| SandeshIndia | |
| 1) Book Name | Economic Empowerment of Rural Women in India |
| Author Name | Rita Bakshi,M.S. Rathore, Meenu Agarwal and Manjula Tyagi |
| References: | Jaipur, RBSA, 2003, 166 p., $20. ISBN 81—7611-184-8. |
| Description | Contents: Preface. 1. Role and participation of rural women in economic development of India. 2. Economic participation of rural women in agriculture. 3. Rural women: Government intervention within market oriented economy framework. 4. Economic participation of rural women in informal sector through self help groups : a case for empowerment of women. 5. Status and role of rural women. 6. Government and rural women in economy. 7. Economic development through women entrepreneurship. 8. Women’s existing status and their role in economic activities. 9. Occupation and employment of rural women in India. 10. Employment and occupation of rural women and their contribution to economic development. 11. Factors hampering the ‘role and status’ of Indian women. 12. Women count but are not counted. 13. The status and role of rural women. 14. Status and role of rural women in India. 15. Women empowerment in India-socio and economic. 16. Empowerment of women in India. 17. Empowerment of rural women and the new millennium. 18. Rural women’s work participation in India. (8 Numbers in Hindi Articles) "Empowerment of women has emerged as an important issue in our society in recent times. The economic empowerment of women is being regarded these days as a sine-qua-non of progress for a country, hence the issue of economic empowerment of women is of paramount importance to political thinkers, social scientists and reformers, women activists, politicians, academicians and administrators. "The book is a sincere effort to explain and analyse the multifaceted and multi-dimensional role of women, especially of rural women, in our socio-economic life. The central theme of this book is economic participation of rural women in India. The book covers following major aspects pertaining to the economic empowerment of women in India: o Role, status and contribution of rural women. o Problems of rural women. o Efforts made by Government for upliftment of women’s economic condition and status in society. o Remedial measures and alternative strategies required for accepting and enhancing the contribution of women in socio-economic and other spheres of life and also to eliminate all kinds of discrimination against them with the purpose to provide them equal opportunity, liberty and justice. "In view of the wide ranging contents of the book and its lucid explanation of facts, critical analysis and objective evaluation of facts, this will definitely find favour amongst the academicians, policy planners and executors, who are actively associated and engaged in the arena of women’s progress." |
| 2) Book Name | Women, Empowerment, and Economic Development |
| Author Name | REKHA MEHRA |
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| Description | Development policies and programs tend not to view women as integral to the economic development process. This is reflected in the higher investments in women's reproductive rather than their productive roles, mainly in population programs. Yet women throughout the developing world engage in economically productive work and earn incomes. They work primarily in agriculture and in the informal sector and, increasingly, in formal wage employment. Their earnings, however, are generally low. Since the 1950s, development agencies have responded to the need for poor women to earn incomes by making relatively small investments in income-generating projects. Often such projects fail because they are motivated by welfare and not development concerns, offering women temporary and part-time employment in traditionally feminine skills such as knitting and sewing that have limited markets. By contrast, over the past twenty years, some nongovernmental organizations, such as the Self-Employed Women's Association in India, have been effective in improving women's economic status because they have started with the premise that women are fundamental to the process of economic development. |
| 3) Book Name | Journal of Political Ecology: Case Studies in History and Society |
| Author Name | Aminur Rahman |
| References: | Geeta Chowdhry, Department of Political Science, Northern Arizona University. |
| Description | VOLUME 7 (2000) Women and Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh. An Anthropological Study of Grameen Bank Lending Microcredit has recently become the new development mantra for international donors, international financial institutions, and national development programs. The legendary "success" of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, with its grassroots-based, empowerment-from-below focus that enables microcredit to straddle many ideological divides, and its resonance within the dominant development paradigms of the late twentieth and twenty-first century, has contributed to the popularity enjoyed by microcredit. Although Muhammad Yunus, a Professor at Chittagong University in Bangladesh, is the creator of Grameen Bank and microcredit lending, two distinct, yet sympathetic, scholarly and practitioner traditions can be said to have contributed to the intellectual environment in development agencies that facilitated microcredit lending -- feminist scholarship on development and critical scholarship on poverty. A common theme of liberal feminist scholarship on development, despite the variance of such work, has been the effort to make women visible as a constituency both participating in development and being affected by development policies. Liberal feminism, also called the Women in Development (WID) approach, has offered rigorous critiques of the liberal modernization paradigm by documenting the gender biases of such approaches. However, WID has remained situated squarely within the liberal modernization approach. As a solution to the gender bias of modernization programs, WID, in its incarnation from welfare to efficiency, called on governments, development agencies and international financial institutions to provide aid and resources specifically for women, who would then be able to contribute substantively towards family welfare and national development. The critical poverty literature has a deep historical tradition that was echoed in a limited liberal way in the 1970s in a volume edited by Hollis Chenery, Redistribution with Growth (1974). Clearly, more brilliant treatises on poverty are available, yet this book stands as a landmark in development because it epitomized the changing focus on poverty within the World Bank. Along with its focus on "distribution with growth" the book suggested that availability of resources to the poor would lead to self-employment and contribute effectively towards national development. In 1976 Muhammad Yunus introduced the idea of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which would capture the essence of the liberal feminist and poverty critiques of development by providing microcredit -- "small amounts of collateral-free institutional loans extended to jointly liable group members for self employment" (ix) -- to its clients. Originally created to provide loans to the poor, it soon began to focus on poor women. The Grameen Bank is now the largest lending institution in Bangladesh with a cumulative investment of "more than one billion U.S. dollars disbursed among 2.3 million members, 95 percent of whom are women." (1) The Grameen Bank's success among poor rural women in Bangladesh, like SEWA for poor urban women in India, has contributed effectively to the filtering of the microcredit concept worldwide. From "a new paradigm for thinking about economic development" to being hailed as "the key element for the twenty-first century's economic and social development," it is now being incorporated in mainstream development programs (1, 12) and is largely seen as the vehicle for women's empowerment and the development panacea of the twenty-first century. In Women and Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh, Aminur Rahman challenges this conventional view of microcredit. Based on thirteen months of ethnographic research with 120 women borrowers and 12 Grameen Bank local workers in the Tangail district of Bangladesh, this work provides valuable insight and adds to the rich literature available on the successes and failures of the Grameen Bank. Most scholarship on the Grameen Bank, with a few exceptions, has used survey research to focus on Bank performance. Rahman's detailed findings based on participant observation and lengthy unstructured interviews with women and bank workers cautions against an uncritical allegiance to microcredit lending, by highlighting the dynamics of power in the lending structures of the Grameen Bank, the impact of microlending on gendered power relations at the household level, obstacles to the empowerment of women, and increased levels of tensions and domestic violence towards women in the villages studied. Rahman utilizes four distinct, yet complementary bodies of scholarship to enable his ethnographic assessment of the Grameen Bank: the "public" and "private" texts of James Scott utilized as "weapons of the weak" and tools of subversion in hierarchical structures; Bourdieu's "practice theory", a constructivist position in which meanings are circulated and constructed through mutually constitutive interactions between structures and individuals; Gramscian hegemonic theory, which discusses the role of ideology in forming and bolstering the system; and Amartya Sen's theory of "entitlements", which examines the ways in which the lack of resources, prevent individual, in particular women, from bargaining and ensuring their security. Rahman utilizes these theoretical insights to address the hegemonic nature of patriarchal ideology in Bangladesh, and the ways in which it permeates Bank-client (i.e., women), client-client, and intra-household interactions; the everyday subversions used by women in a process that often infantilizes them and reproduces hierarchical social relations in which their entitlements are minimal; and the ways in which Grameen Bank ideology adjusts to the "practical reality of the field." Rahman suggests that the Bank's successes can be attributed partially to its ability to successfully utilize patriarchal structures in facilitating its goals and agendas. At the same time that the Bank seeks to empower women through its loans, it is also recreating and reinforcing patriarchal structures that disempower women. The book includes informative chapters on "The Study Village and its Socioeconomic Organization," "Microlending and Equitable Development," "Disbursement and Recovery of Loans," and "Microlending and Sustainable Development." To the author's credit these chapters provide richly detailed, nuanced and textured information of the workings of Grameen Bank. Women learning to write and five of them literally shortening their names to facilitate the writing process (90); the inclusion of "sixteen decisions" (social clauses about good living) in the Grameen Bank program (89); the political-social contradictions of servicing women clients through its male Bank workers (84); the time constraints faced by women, and the consequent tensions/violence generated, as they try to fulfill their multiple roles of household service provider and Bank client (120-124); the five women who no longer take new loans from the bank but continue their payments and membership (143); and power hierarchies at work in the village loan center (124) are but a few examples of the rich and telling information provided by the book. The author concludes by pointing out structural weaknesses in Grameen Bank lending (for example the joint liability clause, as well as regular weekly payments that place additional and unrealistic burdens on poor women clients), and by suggesting that "loans alone (which are also debt liabilities), without viable opportunities for women to transform the power relations and create their own spaces in the prevailing power structure, make equitable development and the empowerment of women unattainable in society" (151). The book has many strengths, including its desire and ability to use four interrelated, yet distinct, theoretical literatures for understanding the workings of the Grameen Bank. Ironically, this is also one of its weaknesses. In his effort to do justice to the demands of the various theoretical underpinnings of his work, Rahman is unable to sufficiently explore and systematically develop any one of them. For example, in Figure 4.7 he provides data on Household Agricultural landholdings in Pas Elshin. These data are very useful in contextualizing the households in terms of poverty and entitlements. However, a more gendered account of entitlements within the household is not consistently provided. The accompanying discussion also suggests that the work was spread too thin. The author's contention that microlending does not challenge patriarchal structures - rather, it is at time complicit with them, is yet another strength of the book. The author is right in suggesting that the power and tenacity of patriarchal hegemony undermines the empowerment potential of microlending. However, the author presents patriarchal hegemony as an unchanging and inflexible force. Feminist scholarship has documented the chameleon like nature of patriarchy and explored, for example, how patriarchal accommodations accorded to global capital have shifted the nature of discourse in the maquiladoras (Tiano 1994 ). The context of evolving patriarchy and the adjustments of patriarchy with capital and labor needs could have further enriched the discussion of hegemony in the book. Ironically, the book is replete with examples of rule circumvention, partial empowerment of women, and the silent challenges to patriarchy. Unfortunately the author fails to recognize this and does not engage with the complexity of patriarchy. On a format quibble, a minor point, the book remains too much like a dissertation, following the traditional dissertation format, and failing to exploit the potential of the author's obvious knowledge in a more creative format. On balance, however, this book provides a critical and timely re-reading of microlending. It is a cautionary tale about neo-liberal legends. Readers, policymakers and practitioners interested in the capacity of micro lending to offer empowerment for women will find its caution and analysis insightful. |
| 4) Book Name | Economic and Political Weekly (Vol 42 No 4 January 27, 2007 ) |
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| References: | Vol 42 No 4 January 27, 2007 |
| Description | Rethinking Tax Treatment of Capital Gains from Securities
In July 2004, the United Progressive Alliance government removed long-term capital gains tax and introduced a tax on transactions. There are good reasons – on grounds of revenue, efficiency and equity – to reconsider the abolition of the capital gains tax. Migration, Employment Status and Poverty Economic deprivation is not the most critical factor for migration decisions, even for seasonal migrants. People migrate out of both poor and rich households, although the reasons for migration and the nature of jobs sought by them are different. Rural-urban migrants have a greater risk of being below the poverty line than urban-urban migrants, but both report a lower poverty risk than non-migrants. Assam: Updating the Past The recent killings of Hindi-speaking migrant workers in Assam have sparked an outrage against the United Liberation Front of Asom. It is likely that the state’s hitherto “ding-dong” responses that have culminated in the deployment of the armed forces will soon evoke an equal outrage. Targeting the Innocent in Assam The United Liberation Front of Asom’s recent targeting of innocent migrant workers is at once a warning to the centre and the state government, as also a statement that the organisation remains committed to its avowed aim of a ‘Swadhin Asom’. Middle Game in Coalition Politics Formation and termination of coalition governments is not the end all of coalition politics. This article focuses on the post-formation dynamics of coalition governments in India at the centre. The article argues that coalition experiments lead to an institutionalisation of relationships which help construct a shared world. Traumas of Adivasi Women The Salwa Judum campaign in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh has led to the wanton “militarisation” of society over there. Adivasi women have not only been forcibly dislocated and robbed of their belongings, but have been sexually abused and tortured. Why Musharraf Succeeds Military rule in Pakistan is repressive and yet accommodative. It buys off support from political groups and, in Musharraf’s case, makes use of the US fear of “Islamic” power. Banking on ‘Baniyas’ Marginal farmers in rural West Bengal are increasingly relying on the trader class as a major source of credit for working capital, as opposed to traditional moneylenders or the formal sector. Turkey-EU Relations European fears of unemployed Turkish youth swamping the continent and the hysteria of Turkish ultra-nationalists are not helping the negotiations for Turkey’s full membership of the European Union, though the talks have not come to a halt. |
| 5) Book Name | Economic and Political Weekly (Vol 42 No 3 January 20, 2007) |
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| References: | Vol 42 No 3 January 20, 2007 |
| Description | Economics and Philosophy: Interface and Agenda
The roots of economics go back to philosophy and the great economic thinkers have been rightly acclaimed as worldly philosophers. Yet, economists today pose the question: should they pay attention to philosophers? Growth of Employment: Illusion of Inclusiveness? Viewed over the long term, employment growth slowed slightly in 1993-2004, compared to 1983-93; the slowdown being quite marked in rural India. Employment has grown in urban areas over the past decade, but the nature of this growth and the quality of employment generated need probing. For the first time in decades, there has been a decline in the real wage rates of regular salaried workers and urban casual workers. Government Land Grants: Case for Reappraisal of Current Policy The experience with grant or sale of land at a subsidised price to private bodies including commercial organisations suggests that decision-making by government is often arbitrary and may have contributed to the establishment of domains of patronage and centres of profit, rendering the whole issue of public purpose highly debatable. Multiple Arbitraging A considerably unequal distribution in credit-investment ratios creates scope for varied forms of arbitraging. Such arbitraging has been spawned by a situation of vast structural differences between different groups of players in the financial markets. Financial and Real Assets A shift from real assets to financial assets in household savings can increase efficiency at the margin. Displacement Scenario The controversy over the acquisition of land in Singur in West Bengal for an automobile project raises larger issues regarding displacement. Bridging the Telecom Divide A discussion of the factors that have contributed to the divide in telecom and of issues associated with creating a backbone network in rural areas. Poverty in Manipur There is a marked difference in the extent and nature of poverty between the valley and the hills in Manipur. Disparities in Education in Maharashtra There is a striking unevenness in the distribution of education across regions, gender and caste groups in Maharashtra. Representing Minorities Minorities need far better representation in legislatures. A global report highlights the main issues. US in Iraq George Bush’s decision to increase US troop strength in Iraq has found few supporters and will only make things worse. America and Utopia The appeal of Barack Hussein Obama, an undeclared candidate for the next US presidential elections tells us a lot more about US society than about the senator’s politics. |
| 6) Book Name | Economic and Political Weekly (Vol 42 No 2 January 13, 2007 ) |
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| References: | Vol 42 No 2 January 13, 2007 |
| Description | Aspects of Social History of Medicine
Four articles present different aspects of the social history of medicine in India. The articles look at state-driven health initiatives, the trajectory of different health programmes and the shifting concerns that drove such initiatives. Political Culture of Health in India State provision of welfare in India, as this paper argues, has its genesis in the nationalist movement. But owing to poor infrastructure and resources, the state has had to rely heavily on narrowly targeted, techno-centric programmes assisted by foreign aid. Mal-areas of Health: Diagnoses of Malaria The urge to define malaria in the third quarter of the 19th century created a lot of conflicting theories and understandings of the disease. However, practising physicians could accommodate these conflicting explanations as different probable attributes of that mysterious disease, rather than necessarily discarding one theory in favour of another Parasites and the Failed Anti-Hookworm Campaign In the early 1920s, the Rockefeller Foundation conducted an anti-hookworm campaign in Madras Presidency with the objective of controlling hookworm infection. The larger aim was to use it as an entry point for extensive sanitary measures and public health education. ‘Legislating’ Social Change: The Sarda Act The Child Marriage Restraint Act enacted in 1929 lacked adequate penal clauses but the law worked because a cultural shift towards later marriages was already taking place. The paper highlights the context in which social legislation operates and the contingent factors that determine its success or failure. Wastage in Higher Education Despite improvement in enrolment rates, at the end of 2002 hardly 9.28 per cent of boys and 6.71 per cent of girls belonging to the relevant age-group population in the country enrolled in higher educational institutions. This study uses secondary data to examine whether lack of demand or inadequate access can help explain the low levels of enrolment in higher education. Social Oppression in Pakistan In Pakistani society there is little discussion about caste-based discrimination in the public domain even though such marginalisation is widespread. India’s Exports to Pakistan Restrictive trade policies, limited trade routes, inadequate transport infrastructure and procedural hindrances lead to high transaction costs for Indian exports to Pakistan. Autonomy for Telangana The demand for a separate Telangana state has its roots in the discrimination against the region by the elites of Andhra and successive state governments. Good News for Power Successful bids for two ultra-mega power projects indicate that competitive bidding can help procure power at low rates as well as reduce inefficiencies in coal operations. Challenges from Asia Neither the White House nor the Congress appears capable of addressing the challenges Asia poses to US foreign policy. Papiya Ghosh: In Memoriam Papiya Ghosh’s tragic death marks the demise of an extraordinary scholar and also exposes the rot that lies beneath in our systems of governance. |
| 7) Book Name | Economic and Political Weekly(Vol 41 No 51 December 23, 2006) |
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| References: | Vol 41 No 51 December 23, 2006 |
| Description | Inside Gujarat’s Relief Colonies
Among the thousands who were displaced by the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002, many were forced to remake their lives in “relief colonies” that are without most basic public services. Surveys of these colonies reveal not merely miserable conditions, but also the denial of all support by the state that thus perpetuates the insidious ghettoisation of a community. Social Structure, Tax Culture and the State Tax culture and social structures are such that they seem to quite often encourage tax evasion. An examination of commercial taxes and the role of the tax culture in Tamil Nadu finds that while the state aims at ensuring tax compliance, it has unwittingly promoted a social structure that is “anti-tax” in nature. Polio Eradication: A National Commission Required The 2006 polio outbreak in India occurred despite a decade-long Herculean effort to eradicate the disease. To improve operational, economic and technical inputs, particularly regarding the need for injectable polio vaccine, a national commission on polio eradication is a necessity. Journey from Pokhran-II to Hyde Act The acceptance by the UPA government of the US legislation on the Indo-US nuclear deal marks the sidelining of scientists in determining nuclear policy. This eclipse highlights the miscalculation that Pokhran-II would reinforce India’s autonomy, when in fact it initiated the process of India’s weakening. Exuberance in Financial Markets An easy policy environment has led to the current mood of extreme exuberance in financial markets. While trading and speculation perform legitimate functions, we need a range of measures to end froth in the markets. Municipal Elections in UP By staying away from the municipal elections in Uttar Pradesh in October-November, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party played a rather clever move. The party is conserving its punches for the forthcoming assembly elections. Narayan Rane’s Ambitions With his candidates winning both the recent by-elections in Maharashtra, Narayan Rane’s ambitions of becoming chief minister have been further strengthened. Revisiting Dropouts While progress in improving literacy in India has been remarkable, the phenomenon of school dropouts has remained a blot on an otherwise commendable performance. Dropout rates have undoubtedly come down but are still high enough for us to sit up and take notice. How Promising Is BIMSTEC? An examination of the extent to which the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation economies are ready to form a free trade area. Unravelling Brand ‘Gandhigiri’ Gandhi, the man, was once the message. In post-liberalisation India, “Gandhigiri” is the message. |
| 8) Book Name | Economic and Political Weekly(Vol 41 No 50 December 16, 2006) |
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| References: | Vol 41 No 50 December 16, 2006 |
| Description | Drought in Rajasthan, 2000-03: Political Economy of State Response
Rajasthan’s two drought years, experienced between 2000 and 2003, elicited very different responses from the state government. Citing greater public pressure during the second drought year as the prime reason for a better response from the state, the article explores the relationships between different forms of public action and those between state response and public action. Backwardness and Access to Higher Education: Results from NSS 55th Round Surveys Against the backdrop of the policy of reservation of seats in higher education for the OBCs, this paper, with data from the NSS 55th round surveys, looks at the use of economic criteria for assessing backwardness of various social groups, as also the assessment of fairness of access to higher education of groups identified as “backward”. Maharashtra’s Employment Guarantee Scheme The three-decade old EGS in Maharashtra has often served as a prototype for other employment assurance programmes devised for the poor. This series of articles looks at the scheme in depth, and analyses it in the light of political and other social changes in the state. Empowerment, Co-option and Domination The EGS in Maharashtra has often served as a site for political contestation. In several instances, groups and classes such as the dominant maratha landed caste have used the EGS to successfully disempower other groups and even co-opt struggles for mobilisation so as to perpetuate its own political dominance. Guaranteed Employment and Gender Construction It is not the presence of a large number of women as EGS workers that makes the scheme women-friendly, but that this presence makes possible their mobilisation by organisations with leftist and feminist ideologies. Through this mobilisation, not only “women-friendly” provisions get implemented, but women raise new concerns, which critique gender discrimination. Political Mobilisation and Guaranteed Employment Various non-political outfits that were involved in the EGS engaged with the state in defining the scope and reach of the scheme. Over time this definition of EGS was enlarged by these same groups to ensure the empowerment of the poor. Medicines: Paswan’s Price Reduction The price reduction by a few companies of a few medicines, none of which include the most prescribed brands, will not improve consumers’ access to affordable drugs. Economy’s Changing Tracks While the Indian economy will register an impressive growth rate this year, the appalling state of infrastructure, the divide between industry and agriculture, and the uneven spread of the fruits of growth mar the picture. Audit Reports on Disinvestment The delayed audit reports on PSU disinvestment during 1999-2003 raise several issues regarding the modus operandi of a strategic sale and other technical and methodological issues. Microcredit Wins Nobel The fundamental issues of microcredit programmes, like incorporating the very poor, enhancing their participation in decision-making and the need to offer a variety of financial services will remain long after the euphoria of the Nobel Peace Prize has died down. |