Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

What’s behind Peshawar?

Vol - XLIX No. 52, December 27, 2014 

• Editorial

The inability of democratic forces to curtail the Pakistani military’s double-game continues to cost lives.

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Significant Steps

Vol - XLIX No. 52, December 27, 2014 

• Editorial

The end of the political blockade by the United States allows Cuba a rare opportunity to renew socialism.

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Comment Why Rape Victims Lose The culture of endless delays by trial courts leads to injustice for victims. Read more	Commentary With a Parent Like This Bhopal Disaster and Union of India C Sathyamala The story of "Bhopal" - of the 30 years of disaster - is not that of corporate crime alone but also that of the nexus between national governments and transnational corporations; of state and capital. And, irrespective of the government... Read more
Commentary Uniting to Reclaim Traditional Land and Livelihoods Swapna Majumdar In the decade since the 2004 tsunami, the affected fishing communities have battled dislocation, sea erosion and a fast depleting marine life. However, as one example from a fishing hamlet in Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu shows, collective... Read more	Commentary Addressing the Emergent Disaster Riskscape in Urban India Jyotiraj Patra, Komal Kantariya Recent natural disasters in India highlight the extent to which urban systems, associated structures, and populations are at greater risk. Cyclone Hudhud and the floods in Srinagar are clear indications of an emergent disaster riskscape that is... Read more
Commentary Amendments by Stealth MCA Resurrects Henry VIII’s Legacy Pratik Datta The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, in charge of implementation of the Companies Act, 2013, has overstepped its constitutional mandate by passing orders that amend the provisions of an Act of Parliament. The MCA can only formulate rules and... Read more	Commentary Bill for Compulsory Voting Bhanu Joshi This article argues that the Gujarat government's attempt to legislate compulsory voting in local body elections targets the wrong symptom and gives the wrong medicine. The dichotomy of not willing to constitute local governments on one hand... Read more
Book Reviews Political Narrative on the Electricity Sector by an Outsider Sreekumar N, Ashwini Chitnis Electrifying India - Regional Political Economies of Development by Sunila S Kale, Stanford University Press, 2014; pp 237, Rs 2,569. Read more	Book Reviews Interrogating the Debate on Islamic Reform Asiya Alam Islamic Reform in South Asia edited by Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2013; pp xii + 535; $110. Read more
Book Reviews Imagining a Casteless and Classless Society Yogesh Kumar Poet of the Revolution: The Memoirs and Poems of Lal Singh Dil translated by Nirupama Dutt (New Delhi: Viking /Penguin), 2012; pp 216, Rs 399. Read more	Perspectives Knowledge and the Politics of Education Yemuna Sunny In the wake of our national education policy again preparing for a political right swing, it is important to examine the implications of the Ministry of Human Resource Development's emphasis on ancient knowledge for contemporary education.... Read more
Review of Rural Affairs Food Subsidy Concept, Rationale, Implementation Design and Policy Reforms Bhupat M Desai, ERROL D'SOUZA, N V Namboodiri This paper counters negative advocacy about the food subsidy, the public distribution system, and farm price supports. It argues that the public food supply chain for market intervention has a favourable impact on the cost-benefit ratio, poverty... Read more	Review of Rural Affairs Economic Benefits of Futures Do Speculators Play Spoilsport in Agricultural Commodity Markets? K G Sahadevan This article examines the economic benefits of futures. Theoretically, futures are expected to aid price discovery and risk mitigation. But empirical analysis shows that speculators drive the markets and, by virtue of their domination, abduct the... Read more
Review of Rural Affairs Projected Effect of Droughts on Supply, Demand, and Prices of Crops in India Praduman Kumar, P K Joshi, Pramod Aggarwal This paper assesses the effect of monsoon droughts on the production, demand, and prices of seven major agricultural commodities - rice, sorghum, pearl millet, maize, pigeon pea, groundnut and cotton. A partial generalised equilibrium model is... Read more	Review of Rural Affairs Groundwater Irrigation-Electricity-Crop Diversification Nexus in Punjab Trends, Turning Points, and Policy Initiatives Anindita Sarkar, Arjit Das The present wheat-rice cropping pattern, groundwater irrigation, procurement policy, and electricity policy have bound farmers in Punjab into a convenient yet vicious relationship that is economically and ecologically unsustainable. The state... Read more
Review of Rural Affairs Agricultural Productivity Growth Is There Regional Convergence? Balaji S J, Suresh Pal This study examines the question of convergence in land and labour productivity in Indian agriculture between 1991 and 2011. The tendency of low-productivity states to catch up with high-productivity states is studied through the unconditional β-... Read more	Special Articles Factors behind the Performance of Pharmaceutical Industries in India Chiranjib Neogi, Atsuko Kamiike, Takahiro Sato Changes in various policies related to trade and entry of multinational companies in the Indian pharmaceutical industry were initiated in the early 1970s. However, the pace of growth of this industry has shown a remarkable upswing only after 1991... Read more
Special Articles Fallacies of a Supreme Court Judgment Section 498A and the Dynamics of Acquittals Prashant K Trivedi, Smriti Singh A higher proportion of acquittals is often put forward as evidence to suggest that Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code has been continuously misused. This position appears to focus on interpersonal violence, overlooking the various subliminal... Read more	Special Articles The New and Changing Roles of Cold Storages in the Potato Supply Chain in Bihar Bart Minten, Thomas Reardon, K M Singh, Rajib Sutradhar There have been dramatic increases and rapid upscaling of modern cold storages in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India and an area where smallholders dominate. These investments have been triggered by market reform, investment subsidies, and... Read more
Notes NREGA in Kashmir Opportunity for Derailed Social Protection Mushtaq Ahmad Malla The research on the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act across India has bypassed Kashmir and what little analysis there is, is limited to official statistics. This article looks at how the official... Read more	Postscript Sahir in the 21st Century Mohammad Kamran Ahsan The economic exploitation of the underprivileged, gender oppression and the abuse of power are the eternal themes in the verse of the Marxist feminist poet, Sahir Ludhianvi. Read more
Postscript A Tale of Two Cities Madhumati Dutta Travelling through the Moroccan cities of Marrakech and Fez evoked a sense of eternal community and camaraderie, magic and nostalgia. Read more	Postscript Will the Postman Ring Twice? Vasant M Kelkar Crowded out by modern communications technology, the Indian postal service may well be headed for extinction.