Perceptions of gender-based violence around public toilets in Mumbai slums

ABSTRACT

The lack of adequate public toilets and associated gender-based violence around their use is a matter of concern in many developing countries and has recently come to the forefront of the political agenda and media discourse in India. Previous research suggests the absence of lighting, inadequate provision of basic sanitation, poor design and siting of toilets, and lack of police presence in slums as facilitators for violence against women. However, the evidence is often anecdotal and usually unsystematic. The exact extent of crimes against women in these circumstances is unknown because unsurprisingly women in slums rarely report crimes to the police, either due to fear or lack of access. The research reported in this paper gauges women’s perception and experience of crime and violence around different types of public toilets in two slums areas in Mumbai, India. A survey of 142 households indicated that although women’s fear of crime was higher than their actual experience, the perception of insecurity was not uniform for all toilet types and locations. Findings also indicated that there was at least minimal provision of toilet facilities, basic security features, water, and electric supply in the research sites. Furthermore, greater police presence and previous contact with the police in one slum area led for greater confidence in reporting offences to the police as compared to the other. Overall, better provision of lighting and regular police patrols were considered by a majority of those surveyed to reduce fear of crime around toilets.     

Military professionals as political governors: A case study of contemporary Greece

In this article we attempt to measure the performance of the Greek military with regard to social change. Using Eckstein and Gurr's model of regime performance—consisting of four variables we hypothesised that military professionalism did not provide the military governors with the necessary political skills to become effective agents of social change. Our analysis, based on interview data supplemented with socio‐economic indicators of the years of military rule (1966–74), led us to the conclusion that aspects of military professionalism, at least in the case of Greece, prevented the military regime from performing well and thus hampered its ability to generate social change.     

On Fascist Terror in West Bengal — An appeal to the World Press,Calcutta, 23/3/72

Six models of DEMOCRATS (in capital letters) were introduced in this paper: democrat (in italics); “democrat” (in quotation marks); democrat→ “democrat;” democrat→ “democrat”→ democrat; “democrat”→ democrat; and “democrat”→ democrat→ “democrat.” This paper then attempts to explicate which model(s) of DEMOCRATS do Presidents Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui belong to. It was found that Chiang could be regarded as a “democrat,” and Lee, both “democrat” “and democrat”→ democrat. Both of them have to make sure that democratization in Island China can assure its survival as well as create an impact on Mainland China.     

Efficiency of subnational government expenditure towards elementary education and nutrition: Bootstrap data envelopment analysis for India

The need of translating increasing outlays into better outcomes on various public programmes has attracted the attention of researchers worldwide to focus more on the quality of public spending, often assessed in terms of its efficiency. The present article is a contribution to the existing literature on the subject in that it assesses the efficiency of government expenditure of Indian states for two most basic social services—elementary education and nutrition during 2014–2015 and 2018–2019 using data envelopment analysis and Malmquist productivity index techniques, in both input-oriented as well as output-oriented settings under variable returns to scale assumption; it constructs the average performance index for children at elementary education and malnutrition index for women and children to utilise them as output indicators; and it adopts a robust bootstrap truncated regression procedure to avoid various econometric issues while estimating the impact of selected environmental factors on bias-corrected inefficiency scores. The major findings of this article seem to suggest that, while states should be provided greater flexibility in their fiscal operations, they have to complement their fiscal autonomy with good governance to improve the efficiency of their spending on basic social services. Towards this end, states like Bihar, Jharkhand and those belonging to North-Eastern and Himalayan regions need special attention with a different set of development policies.     

Designing a graduate entry route for police recruits: lessons from a rapid evidence assessment of other professions

ABSTRACT

Policing in the UK is currently undergoing changes to the training and attained qualifications of entry level police officers. The College of Policing is in the process of developing three entry routes into the profession, one of which is a graduate conversion course for those new recruits who hold, at a minimum, a Bachelor’s degree. The objective of this research was to gather evidence on existing conversion courses to inform the development of this route. A rapid evidence assessment was undertaken to a narrative synthesis of the literature on graduate conversion courses in other professions. Fifty-one studies were identified and coded. Four main themes emerged from the available evidence as being central. These themes – learning styles, translating theory into practice, teaching methods and assessment were cross cut by pedagogical sub-themes of collaborative learning, and reflective practice. Policy and practice implications for a policing conversion course are drawn out to guide development and delivery of police training and education in the 21^st century.     

The Clean Development Mechanism: A Bane or a Boon for Developing Countries?

We analyse the gains to developing countries from the participation in the CDM during the Kyoto period (until 2010) in the event an emissions trading (ET) regime exists in the post-Kyoto period (2010–20). We show that the developing countries will always be better-off participating in the CDM if the emissions quota they get in the post-Kyoto period is not linked to their baseline emissions. However if their quota equals (or is related to) their baseline emissions, CDM participation strategy may be a preferred alternative only if the CDM price is high enough to off-set the losses of the post-Kyoto period (during ET regime) due to participation in the CDM. We simulate the CDM and ET in the Kyoto and post-Kyoto period and show that with the reduction targets given in the Kyoto Protocol for Annex B countries, participation in the CDM is beneficial to non-Annex B (developing) countries, even if their emissions quota in the post-Kyoto period (during ET regime) is determined by their baseline emissions. Abatement supply price in the post-Kyoto period however turns out to be crucial factor in this case.     

India’s middlemen: connecting by corrupting?

Much of India’s corruption involves middlemen: go-betweens who bring citizens’ cases to the attention of state officials, producing results – for a price. Citizens pay bribes, often for benefits for which they already qualify, and much (but not all) of that money is passed on to officials by the middleman. On its face such arrangements would seem to benefit no one but the middleman himself, but closer examination shows that middleman corruption involves much more than a discrete material transaction. There are important intangible dimensions: officials’ status is reaffirmed, while for citizens government takes on a comprehensible human face. These dimensions of corruption become all the more important over time, for both reputational capital and expectations are built up that shape future transactions. Most important, middlemen reduce transaction costs for citizens and officials alike. Thus, while middleman corruption falls far short of the ideal sorts of market, government and personal systems of “micro-coordination” assumed in many accounts of the effects of corruption, it may well be a better way of getting things done than most of the alternatives actually available. The analysis yields a more subtle but precise view of how cultural factors – especially mediating social institutions – figure into the study of corruption, and may suggest reasons why extensive corruption and solid economic growth have coexisted in India for decades.