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Electricity consumption is a major part of the financial crisis. Mostly in India the poor earning people and moderate salary people play a vital role in the population. This paper studies the electricity consumption of 30 different states with daily unit consumption for nearly two years on the Covid-19 situation that is 17 months of time series data with 30 plus attributes including date, and state names in India. The time series data with daily basis electricity consumption on Mega unit basis. By Data Expansion and Attribute selection, the monthly data of two different countries were compared and produced certain results as average stability of the highest peak consumption, which leads to the highest demand for electricity. The minimal usage day with the lowest demand for electricity. The statistical method helps to achieve the mean value and variance value for consumption. This shows the stability of consumption long lasted from mid to end of the month. The weather also impacts the changes in the consumption of electricity. Finally, it results in the value for a variance from one state to another state consumption in the same month with low and high demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As India, a country with a complex relationship with cleanliness, modernizes rapidly, urban infrastructures are increasing even faster than the growing population. This paper explores the relationships between access to infrastructures, social mobility and resource consumption in everyday lives through the case of cleanliness in Mysore, Southern India. We draw on interviews with 28 Mysoreans about cleanliness perceptions and practices. Analysing cleanliness across class, caste and gender reveals that in the globalizing cleanliness cultures of Mysore those who are precarious and have less access to hygiene infrastructures, tend to have to clean more but don't resist expectations. We argue that, as cleanliness contours citizenship claims, the 'great unwashed' are excluded from participating in society. We question whether infrastructures and policies purported to increase the quality of life and provide basic human rights through increasing cleanliness, actually inadvertently contribute to deepening social stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulses are an important ingredient in the vegetarian diet of Indian masses. These are important because these have a high value for maintaining the optimal blood sugar levels and also restoring energy over a long period of time after the meals because the carbohydrates provided by pulses are released slowly as compared to cereals. In general, pulses are one of the most sustainable crops as it utilizes only 359 liter of water to produce one kg of pulses as compared to 1,802 liter for soybeans and 3,071 liters for groundnut. They play a significant role in contributing to soil quality by fixing nitrogen in the soil. India is one of the largest producer as well as consumer of a wide variety of pulses that is dominated by the tropical and sub-tropical crops such as chickpea, black gram, pigeon pea, green gram, lentil & so on. In this study, analysis has been done to help out the researcher and policy makers to take decisions regarding future initiatives and programs. In India during 2017-18 pulses were grown over an area of 29.99 million hectare producing 25.23 million tones with yield of 841 kg / per hectare. The cropping area of pulses in Haryana as compared to India is almost decreasing. The trend of contribution of pulses by Haryana at national level is also decreasing which reduces from 0.10 million tons in 2000-01 to 0.06 million tons in 2016- 17. In India, about 5.63 to 10.90 percent share of food grains production is of pulses. The percentage growth rate in the cropped area as well as in production of total pulses in India shows much fluctuation but serious downfall in case of Haryana. The present study tries to review and analyze the current policy environment and suggests ways and means to improve the pulses production scenario in the country and Haryana as well. It advocates the need to diversify from cereal–based cropping systems to pulses-based cropping system with certain policy decisions like crop diversification, improving seed replacement rate, improved crop production techniques etc. This paper analyses status of pulse crop in India as a whole and Haryana in particular along with paradigm shift required in policy decision, pulse research, technology generation & dissemination, commercialization along with capacity building of farmers and frontier areas of research & extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much of the literature on future food consumption in India in the decades ahead focuses on cereals, this paper presents estimates of potato demand to the year 2030 according to three different scenarios. Estimated increases in total food demand for potato range from 20 to 30 million metric tonnes and from 5.5 to 15 kg capita−1 year−1, with modest, if any, increases in foreign trade. These estimates highlight the potato's growing importance in Indian diets as food consumption patterns continue to evolve while maintaining their traditional roots. They also call for a series of public and private initiatives to facilitate the realization of the potato's potential future contribution to food consumption and nutrition in India. These include renewed support for research and development as relates to improved technologies for the potato sector both on and off the farm. It also involves opportunities for industry to combine market-driven innovations to achieve commercial success with benefits for growers, consumers and the environment as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • I examine whether households' consumption is influenced by that of their peers using Indian data. • I employ an instrumental variables/fixed effects approach. • I find robust evidence of peer effects in consumption. • Thus policies that influence household consumption are likely to have social spillovers. Abstract This paper examines peer effects in consumption in context of a less developed country. Specifically, the question that I seek to answer is whether consumption expenditure of a household is influenced by that of its peers in a less developed country. To examine this question, I use newly available household level data from India. I define a household's peer group as other households living in its village/neighborhood. In assessing the influences of peers in this context, there are two key empirical challenges including shared group-level unobservables, and simultaneity of peer influences. I address these issues by using an instrumental variables/fixed effects approach that compares households in the same district but different villages/neighborhoods who are thus exposed to different sets of peers. In particular, I use plausibly exogenous variation in idiosyncratic expenditure shocks – which are accidental and negative in nature – faced by peers as instruments for peers' consumption expenditure. Preferred specification suggests that a one standard deviation increase in average consumption expenditure of a household's peers causes the household's own consumption expenditure to increase by 0.42 standard deviations. Falsification tests and robustness checks support the validity of my results. My findings suggest that policies that influence a household's consumption will also affect the consumption of the household's peers through social interactions. This implies traditional analyses of consumption intervention programs that do not take into account such spillover effects will understate the total social impact of the programs, and hence lead to inaccurate evaluation of cost-effectiveness of such programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary It is well known that consumption patterns change with income. Relative price changes would therefore affect rich and poor consumers differently. Yet, the standard price indices are not income-specific, and hence, they cannot account for such differences. In this paper, we study consumption inequality in India, while fully allowing for non-homotheticity. We show that the relative price changes during most of the period from 1993 to 2012 were pro-poor, in the sense that they favored the poor relative to the rich. As a result, we also find that conventional measures significantly overstate the rise in real consumption inequality during this period. The main lesson from our study is the importance of accounting for non-homotheticity when measuring inequality. The price index literature has, as of yet, paid relatively little attention to this. In our application, however, it turns out that the allowance for non-homotheticity is quantitatively much more important than much discussed adjustments, such as those for substitution in consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meat eating in India cannot be analysed simply as a marker of ritual impurity: the culinary experiences of South Indian Christians also indicate the importance of meat in forging positive identities. In this paper, I draw out some of the fine-grained distinctions made by my informants in relation to meat eating, which suggest that its consumption is shaped not only by caste and religion, but also in relation to gender, age, status and other personal considerations. Second, I attempt to situate these practices within wider contexts: the cross-cutting influences of national anti-cattle slaughter campaigns and reactions against them; a growing movement of environmentalists and food activists; and the economics of meat production, which are rapidly changing in relation to new farming methods and other ecological shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The global energy requirement has grown at a phenomenal rate and the consumption of primary energy sources has been a very high positive growth. This article focuses on the consumption of different primary energy sources and it identifies that coal will continue to remain as the prime energy in the foreseeable future. It examines energy requirement perspectives for India and demands of petroleum, natural gas, and coal bed methane in the foreseeable future. It discusses the state of present day petroleum and petrochemical industries in the country and the latest advances in them to take over in the next few years. The regional pattern of consumption of primary energy sources shows that oil remains as the largest single source of primary energy in most parts of the world. However, gas dominates as the prime source in some parts of the world. Economic development and poverty alleviation depend on securing affordable energy sources and for the country's energy security; it is necessary to adopt the latest technological advances in petroleum and petrochemical industries by supportive government policies. But such energy is very much concerned with environmental degradation and must be driven by contemporary managerial acumen addressing environmental and social challenges effectively. Environmental laws for the abatement of environmental degradation are discussed in this paper. The paper concludes that energy security leading to energy independence is certainly possible and can be achieved through a planned manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether spending on tobacco crowds out expenditure on basic needs and whether it has implications on nutrition intake and household resource allocation in India. The paper uses a household sample survey from India for the year 1999–2000. A system of quadratic conditional Engel curves was estimated for a set of 10 broad groups of commodities. The results suggest that tobacco consuming households had lower consumption of certain commodities such as milk, education, clean fuels and entertainment which may have more direct bearing on women and children in the household than on men suggesting possible ‘gender effects’ and biases in the allocation of goods and services within the household. Tobacco spending was also found to have negative effects on per capita nutrition intake. The nature of crowding out was found to be similar in low- and high-income households. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

BACKGROUND: The role of fiscal policy, especially taxation, though has been proved to be an effective instrument of tobacco control, its application is limited in India due to several reasons. This paper examines the tax structure, price and affordability of SLT products in order to provide evidence on how to strengthen the role of fiscal policy in tobacco control. METHOD: Secondary data on tax structure and revenue from tobacco products were collected from the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. In order to measure the rise of prices corresponding to the increase in tax rate, the retail price index (RPI) and Whole Price Index (WPI) of SLT products were compared with the price index for all commodities for the period 2006-2012. The affordability of tobacco products is calculated by dividing prices of tobacco products by per capita income. RESULTS: During the last 6 years, the tax rate on SLT has gone up leading to a rise in the prices of SLT products more than the general price rise. However, the price rise is less than the per capita income growth indicating increasing affordability. The study observed a decline in the consumption of zarda and kahini due to the price increase during 2008-2013. However, the decline in the consumption of zarda is less compared with khaini due to a very low rise in its price. CONCLUSION: The prices should be raised more than the growth in income to influence consumption. Tax administration is a major challenge for SLT products and strengthening it could enhance revenue collection from SLT products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of fiscal policy, especially taxation, though has been proved to be an effective instrument of tobacco control, its application is limited in India due to several reasons. This paper examines the tax structure, price and affordability of SLT products in order to provide evidence on how to strengthen the role of fiscal policy in tobacco control. METHOD: Secondary data on tax structure and revenue from tobacco products were collected from the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. In order to measure the rise of prices corresponding to the increase in tax rate, the retail price index (RPI) and Whole Price Index (WPI) of SLT products were compared with the price index for all commodities for the period 2006-2012. The affordability of tobacco products is calculated by dividing prices of tobacco products by per capita income. RESULTS: During the last 6 years, the tax rate on SLT has gone up leading to a rise in the prices of SLT products more than the general price rise. However, the price rise is less than the per capita income growth indicating increasing affordability. The study observed a decline in the consumption of zarda and kahini due to the price increase during 2008-2013. However, the decline in the consumption of zarda is less compared with khaini due to a very low rise in its price. CONCLUSION: The prices should be raised more than the growth in income to influence consumption. Tax administration is a major challenge for SLT products and strengthening it could enhance revenue collection from SLT products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The opening up of the Indian economy through a series of neoliberal reforms since 1991 ushered in processes of globalization that have led to a rapidly changing socio-cultural environment in India. Economic growth, globalizing discourses, and new consumer choices have driven desires for new global-yet-Indian identities. An emerging consumer agency has allowed for the embodiment and performance of these identities at the site of the body, even as new spaces of consumption have necessitated new bodily dispositions and practices. In this paper, I focus on how access to new commodities and discourses has affected understandings of the modern Indian body. In particular, I concentrate on appearance and the notion of exercising consumer agency to be ‘presentable’ as a lens through which to examine broader aspects of the body in the creation of neoliberal subjects in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a number of case studies from Tamil Nadu, this paper shows that bonded labour is not a relic of the past, but surprisingly contemporary. Refuting the tenets of the semi-feudal thesis, we argue that unfree labour can go hand in hand with capitalism, and that it can be initiated and sustained by capital itself in order to accumulate surplus value. Going against the tenets of the de-proletarianization thesis, we suggest that bonded labour is not always the preferred working arrangement for capitalism. Bonded labour should be examined in connection with specific historical contexts, the changing nature of the economy, the evolution of political forces and modes of socialization. I argue that bonded labour results from a specific regime of accumulation characterized by cheap labour, increased domestic demand sustained through household debt, as well as modes of conflict, contestation and worker identity formation that engage with both governmental programmes and consumerism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of organic food has been regarded for a long time as being synonymous with ecological regional production systems. However, the increased production of organic food products has led to an ongoing industrialisation and also to a global spread of network structures within this segment of agriculture. This paper provides a case study of the integration of organic pepper farmers from an indigenous tribe in Kerala, India, into global agro-food networks, linking them to a German producer of organic meat products. The results of this study show that the importance of the territorial embeddedness and the abandonment of the exercise of power can be crucial for the success of global organic agro-food networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop diversification is considered as an important tool for acceleration of agricultural growth in India by promoting food and nutritional security, income and employment generation, poverty alleviation, judicious use of natural resources and ecological management. Important factors determining crop diversification, pattern of crop diversification, and problems and prospects associated with crop diversification are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do representations of 'India' shape the lives of members of a diasporic community, the identities they forge, and the politics they negotiate? This paper examines how grocery stores in the San Francisco Bay Area enable the construction of India and Indian culture, and argues that (1) Indian grocery storesin the diaspora form a crucial node in the transnational circulation of texts, images, and commodities between India and the diaspora; (2) the objects sold in these stores create varying regimes of value in different contexts; (3) gender (as it intersects with class and race) offers an important lens to examine the kinds of social practices facilitated by these stores. Throughout, the author wishes to foreground the on-going and contested construction of a transnational set of images, discourses, and institutions that engender what different people mean by 'India.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]