Judiciaries as crucial actors in Southern regulatory systems: A case study of Indian telecom regulation

This article addresses regulatory reforms in the Indian telecommunications sector and emphasizes the role of the Indian judiciary. Our claim is that when confronted with a series of disputes relating to the nascent telecom regulatory landscape, the Supreme Court of India sought to make a constructive contribution to both the actual disputes as well as the overall regulatory framework. Our reading of these cases suggests that in the sphere of telecom, the Supreme Court has been less interested in stamping its own authority on issues, and has instead sought to bolster the authority and legitimacy of the recently constituted telecom regulatory institutions. We seek to draw attention to the role of the Indian judiciary as marking an exceptional feature of evolving regulatory systems in the Global South. Conventional wisdom in the regulatory jurisprudence that has evolved in the Global North suggests that judiciaries should have little or no role to play in regulatory systems. We suggest that to overcome the special challenges that regulatory systems in the Global South confront, more established institutions and actors might have to lend credibility and legitimacy to enable nascent regulatory actors to develop over time. At least in the Indian case, this is one way to understand the Indian judiciary's interventionist actions in the sphere of telecom regulation.     

Faces of Pentecostalism in North India Today

Pentecostal revivals in India have been recorded since 1860, and Pentecostalism is flourishing in the subcontinent today. Yet this phenomenon is neither simple nor monolithic. Rather, it interacts with other Christian traditions and with other religious traditions in a number of different ways. Despite its rigid and exclusivistic rhetoric, Pentecostalism functions as a highly malleable and adaptable religious movement.     

Planning for incapacity by people with bipolar disorder under the Mental Capacity Act 2005

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 provides a variety of legal mechanisms for people to plan for periods of incapacity for decisions relating to personal care, medical treatment, and financial matters. Little research has however been done to determine the degree to which these are actually implemented, and the approach to such advance planning by service users and professionals. This paper looks at the use of advance planning by people with bipolar disorder, using qualitative and quantitative surveys both of people with bipolar disorder and psychiatrists. The study finds that the mechanisms are under-used in this group, despite official policy in support of them, largely because of a lack of knowledge about them among service users, and there is considerable confusion among service users and professionals alike as to how the mechanisms operate. Recording is at best inconsistent, raising questions as to whether the mechanisms will be followed.     

Accumulation and authoritarianism on the pioneer frontier of Brazil

Rumour as a language of peasant politics in colonial Bihar has remained unexplored hitherto. Studies by Ranajit Guha and Shahid Amin are forceful but require further probing. Peasants deployed rumour as a device to articulate political aspirations and create public opinion when mass politics had yet to become a generalised affair. Such rumours often had religious sources and locations. Gandhi's idioms were successfully received by the masses owing to a field already prepared by rumour within which these ideas could take root and flourish. Arguably, the religious overtones and prophetic pronouncements of Gandhian mass politics borrowed heavily from an earlier polity that was based on rumour. A study of nineteenth century rumour is illuminating not only for the insight it provides into the manner in which politics was conducted then, but also for the indications it gives about politics of the future.     

Transforming Livelihoods and Assets through Participatory Approaches: The Kudumbashree in Kerala,India

This article explores to what extent decentralized structures can contribute to asset accumulation among disadvantaged groups, and improving livelihood choices. The process of asset accumulation is tied to the wider context of participatory institutions and opportunities within which social actors can transform assets into meaningful livelihood outcomes. Given its level of social development and civil society in the Indian state of Kerala, the Kudumbashree Initiative, an innovative community-based, decentralized participatory structure aims to build meaningful forms of assets at grassroots levels. Such participatory public action, based on social relationships as well as the combined efforts of the state and grassroots community organizations may provide valuable lessons for developing asset accumulation strategies.     

State Involvement and Forest Co-Governance: Evidence from the Indian Himalayas

This article contributes to the literature on collective action around environmental co-governance by statistically analyzing original data on the experiences of 95 communities in the Indian Himalayas. We compare the performance of co-governance versus indigenous governance institutions, taking into account the causal influence of five classes of independent variables. Our analysis suggests that close involvement of government officials is negatively associated with efforts to manage forests sustainably. We identify contextual conditions that help explain why involvement of state officials has adverse consequences on resource governance outcomes. Our findings are relevant for studies of decentralization policies related to natural resource management that governments are currently pursuing in more than 60 countries.     

Law and crisis: Conjunctions,correlations, critiques

Jindal Global Law Review -