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.     

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.     

Examining Media Coverage of Drugs in Malaysian Media

Asian Journal of Criminology - It has been well-established that, in the USA, the news media contributes to the construction of moral panics regarding the use and users of various types of drugs....     

Political leadership at state level in India: Continuity and change

ABSTRACT

Possible explanations are discussed in this article for the paucity of studies regarding political leadership, especially at the state level, in a well-functioning electoral democracy such as India with many parties and leaders. The article argues that such studies can be useful in making sense of the political and economic changes/shifts and developments of a particular state over a period that may have national impact. The article further argues that there has been a perceptible shift not only in terms of social composition but also in the “language” of politics used by the emergent generation of political leaders cutting across the party lines. The change has coincided with the rise of state-level parties and leaders in the post-Congress era followed by the ascendance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).     

Data and information theft in e-commerce, jurisdictional challenges, related issues and response of Indian laws

Data and information constitute a valuable resource both for the companies in general and individuals in specific. The traditional paper based transaction has been replaced by electronic transaction and now a day’s most of the valuable data and information’s are stored in electronic medium. Therefore data and information security have become a matter of great concern for every agencies acting on faith of e-transaction. In India there remains an added significance owing to the fact that a growing number of companies seek more centralized and less expensive methods of processing information, they’re turning to offshore outsourcing to fulfill many of their business and human resources processes. Data theft is not in itself a new concept, but has become an increasingly important issue in the digital age. The new mode of communication, its malleability, transmissibility, networking capacity, affect our lives in many and sometimes surprising ways, it requires that we find new legal solutions for new social questions.     

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’.     

Local preferences of mung bean qualities for food autonomy in India

The concept of food autonomy draws attention to qualities of local food and food networks that can facilitate connectivity between local food production and consumption. This article reports on a study conducted in Hisar, India, that reveals how rural producer, processor, and consumer preferences of mung bean quality interact with their aim to maintain and develop a territorial mung bean connectivity so as to reinforce food autonomy. The study showed that local mung bean food qualities related to suitability in the local cropping system, processing requirements, and consumption choice. It suggests that local preferences be integrated into a reorientation of research and scientific development agendas, and should become an essential consideration of development and extension efforts, which also carries implications for the food autonomy of local producers, processors, and consumers.     

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.     

Covid-19 communication in emerging markets—Not viral enough?

Public health communication acts as a social vaccine in case of pandemics. Prior research has identified that such initiatives often fail to reach vulnerable sections of society. In India, while the first wave of infections mainly hit the urban areas, rural areas witnessed a surge in the second wave. Using the World Bank data, we attempt to understand the effectiveness of public awareness campaigns in rural areas. We use the Ecological Model for public health and find how the various factors relate to public health outcomes. The ecological factors are found to be related to awareness of Covid-19. We find inadequate awareness about the symptoms and preventive measures associated with Covid-19 among the rural population. We also find significant differences in communication and awareness along dimensions such as education and access to media. The role played by SHGs and hospitals in dealing with pandemics is also evident in this study. We conclude that the disparity in public health communication needs to be bridged to ensure equitable access to health information in society during public health crises.     

Intergovernmental transfers and fiscal equalization across the north-eastern states of India: Evidence from panel data

While numerous studies have tried to analyze the impact of intergovernmental transfers in fostering fiscal equalization in India, there need to be more studies in the context of north-eastern (NE) states. Situating in a geographically isolated and economically backward region, the states of NE India depend heavily on central fiscal transfers to meet expenditures and to promote various economic activities in the region. One of the essential objectives of these transfers is to achieve fiscal equity. Hence, the study attempts to analyze the fiscal equalizing nature of the intergovernmental transfers across NE India during 1991–2019. The coefficient of variation (CV) analysis results indicates that although fiscal transfers reduced the magnitude of disparity in the own-source revenue across the NE states, a significant amount of disparity still exists in the resource base across these states. The regression analysis findings suggest that the transfers across these states need to be more fiscal equalizing. The per capita gross state domestic product emerges as a positive and significant in predicting per capita transfers, and hence it questions the progressivity of central transfers. When assigning the interstate share of transfers, more weight should be placed on fiscal equalizing factors such as per capita income. The Finance Commission of India should emphasize fiscal equalizing criteria when allocating weights and recommending transfers to the NE States. Additionally, states with low incomes should be recognized in plan schemes.