Narratives of the Dispossessed and Casteless: Politics of Land and Caste in Rajarhat,West Bengal

ABSTRACT

This article examines the political narratives around a two-decade -old process of land acquisition and development in the “global city” Rajarhat, a former rural settlement in the Indian state of West Bengal. These narratives are built against the backdrop of a neoliberal state acting as a corporate facilitator, particularly in matters of land, and the concomitant dispossession. The multifaceted politics of Rajarhat took shape during the erstwhile communist regime in West Bengal, the dichotomy of a self-identified Left state engaged in forceful and violent land acquisition thus forming an interesting paradox. The article also presents evidence against the long -held political myth of caste relations being irrelevant in Bengali politics, by examining the upper-caste -dominated social relations in Rajarhat and the formation of low-level cartels or “syndicates” in the area . In conclusion, the article points to the reinvention and redeployment of caste relations – even in increasingly urban spaces where “hierarchical” caste practices are usually taken to be on the decline – rooted in the duality between land struggles and development.     

Procedural Justice in Resolving Family Disputes: A Psychosocial Analysis of Individual and Family Functioning in Late Adolescence

The present study examined the extent to which procedural justice in resolving specific family disputes is associated with ongoing levels of family conflict and cohesion as well as individual psychosocial adaptation in older adolescents. Two hundred and forty study participants (ages 18–22) were asked to recall an important family dispute that they experienced over the past year and to rate how their parents handled the situation along dimensions of procedural justice, control, and outcome satisfaction. The results indicated that overall judgments of procedural fairness and specific relational criteria for evaluating procedural justice (neutrality, trust, standing) were positively associated with family cohesion and psychological well-being and negatively related to family conflict, psychological distress, and deviant behavior. As predicated, low standing or disrespectful treatment was the best predictor of deviant behavior. While individual functioning was tied primarily to relational procedural justice concerns, family functioning was associated with both relational and instrumental factors. Overall, the study lends support to the growing body of research challenging exclusively self-interested models of human conduct.     

Preliminary Development of the Student Perceptions of School Safety Officers Scale

Research suggests that the safer students feel at school, the more likely they are to feel connected and able to focus on learning. Thus, measuring students’ experiences with a school safety officer (SSO) is essential to understand the connection between officer engagement and students’ safety. This study’s purpose was to evaluate a SSO scale among 1,065 adolescents. Results suggest the SSO scale displayed excellent internal consistency estimates, construct validity via factor analysis, convergent validity with the School Climate Measure, discriminant validity with key demographic variables, and known-groups validity among students who reported fighting at school. Positive perceptions of SSOs also significantly increased with frequency of contact. The SSO scale is a preliminarily valid measure, potentially useful in research, screenings, and/or evaluation efforts to improve student engagement with SSOs.     

Technology use and availability in entrepreneurship: informal economy as moderator of institutions in emerging economies

This paper investigates the contextual influences of institutions on the use of latest available technologies by early stage entrepreneurs in emerging economies. Hypotheses are developed and then tested using multi-level modeling techniques on a dataset covering entrepreneurs in 20 emerging economies. We utilized 10,431 individual-level responses from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey from 2002 to 2008 and complemented it with data on country-level institutions such as the size of a country’s informal economy, intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes obtained from the Index of Economic Freedom and inward foreign direct investment (FDI) from the World Bank Group. Results on the direct effects suggest that levels of FDI negatively influences the use of latest technology by entrepreneurs in emerging economies, while the moderation effects of informal economy suggest that as its size increases (1) the negative effects IPR on the use of latest technology by entrepreneurs strengthens, and (2) the negative effects of FDI on the use of latest technology strengthens. These findings support the overall proposition that the size of a country’s informal economy is an important moderator of institutional influences on technology use by entrepreneurs in emerging economies. More generally, the study proposes that institutions may not have the same effects on entrepreneurs in emerging economies that might be expected in developed countries, suggesting that future research should take the level of socio-economic development of a country into account when theorizing the role of institutions.     

Assessing labour freedom in agriculture: Developing world perspective focusing on India

This piece of work evaluates the choices and opportunities opened up in rural labour market through institutional reforms and developmental policies fostering agricultural growth and efficiency in developing countries, with a focus on India. It finds that policy reforms on property rights, involving legal approvals of land ownership or partial possession with rental contracts, strengthen bargaining capacity among marginalized groups. Furthermore, an inclusive development policy encompassing the rural sector shapes labour freedom by stabilization of market at desirable wage and employment rates. Considering a case example from an advanced agricultural region in India, this study reveals a positive and significant relationship between intensity of labour freedom and land-based status of peasant households. The analysis of primary data suggests that labour market reforms, particularly those focused on wage contracts and minimum wage laws, off-farm jobs and intra-migration employment opportunities before labourers, are crucial indicators for enhancing labour freedom in rural areas.     

Driving citizen engagement through Twitter: The case of COVID-19 vaccination drive in India

Effective crisis communication is essential to efficiently handle the uncertainty and anxiousness of citizens during the COVID-19 crisis. Government Twitter handles are an excellent platform for faster information dissemination and engaging citizens. While most government ministries actively use Twitter, limited attention is given to its modus operandi. Using data retrieved from the official Twitter handle of 'The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare' (MOHFW) of India, the current study examines the effect of the content characteristics, including content type and media type, on citizen engagement measured as tweet likes and retweets. The findings are based on 3742 tweets from MOHFW, recording more than 4.06 million likes and 1.23 million retweets over the initial six months of the largest COVID-19 vaccination drive. Results show that content-sharing guidance for stakeholders gained the maximum engagement, while the latest news about the COVID-19 crisis resulted in the least engagement. Photos gained maximum engagement, while statuses resulted in the least engagement. The results illuminate the textual features of the government's Twitter communication and will enable policymakers to manage their social media content strategy diligently.