Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Employment Outcomes along the Rural-Urban Gradation

Vol - L No. 26-27, June 27, 2015 | Urmila Chatterjee, Rinku Murgai, and Martín Rama 

• Review of Rural Affairs
 
• Review Issues

In an economy that is transforming rapidly, both economically and spatially, the boundaries between rural and urban areas have become blurred. In practice, the rural-urban divide is more accurately characterised as a rural-urban gradation. Labour market outcomes vary along this gradation. Not integrating the gradation in our data and analysis leads to important loss of granularity and can yield misleading conclusions, a point we illustrate with the decline in female labour force participation.

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Debt Bondage and the Tricks of Capital

Vol - L No. 26-27, June 27, 2015 | Isabelle Guérin, G Venkatasubramanian, and S Kumar 

• Review of Rural Affairs
• Review Issues

Migrant labourers, free from rural bondage, are now bonded to other sources of debt, contracted from the agro-industry or construction sectors. The flows of migration in the brick-making and sugar cane sectors in Tamil Nadu, where bondage coexists with many public welfare schemes, illustrate the persistence and renewal of this phenomenon. The welfare schemes play the role of a safety net, but also contribute to low wages, and impunity on the part of employers. Alliances between capital and the state, through the politicisation of employers, are instrumental in the continuation of all forms of labour exploitation. When workers resist, employers tighten working conditions and start recruiting migrants from North India. And even if these forms of labour management obey a capitalist logic, they are inseparable from the caste hierarchy.

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Review of Rural Affairs / Review Issues Forced Migration of Labourers to Brick Kilns in Uttar Pradesh An Exploratory Analysis Bhaskar Majumder Seasonal employment in the rural economy at a wage rate below subsistence level forces underprivileged labourers to migrate for survival. Brick kilns in India are a major destination for migrant labourers, who are tied to them for the production... Read more	Review of Rural Affairs / Review Issues Livelihoods of Marginal Mining and Quarrying Households in India Md Zakaria Siddiqui, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt Presenting an exploratory approach by which quantitative data from the National Sample Survey can be analysed to throw light on the most marginal households whose primary occupation is recorded as mining and quarrying, this paper finds that a... Read more
Review of Rural Affairs / Review Issues Managing Water Management Research Analysis of Four Decades of Research and Outreach Programmes in India K Palanisami, D Suresh Kumar, R P S Malik, S Raman, G Kar,Kadiri Mohan An analysis of 40 years of water management research and outreach in India using data from 34 centres and 5,000 field trials across 23 states shows that of the 502 technologies released, only 110 technologies (22%) have been transferred... Read more	Review of Rural Affairs / Review Issues 'One Kind of Democracy' Implementing MGNREGS Siwan Anderson, Patrick Francois, Ashok Kotwal, Ashwini Kulkarni Even if we concede that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is designed as a demand-driven programme, and that local residents desire to have work projects in their area, whether it translates into effective demand, and... Read more
Web Exclusives National Family Health Survey-4 Serious Violations of Workers’ Rights Sylvia Karpagam, C Sathyamala The death of the four workers and injury to two others on 12 May 2015 in Karnataka brings to the forefront the harsh and unsafe working conditions under which the workers “contracted” under the private “Field Agency,”... Read more	Insight The Real Story behind Juvenile Crime Data K P Asha Mukundan This article looks at the data, reported in the Crime in India- Statistics Report, Chapter 10, on juveniles in confl ict with the law and analyses and interprets it against the "disclaimer" and "limitations" published in the... Read more
Reports From the States / Web Exclusives Hampi Bazaar Demolition How Heritage Divides Experts and Inhabitants Morgan Campbell Despite widespread support on the importance of participatory planning and local knowledge networks, a clear boundary remains between those who make decisions about world heritage and those living within heritage environments. The 2011 demolition... Read more	Special Articles Workers' Lives, Walmart's Pocket Garments’ Global Chain, from Savar to New York Anu Muhammad In its spatial expansion, capital has globalised the production and distribution chain. The division of labour has been restructured throughout the world, factories have shifted from North to South, structural unemployment has increased in the... Read more
Commentary Economics of Solid Waste in India M Balasubramanian This article provides an overview of the economics of solid waste, and related issues. Public attention to solid waste and recycling has increased in India. In response, economists have developed models to help policymakers choose an efficient... Read more	Commentary Engaging Rawls and Dhasal Imagining Justice Rahul Sonpimple, Prachi Patil Theory and poetry speak to us in ways different from each other. It is in this sense that John Rawls and Namdeo Dhasal have to be understood when they speak about the idea of justice. This article engages with the theoretical schemes of Rawls... Read more
Editorials Antithesis of Democracy A trigger-happy government will only deepen the political mess in the North East. Read more	Editorials The Noodle Muddle The essential discussion should be about the poisons in our food chain. Read more
Editorials Modi's Israel Stake An ideological impetus has been given to a growing, albeit difficult, relationship. Read more	Stratrgic Affairs Tianxia A Distinctly Chinese Vision of Global Hegemony Itty Abraham An exploration of a new Chinese vision of international relations which positions the erstwhile "Middle Kingdom" as the 21st century's lodestar of global stability and progress. Read more
Commentary Army's Transborder Raid in Myanmar Interrogating the Claims Subir Bhaumik Some reasonably astounding claims have been made about the commando raid carried out by the Indian Army on rebel camps in Myanmar. A long-time observer of the region and military operations there separates the chaff to prise out the possible... Read more	Commentary India's War against Itself A View from Manipur Pradip Phanjoubam Delhi's chest-thumping journalists are becoming mere stenographers of power, forgetting to ask questions and interrogate offi cial narratives. A journalist from Manipur recounts the events leading up to and around the 9 June 2015 "... Read more
Commentary Bollywood, Within and Without Reading Tanu Weds Manu Returns Dhiraj Kumar Nite With two endearing female protagonists who defy attributes of modern bourgeois femininity and at the same time do not fit in with notions of transformative womanhood, Tanu Weds Manu Returns is a refreshing social drama. It explores social... Read more	Book Reviews Unending Hard Times Whose Is the Toil and Whose Is the Wealth? Bernard D'Mello The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W McChesney,New York: Monthly Review Press; published in India by Cornerstone... Read more
Book Reviews The Price of Renewable Energy V Ranganathan State of Renewable Energy in India: A Citizen's Reportby Chandra Bhushan, Nayanjyoti Goswami, Aruna Kumarankandath, Kanchan Kumar Agrawal and Joel Kumar, New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 2014; pp 198, Rs... Read more	Special Articles Ebola Virus Disease Medical Ethics in a Public Health Emergency Pallavi Mishra The Ebola virus disease, which spread in four West African countries, brought to light the feeble health governance system not only in these countries but also at the global level. Weak health infrastructure, resource crunch, non-viability of... Read more
Special Articles Institutional Framework of MFIs and Economic Benefit to Clients in Mumbai Slums Samapti Guha, Chandralekha Ghosh The microfinance movement has experienced economic transition over more than four decades across the world. In the 1990s several microfinance institutions were forced to change their institutional structures to face competition from for-profit... Read more	Notes Redressing Teachers' Grievances A Study of Eight States Aparna Ravi, Sangeeta Goyal, Sangeeta Dey The process of redressing grievances of public sector employees has received little systematic attention, despite the large volume of such litigation. This article attempts to address this gap through an analysis of the role courts play in... Read more
Discussion All the World's a Half-Built Dam Arundhati Roy A response to Rajmohan Gandhi's "Independence and Social Justice: The Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate" (EPW, 11 April 2015). Read more