Mobile Communications in India – Does the village life ‘overflow’ the banks of ‘form’? Review of Sirpa Tenhunen. 2018. A Village Goes Mobile : Sirpa Tenhunen. 2018. A Village Goes Mobile: Telephony, Mediation, and Social Change in Rural India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. ix + 200, Price Rs. 495.

Peer reviewe

‘On the Horns of a Dilemma’! Climate Change, Forest Conservation and the Marginal People in Indian Sundarbans

The marginal people of the Indian part of Sunderbans (SDB) do now subsist 'between two fires' - climate change and climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. They have already felt the fire of climate change in terms of loss of livelihoods, homelessness, and even life harm. They have begun recently to experience the fire of climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. The fallout of this situation, thus, comes in form of mass-exodus, and social and political conflicts at the margin. This article tells a story of how the postcolonial government in India, like its predecessor i.e. the British colonialists, would orchestrate a concerted effort in accumulation-based development in the name of conservation of SDB. Critically engaging the trajectory of policy interventions including the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, the Draft National Forest Policy, 2018 and the Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (Recognition of forest rights) act, 2006, it explores the dynamic way in which the government uses the climate change and conservation excuse to evict the Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers from the forestlands. In conclusion, this article argues why we should go beyond the capitalist 'growth' narrative in order to formulate a more grounded climate and social justice legislation.Peer reviewe

Panchayat Irrigation Management : A Case Study of Institutional Reforms Programme over Teesta Command in West Bengal

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.This article studies the role played by the constitutionally empowered Panchayati Raj Institutions over a large irrigation system in West Bengal. The article tries to capture the linkages and the dynamics governing interaction between the 'Gram Panchayats' and the Water User Associations. The inferences are drawn from observed phenomenon pertaining to the role and relationship between the two sets of institutions over the Command Area Development Authority Programme (CADAP). While the advent of the canal water has created an agrarian dynamism over the canal command particularly among the marginal and landless farmers through boro-paddy cultivation, the process of institutionalizing farmers’ participation left much to be desired. While the representatives of the Water User Associations often faltered to draw collective action from the farmers, the political actors proved to be much stronger. However even these actors were not proactive and responded only to crisis situations. Thus the system continues to operate at the sub-optimal level and seems to have achieved a low level of equilibrium

Employment, Poverty and Rights in India

In comparison to other social groups, India’s rural poor – and particularly Adivasis and Dalits - have seen little benefit from the country’s economic growth over the last three decades. Though economists and statisticians are able to model the form and extent of this inequality, their work is rarely concerned with identifying possible causes. Employment, Poverty and Rights in India analyses unemployment in India and explains why the issues of employment and unemployment should be the appropriate prism to understand the status of wellbeing in India. The author provides a historical analysis of policy interventions on behalf of the colonial and postcolonial state with regard to the alleviation of unemployment and poverty in India and in West Bengal in particular. Arguing that, as long as poverty - either as a concept or as an empirical condition - remains as a technical issue to be managed by governmental technologies, the ‘poor’ will be held responsible for their own fate and the extent of poverty will continue to increase. The book contends that rural unemployment in India is not just an economic issue but a political process that has consistently been shaped by various socio-economic, political and cultural factors since the colonial period. The analysis which depends mainly on ethnography extends to the implementation of the ‘New Rights Agenda’, such as the MGNREGA, at the rural margin. Challenging the dominant approach to poverty, this book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of South Asian studies, Indian Political Economy, contemporary political theories, poverty studies, neo-liberalism, sociology and social anthropology as well as development studies