective Nationally Determined Contributions to limit global warming to an increase below 1.5–2 °C. In Article 6.4, a sustainable mitigation mechanism is established for which rules, modalities and procedures will be developed internationally considering the experience and lessons learned from existing mechanisms, such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and its Sustainable Development (SD) Tool. Historically the issue of making integrated assessments of sustainable development and mitigation actions has been politically and methodologically controversial for many reasons: developing countries fear that an international definition of SD will interfere with their sovereignty and therefore their ability to define their own development pathways; players in the carbon market fear that markets can only handle one objective, namely mitigation outcomes; and sustainable development is regarded as too complex and costly to be measured and quantified. In an effort to address these concerns, the article proposes a new methodology for the sustainability labelling of climate mitigation actions relevant to Article 6 approaches. The article draws on an application of the CDM SD tool to analyse 2098 Component Programme Activities that had entered the CDM Pipeline by January 2017. The article demonstrates that assessment of the sustainable development benefits of climate actions can be graded and labelled based on the analysis of qualitative data, which is less costly than applying a quantitative approach.

     

Indian Federalism and Democracy: The Growing Salience of Diversity-claims Over Equality-claims in Comparative and Indian Perspective

This article introduces a conceptual distinction between diversity-claims and equality-claims in order to reflect critically on the relation between federalism and democracy in India, which is not adequately problematized and somewhat neglected. Federalism and democracy suggest two different problematics, but in India democracy has often played second fiddle to the claims of diversity. As a result, India's success as a federation has not been paralleled by its record as a democracy in terms of its equality functions. Since the article engages with the issue of accommodation of diversity in the wake of federation-building, and the relation between federalism and democracy, critical references are made to the relevant theoretical literature in order to point out federalism's new problematic and its pitfalls. With the Indian case as a major illustration, it is shown here that the institutional arrangements and governing practices have overwhelmingly been given priority to meet the claims of diversity to the relative neglect of equality-claims.     

Rapid and non-destructive approach for characterization and differentiation of sealing wax using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy

Sealing wax is used for maintaining the integrity and authenticity of a document or physical evidence. Any tampering with the seal calls into question the overall integrity and authenticity of the tangible evidence or document. In these circumstances, determining the authenticity of the sealing material (physical and chemical) becomes imperative. In this study, ATR-FTIR spectroscopy supported by chemometrics has been used to differentiate sealing wax samples belonging to 12 different brands available across India. All the samples were first melted, cooled, and then analyzed using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy in the mid-infrared region (4000–600 cm⁻¹). The obtained spectra were first examined visually for the presence of different functional groups. Principal component analysis (PCA) and principal component analysis-linear discriminant analysis (PCA-LDA) were employed to analyze the sample clustering patterns and to categorize them into their respective groups, respectively. For classification, a PCA-LDA training model was applied, and it demonstrated 95.83% accuracy. The validation test resulted in an accuracy of 83.33%. PCA-LDA model offered 100% accurate prediction for samples on various substrates, including cloth, cardboard, and paper. A blind study was also performed using five unknown samples, which were accurately classified into their respective groups. PCA-LDA model will be helpful in providing investigative leads by linking a questioned sealing wax sample with its respective group.     

Jumping Together: A Fatal Suicide Pact

In suicide pact, two or more victims mutually agree and execute to end their lives together by predetermined method, preferably by hanging, drowning, gunshot, or poisoning. The victims are usually spouses, lovers, or friends, and the reasons behind such steps are various. In this reported suicide pact, husband–wife duo jumped from the terrace of a 12‐meter‐high building with their wrist bound to each other. Although they jumped together, the injury patterns were completely different. The man landed on head sustaining mainly craniocerebral injuries, and the wife landed on feet sustaining long bone injuries. They left a suicide note pointing out sudden demise of their only child as the reason for the suicide, and it was signed by both of them. Jumping from a height in suicide pact has not been reported in the scientific literature yet.     

Impact of labour attributes and probability of employability in Indian labour market: A sectoral analysis

The structural transition of an economy helps the nations to move from primary to secondary and then to tertiary sector for the total output and employment generation. However, the absence of this systematic structural transition could lead the nation into long‐term imbalances for employment and output. This is happening with India as its economy has directly moved from primary to tertiary sector for both output and employment generation. The present study helps to identify the main reasons about why India is still stagnating with its sluggish primary sector for employment generation. This will also show the existing pattern of occupational choices for the people of different labour attributes. The study usages the fourth and fifth survey of employment and unemployment conducted by the Labour Bureau in 2012–13 and 2014–15 over 1,087,968 individuals of India. The study applies both multinomial logit model and binary logit model for analysing the employment probabilities of the individuals for working in the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. The study finds that location and education are the most important factor affecting the employment choices of the individuals, whereas caste and gender are also important but with moderate impact. The location is found crucial factor for primary and secondary sector occupation, whereas secondary sector is neutral in this regard. The service sector is found to have the highest incidences of caste discrimination and favouritism in the labour market. The education has the highest impact on the service sector jobs.     

Pharmacological interventions for drug-using offenders: an update to a systematic review and meta-analysis

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This updated systematic review assesses the effects of pharmacological interventions for drug-using offenders. Systematic review protocols and conventions of...     

BTEX Concentrations and Associated Health Risks at Urban Vegetative Sites in Delhi,India

Abstract

Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) compounds are known for their toxic effects. The ambient BTEX levels were studied at various urban vegetative locations of Delhi to assess the health risks involved. The average concentrations were higher for toluene and xylene among BTEX compounds. The cancer risks for benzene exceeded the benchmark limits of USEPA and WHO. The study suggests that the vegetative areas in Delhi are not safe for public health and regulatory bodies need to initiate some action.     

Farm size and land productivity in Indian agriculture: A reappraisal

This paper seeks to assess the significance of the celebrated inverse relationship between farm size and land‐productivity in the context of Indian agriculture. It is argued that the inverse relationship does not reflect a superiority of peasant production over wage‐labour‐based production as is often supposed. It exists independently of production relations and thus reflects only a static superiority of small‐scale over large‐scale production. An essential precondition for this superiority, however, is a backwardness of technology. With technological progress involving the introduction of chemical fertilizers, labour‐saving machinery and modern irrigation equipment, the inverse relationship is, therefore, likely to disappear     

Pramit Chaudhuri: A personal account

As an economist who had absorbed the best of the Keynesian revolution, macro‐economic balances remained the grid on which Pramit Chaudhuri laid out his building. But his passion as a social scientist analysing an economy with perhaps the largest burden of poverty in the world came out in the fierce Brechtian quote which he used as an epigraph for his book, The Indian Economy ‐ ‘Those who have eaten their fill speak to the hungry of the wonderful times to come’.