ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

IndiaSubscribe to India

Financial Inclusion in India: Achieving Quantity, but Waiting for Quality

The government of India and the Reserve Bank of India have taken different initiatives to promote financial inclusion in India. Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana is instrumental in universalising financial inclusion initiatives. It has resulted in the tremendous growth of several bank accounts. Only the quantitative parameter speaks volumes about unfair financial inclusion. It can be transformed into fair financial inclusion with qualitative characteristics. This paper aims to analyse financial inclusion from the perspective of the activeness of accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) scheme, which is analysed with the help of Financial Inclusion Quotient (FIQ) and Account Activeness Quotient (AAQ).

The Indian Prisons and The Search for Equality: The Problems Faced by Transgender Inmates

The social stigma around the transgender community is changing and taking a turn for the better. But this change may be slower than expected if we take into consideration the discrimination the transgender community faces not just in a particular aspect but in all walks of life. They are denied education and employment opportunities, discriminated against in their homes, and looked down upon by society. Even more so, they are ridiculed and made fun of and act as a source of amusement which people get by humiliating such people. The authors, through this article, try to explore the discrimination and humiliation faced by transgender people in an Indian prison and emphasise upon the advisory given by the ministry of home affairs regarding the provision of separate housing cells for people belonging to these marginalised communities. The authors try to explore the societal gap which exists acting as an imminent factor in the unequal treatment and harassment of transgender inmates. The paper touches upon the various problems faced by transgender inmates in Indian Prisons and offers solutions which could help provide such inmates with a habitable and reputable environment to be detained in. The paper includes a descriptive analysis of the issue at hand with the solutions and the change in perspective that society needs to leave behind to prevent the stigmatisation of the transgender community.

In Pursuit of Uniform-ity: The Hijab Row

The issue of the Hijab Ban holds several layers underneath it. On the surface, it appears that it is solely the case of students asking for amendments in the rulebook of "uniforms". Another angle is that of Women's dress (uniform in this case) which solicits the attention and control of the community and society. Furthermore, considering the current socio-political climate in India, one is bound not to ignore the possibility of the Islamophobic facet to the case of the Hijab Ban. Thus, a question that arises is how to make sense of the Hijab Ban? Is it a case of “School uniform”, “Women’s clothing”, or “Callous Islamophobia”?

Impact Of Public Distribution System on Poverty in Odisha

The official statistics show that poverty in Odisha has reduced faster during the second period (2004-05 to 2011-12) compared to the first period (1993-94 to 2004-05). This paper attempts to study the impact of the public distribution system (PDS) on poverty reduction in Odisha during the 2nd period. The NSSO unit level data of the 61st (2004-05) and 68th (2011-12) rounds of consumer expenditure survey (CES) has been used for the estimation of poverty with and without income transfer through PDS. The PDS plays a vital role in poverty reduction in Odisha by raising the real income during the post-reform period, especially from 2004-05 to 2011-12.

How COVID-19 Deepened the Gender Fault Lines in India's Labour Markets

India has witnessed low levels of women’s labour force participation over the last four decades, with gaps of nearly 40 percentage points between the proportion of men and women in the labour force. Recent high-frequency data shows that COVID-19-induced lockdowns have had a disproportionate impact on women’s employment. Women bore the immediate impact of lockdowns, with 37.1% losing jobs (versus 27.7% men) in April 2020 and forming 73% of job losses in April 2021. Employment recovery has been slower for women. Prevailing sociocultural factors such as the increased burden of unpaid domestic work, gender digital divides, mobility restrictions, and the lack of institutional support at workplaces are discouraging women’s return to work. Even in January 2022, women’s labour force is 9.4% lower than January 2020 versus 1.6% for men. In this scenario, governments can support through gender-sensitive job-creation plans to expand women’s employment in the public and micro, small and medium enterprise sectors, and incentivise women’s entrepreneurship.

India has a Responsibility towards Myanmar Refugees in India

Since the military takeover of power in Myanmar at the beginning of last year, widespread violence, internal displacement, chaos, and human misery has set off a catastrophic refugee crisis in South Asia. As the military crackdown on protesting civilian shows no signs of abating, thousands of Myanmar citizens have left their homes without any hope of returning soon. Of those who fled Myanmar, many sought asylums in India. However, while India condemned the coup and the ongoing violence, it has shown scant regard to the protection of the rights of asylum-seekers. Even after a year since the coup, India refuses to accept those who crossed the border out of fear of persecution at the hands of the military as refugees. This article focuses on India’s obligations towards the refugees staying in the country. It argues that despite India being a non-signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, India’s constitutional principles, refugee-related judicial pronouncements, and the various international conventions it has adopted obligate it to protect the refugees on its soil.

Greening Our Laws

The Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, 1957 provides minimal social and environmental safeguards, and deviates, in important ways, from India’s general land acquisition law. This article recommends updating land acquisition laws to bring coal under the general purview of the LARR. Sugandha

The Gracious Sovereign – Queen-Anon?

History’s movements are unevenly paced, sometimes slow like a funeral march and sometimes frisky like the current rates of inflation. They are, however, always recursively ironic. It seems like a lifetime but it was only two months ago on September 8, 2022, that the reign of Queen Elizabeth II of England ended. It was of course, in the nature of things, her first and only death. Now we have another first that has taken over the news: the appointment of a ‘person of Indian origin’ as the British Prime Minister. But before it is lost to public memory, this article seeks to present a contemporaneous account of the elaborate ceremonies that marked the passing of Britain’s first postcolonial monarch - and their possible import. It analyzes the imagery of a ‘Gracious Sovereign’, as opposed to Foucault’s putative idea of a ‘Grotesque Sovereign’, that recently animated our fast-paced, visually dominated, conspiracy theory-laden world in an age of grave political turbulence and psychological ambivalence.

India and the Indo-Pacific

Eastward Ho? India’s Relations with the Indo-Pacific edited by E Sridharan, Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2021; pp 487, `1,650.

How to Dismantle a Republic

The Idea of New India: Essays in Defence of Critical Thought by Pramod Kumar, Delhi: Aakar Books, 2021; pp 362, `1,495 (hardback).

India’s Turn to Save the World from the Next Crisis

A silent wave of financial stress is running through the world financial markets. India, the incoming G20 President, must provide the leadership necessary to save the world from an emerging market debt crisis. The proximate cause of the crisis is the combination of COVID-19 debt and a jump in the US dollar. Fighting the dollar’s appreciation with higher interest rates on debt will push the world into recession. Faced with a rich-country commercial bank debt crisis in 2008, the G7 announced that they would use all the available tools and take all necessary steps to save the banks. We need to do the same today for countries. India should press the IMF to immediately increase access to its unconditional rapid fi nancing facilities and temporarily suspend interest rate surcharges. Avinash

COVID-19 as an Opportunity to Engage with Urban Malnutrition Challenge: Preliminary Insights from India

As the world is urbanising fast, a growing body of literature highlights malnutrition as an imminent urban challenge, further compounded by the outbreak of COVID-19. The nutrition policy discourse, however, is yet to accommodate this shift. In fact, it continues to exhibit a rural bias. This itself has partly been reinforced by the absence of authoritative evidence on urban malnutrition. Based on preliminary analysis of Indian data, this paper examines whether there is urbanisation of child malnutrition. The paper finds that urban India is witnessing a decline in nutrition advantage. While for less urbanised states, urban child stunting is relatively higher, in more urbanised states, urban child wasting is a challenge. Given that wasting is an indicator of acute malnutrition, it is partly attributable to lack of adequate food. Though it might be early to connect this to a looming hunger crisis, growing child wasting questions the claims of food security in urban India. Seeing this further in context of implications of COVID-19 provides a potential basis for broadening of the nutrition policy agenda.

Pages

Back to Top