Accounting for Wage Inequality in India

This paper investigates the evolution and structure of wage inequality among adult male workers engaged in regular and casual wage employment in India during a period of radical economic change. The analysis exploits data from nationally representative employment surveys and uses decomposition techniques to examine the role played by educational achievement and industry affiliation. This paper finds that there are striking differences for the two groups of workers. Wage inequality rose between 1983 and 1999 among regular workers but fell among casual workers. While human capital (as embodied in age and education) is one of the major factors explaining both the level of and change in regular wage inequality, geographic location is the key determinant of casual wage inequality. Industry affiliation plays an equally important role for both sets of workers. These are also consistently the most important contributors to changes in inequality though the directional effects differ among the different sets of workers.India, wage inequality, inequality decomposition, segmented labour market

The Structure of Wages in India, 1983-1999

This paper examines the structure of wages for adult male workers within a dual labour market framework using micro survey data for three years spanning almost two decades. Augmented Mincerian wage equations are estimated for different types of workers – those with regular wage or salaried jobs and those with casual or contractual jobs - using a set of human capital measures and a variety of worker, industry and state characteristics after correcting for potential selection bias. This paper finds that the returns to education and experience are significantly different for these two types of workers consistent with the notion of segmented labour markets - while casual workers face at best flat returns the returns for regular workers are positive and rising in education level. There is some evidence of significant changes in the returns to education for regular workers over time. The widening of the gap between graduate and primary education and the rise in wage inequality could possibly be a consequence of trade liberalisation and other reforms pursued during the 1990s.wages, returns to education, segmented labour markets, India

Cellulosic fibre drying: fundamental understanding and process modeling

[EN] Process modeling of conveyer dryer for cellulosic fibre drying demands many fundamental insights. Present study highlights detailed cellulosic fibre drying aspects like mass transfer correlation relating mass transfer rate with process conditions, normalized drying curve and critical moisture content. Cellulosic fibre drying follows falling rate period, where rate of mass transfer decreases with moisture content. Conveyer dryer process model for commercial cellulosic fibre drying was developed and validated successfully. Moderate drying strategy derived based on developed process model and drying fundamentals was deployed at commercial scale which helped in reducing the moisture variability.This work is supported by Grasim Industries, Aditya Birla Group. Authors are thankful to ABSTCPL leadership and other team members for their valuable inputs during this project.Mondal, S.; Agarwala, P.; Dutta, S.; Naik-Nimbalkar, V.; Pande, P.; Dhumal, S. (2018). Cellulosic fibre drying: fundamental understanding and process modeling. En IDS 2018. 21st International Drying Symposium Proceedings. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 627-634. https://doi.org/10.4995/IDS2018.2018.7384OCS62763

International trade and the gender wage gap: New evidence from india’s manufacturing sector

Abstract: This study examines how increasing competitive forces from India's trade liberalization have affected women's relative wages and employment. Neoclassical theory implies that costly discrimination against female workers should diminish over time with increased competition. We incorporate this idea into a theoretical model of competition and industry concentration and test the model using repeated cross sections of India's NSSO household survey data merged with trade and production data from 1983 to 2004. Estimates from OLS and Fixed Effects regressions at the industry level indicate that increasing openness to trade is associated with larger wage gaps in India's concentrated manufacturing industries

Comparative Assessment of Copper, Iron, and Zinc Contents in Selected Indian (Assam) and South African (Thohoyandou) Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) Samples and Their Infusion: A Quest for Health Risks to Consumer

The current study aims to assess the infusion pattern of three important micronutrients namely copper (Cu), iron (Fe), and zinc (Zn) contents from black tea samples produced in Assam (India) and Thohoyandou (South Africa). Average daily intakes and hazardous quotient were reported for these micronutrients. Total content for Cu, Fe, and Zn varied from 2.25 to 48.82 mg kg−1, 14.75 to 148.18 mg kg−1, and 28.48 to 106.68 mg kg−1, respectively. The average contents of each of the three micronutrients were higher in tea leaves samples collected from South Africa than those from India while the contents in tea infusions in Indian samples were higher than in South African tea samples. Results of this study revealed that the consumption of 600 mL tea infusion produced from 24 g of made tea per day may be beneficial to human in terms of these micronutrients content. Application of nonparametric tests revealed that most of the data sets do not satisfy the normality assumptions. Hence, the use of both parametric and nonparametric statistical analysis that subsequently revealed significant differences in elemental contents among Indian and South African tea

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Social Safety Nets for Food and Nutritional Security in India

This paper brings together existing literature on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNRGEA) and the Public Distribution System (PDS) in India, offering a narrative review of the evidence on impacts on food security, health and nutrition of beneficiaries. Both programs operate on a large scale and have the capacity to impact the factors leading to undernutrition. It is evident that despite the deficiencies in implementation, both the MGNREGA and the PDS are inclusive and reach the poor and the marginalized who are likely to also experience greater undernutrition and poor health. Data challenges have however prevented researchers from conducting studies that assess the ultimate impact of these two large-scale programs on health and nutrition. The evidence that exists suggests largely positive impacts indicating a clear potential to make these programs more nutrition sensitive not just by incorporating elements that would explicitly address nutritional concerns but also by directing specific attention to innovations that strengthen critical complementarities and synergies that exist between the two programs