Forced resettlement: lessons from the Bhils affected by the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Maharashtra

The construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in western India has been the subject of great controversy as it became a go-to example of environmental protection and indigenous rights discourses in the 1990s and 2000s. Drawing on his PhD research, Vikramaditya Thakur challenges the conventional narratives and argues the problem of forced displacement has no easy answers but can be best understood when analysed within the rubric of regionally specific set of processes

A Public Choice Theory of Criminal Procedure

We provide a more persuasive justification for the pro-defendant bias in Anglo-American criminal procedure than the most commonly forwarded justifications to date. The most commonly forwarded rationale for the pro-defendant bias is that the costs of false convictions – specifically, the sanctioning and deterrence costs associated with the erroneous imposition of criminal sanctions – are greater than the costs of false acquittals. We argue that this rationale provides at best a partial justification for the extent of pro-defendant procedural rules. Under our alternative justification, pro-defendant protections serve primarily as constraints on the costs associated with improper enforcement or rent seeking in the law enforcement process. The theory developed here explains key institutional features of Anglo-American criminal procedure and provides a positive theory of the case law as well. The theory is also corroborated by empirical evidence on corruption from several countries

The future of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology: Towards a systematic practice

Industrial biotechnology promises to revolutionize conventional chemical manufacturing in the years ahead, largely owing to the excellent progress in our ability to re-engineer cellular metabolism. However, most successes of metabolic engineering have been confined to over-producing natively synthesized metabolites in E. coli and S. cerevisiae. A major reason for this development has been the descent of metabolic engineering, particularly secondary metabolic engineering, to a collection of demonstrations rather than a systematic practice with generalizable tools. Synthetic biology, a more recent development, faces similar criticisms. Herein, we attempt to lay down a framework around which bioreaction engineering can systematize itself just like chemical reaction engineering. Central to this undertaking is a new approach to engineering secondary metabolism known as ‘multivariate modular metabolic engineering’ (MMME), whose novelty lies in its assessment and elimination of regulatory and pathway bottlenecks by re-defining the metabolic network as a collection of distinct modules. After introducing the core principles of MMME, we shall then present a number of recent developments in secondary metabolic engineering that could potentially serve as its facilitators. It is hoped that the ever-declining costs of de novo gene synthesis; the improved use of bioinformatic tools to mine, sort and analyze biological data; and the increasing sensitivity and sophistication of investigational tools will make the maturation of microbial metabolic engineering an autocatalytic process. Encouraged by these advances, research groups across the world would take up the challenge of secondary metabolite production in simple hosts with renewed vigor, thereby adding to the range of products synthesized using metabolic engineering.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (1-R01-GM085323-01A1)Special Research Funds BOF (BOF08/PDO/014)Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaandern V.4.174.10.N.01

Dwindling Ground Water Table: An Ecological Study of Southern Haryana

The dwindling ground water level is one of the critical issues that plague India in the present times. This research study primarily has its basis in the secondary data, gathered from the Ministry of Water Resources. The main aim of the present research study is to highlight the issues related to ground water in various parts of India with the main focus on southern part of Haryana state. The spatial pattern of the ground water depth is studied using the secondary data from various sources. The water table depth and fluctuation maps in Arch GIS 9.3 are analysed by making use of geological analysis extension. The water elevation is examined by employing the Kriging estimator. Also, the different ways of prevention that can help in checking the quick dwindling of ground water table are discussed so that the sustainable use of ground water can be encouraged and achieved. It is observed that the menace of ground water depletion has posed alarming threat to the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and some south Indian states. This is attributed mainly to the agricultural, industrial and human needs amidst the ever-rising rate of population in India. In the southern Haryana, the Mahendergarh district and Firozpur block of Mewat area have been identified as most critical zones in relation to water depletion. The study suggests judicious and sustainable use of water resources so as to check the alarming dwindling of the ground water table

Brief of Corporate Law Professors as Amici Curie in Support of Respondents

The Supreme Court has looked to the rights of corporate shareholders in determining the rights of union members and non-members to control political spending, and vice versa. The Court sometimes assumes that if shareholders disapprove of corporate political expression, they can easily sell their shares or exercise control over corporate spending. This assumption is mistaken. Because of how capital is saved and invested, most individual shareholders cannot obtain full information about corporate political activities, even after the fact, nor can they prevent their savings from being used to speak in ways with which they disagree. Individual shareholders have no “opt out” rights or practical ability to avoid subsidizing corporate political expression with which they disagree. Nor do individuals have the practical option to refrain from putting their savings into equity investments, as doing so would impose damaging economic penalties and ignore conventional financial guidance for individual investors

Situating the Gaddi Community of Himachal Pradesh, India in a Wider World

How does the process of claiming historically and socially situated identities play out? How are anxieties of reconfigured gender relations expressed in the present? The anthropolo-gists of this Special Issue (SI) interrogate these questions by focusing on what it means to be a Gaddi person in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh. This commentary focuses on three articles that are based on multiple, long-term fieldwork focused on the travails of being marginalized and possibilities of subaltern agency. Whether it is status competition among Sippis (Christopher), a community with both Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe designations in different states, or women being stigmatized as ‘witches’ (Simpson), espe-cially among caste groups considered inferior within the Gaddi hierarchy, these are far from isolated phenomenon. These struggles reflect crucial aspects of ‘Gaddiness’ in the present where the term Gaddi is an ethnonym to refer to various unequally stratified caste groups that is popularly abstracted to mean high-caste pastoralists (Christopher and Phillimore). The three articles also reflect on the socioeconomic transformations across South Asia in general but particularly experienced in rural India. Himachal Pradesh may have been more geographically remote only a few decades ago, but deeper penetration of the state and market along with new infrastructure are forcing a reconsideration of colonial stereotypes about ‘tribality’. As a scholar who primarily works on western India, my commentary flags some key issues dealing with social theory, identity, state-formation and gender roles by comparing trends cross India with the specific Gaddi case study

Corporate Crime Legislation: A Political Economy Analysis

Corporate crime has once again become an important issue on the U.S. legislative agenda, leading Congress and the various regulatory bodies to tighten the law and enhance honesty and completeness in disclosure. However, the continued and rather explosive growth of corporate crime legislation leaves one with a rather strange puzzle: how can such a state of the world arise? After all, corporations and business interests are considered some of the most, if not the most, powerful and effective lobbyists in the country. Yet, we witness the continued expansion of legislation that criminalizes their behavior (one estimate suggests over 300,000 federal regulatory offenses that can be prosecuted criminally). How could this have happened? This Article sets out to explain this puzzle. Overall, my analysis suggests that most corporate crime legislation arises when there is a large public outcry over a series of corporate scandals during or around a downturn in the economy. In such situations, Congress must respond. Corporate crime legislation may be the preferred response for some corporate interests because it satisfies public outcry while imposing relatively low costs on those interests, thereby avoiding legislative and judicial responses that are more harmful to their interests and sometimes deflecting criminal liability away from managers and executives and onto corporations. This explains not only the impressive growth of corporate crime legislation but also leads to some surprising normative conclusions. In particular, it suggests that if one starts with the view that there is under-deterrence of corporate wrongdoing, then one would probably prefer to reduce corporate criminal liability and focus more on corporate civil and managerial liability

Corporate Defendants and the Protections of Criminal Procedure: An Economic Analysis

Corporations are frequently treated as “persons” under the law. One of the fundamental questions associated with this treatment is whether corporations should receive the same Constitutional protections and guarantees as natural persons. In particular, should corporations receive the Constitutional protections of Criminal Procedure? After all, corporations cannot be sent to jail so the sanctions they face are essentially the same as in civil proceedings. If so, then why not have the same procedural protections for corporate defendants in civil and criminal cases? Little scholarly analysis has focused on this issue from an economic perspective and this article aims to fill that gap. My analysis concludes that the concerns animating most procedural protections in the corporate context (i.e., reducing the costs of adjudicative errors and abusive prosecutorial behavior) would require procedural protections that differ for corporate defendants depending on the identity of the moving party (e.g., government or private litigant), and the type of sanction the corporation is facing, but not on the type of proceedings (criminal or civil) against the corporation. The analysis thus calls for a reorientation of procedural protections for corporate defendants along these lines rather than on the current criminal – civil dichotomy. The implications of such a reorientation are sketched in this paper and may, at times, suggest having stronger protections for corporations in civil proceedings than in criminal proceedings

Corporate Defendants and the Protections of Criminal Procedure: An Economic Analysis

Corporations are frequently treated as “persons” under the law. One of the fundamental questions associated with this treatment is whether corporations should receive the same Constitutional protections and guarantees as natural persons. In particular, should corporations receive the Constitutional protections of Criminal Procedure? After all, corporations cannot be sent to jail so the sanctions they face are essentially the same as in civil proceedings. If so, then why not have the same procedural protections for corporate defendants in civil and criminal cases? Little scholarly analysis has focused on this issue from an economic perspective and this article aims to fill that gap. My analysis concludes that the concerns animating most procedural protections in the corporate context (i.e., reducing the costs of adjudicative errors and abusive prosecutorial behavior) would require procedural protections that differ for corporate defendants depending on the identity of the moving party (e.g., government or private litigant), and the type of sanction the corporation is facing, but not on the type of proceedings (criminal or civil) against the corporation. The analysis thus calls for a reorientation of procedural protections for corporate defendants along these lines rather than on the current criminal – civil dichotomy. The implications of such a reorientation are sketched in this paper and may, at times, suggest having stronger protections for corporations in civil proceedings than in criminal proceedings