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Decentralized governance and its possible shortcomings have been receiving increased attention in development discourse. However, there still remains a dearth of empirical data highlighting such pitfalls. Drawing on in-depth interviews and literature reviews, this paper explores the extent of decentralized development planning at the grassroots level. Using the state of Kerala, India as a case study, I explore how local government institutions, specifically those in areas of disadvantaged communities, might operate in a manner that questions its ability to enable communities to become effective participants, despite long running institutional arrangements that have been set up to promote just that. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Kerala and Finland have made notable achievements in the realm of literacy: Kerala has one of the highest rates in the developing world and Finland ranks first in literacy among developed countries. Both also share a cultural history of granting women a high status in their respective societies. Using Kerala and Finland as examples, this paper explores the status of women in highly literate societies in both the developing and developed worlds, looking not only at the historical circumstances in which these conditions developed but also at the outcomes associated with them. This paper argues that literacy rates and female status are interconnected: each impacts on the other, as high female status contributes to improved literacy rates and educational and life opportunities, while high female literacy rates result in increased social standing for women. Such synergy produces outcomes beneficial to a society, regardless of its developmental status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes narratives about the radical socio‐economic changes accompanying liberalization in India to consider how English‐medium schooling is becoming an aspirational resource for non‐elite parents. I suggest that aspiring is a practice of ethics that marginalized mothers mobilize to negotiate memories of deprivation and yearnings for good futures, in the present. Meanwhile, educators' specific shaming of non‐elite aspirations for English schooling reveals their anxieties concerning disrupted local hierarchies, symbolized by non‐elite English schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the experiences of decentralization under successive political regimes in Kerala in the context of neo-liberal policies, with reference to the impact on the lives of adivasi (indigenous) communities. The Communist Party-led government had been implementing a home-grown programme of decentralized planning since 1996 until it lost power to the Congress Party-led conservative coalition in 2001. In the context of the accelerated structural adjustment and liberalization of the national government, the new government amended its predecessor's programme with a reduced role for the state bureaucratic and political actors in mobilizing people for planning and implementing projects at the local level. Based on a comparative analysis, the authors argue that the new programme has so far not been successful as regards enabling marginalized groups such as the indigenous communities to resist exclusion and move out of their states of deprivation. The study also shows that the withdrawal of the state from the social and economic sectors has adversely affected these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the premise that labour market conditions are critical in shaping access to social security benefits. Women's entitlement to long-term social security is in many respects different from that of men on account of the assumptions which pervade the system about gender roles, labour market conditions, and outcomes. The Indian state of Kerala has made great strides in formulating various schemes for workers in the informal sector, but gender concerns in social security are in want of attention in the light of demographic pressures, fiscal constraints and changes in the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Internacional del Trabajo is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The state of Kerala in India is known for its active civil society and the massive decentralization campaign launched in 1996. However marginalization of tribal communities hampers the state's decentralized environmental management strategies. The proposed construction of a dam along the Chalakkudy River will displace two colonies of the Kadar tribe in Chalakkudy and Athirapilly towns, destroy habitats of local wildlife and devastate unique riverine vegetation endemic to the region. This brings to light issues of social and environmental justice as well as a wider responsibility to protect and preserve unique flora and fauna. The state's decentralization strategies, as they relate to tribal communities, lack consideration of local power distribution and cultural conditioning. This raises questions about the state's role in social justice as well as biodiversity conservation. In 2010 and 2011, the author's interviews in Chalakkudy and Athirapilly towns reveal that tribal communities perceive that their place in society restricts their contribution regarding natural resource management and use. The paper suggests that unless the culture of planning and decision making in the state are changed, decentralized strategies will be ineffective, resulting in a predominately top-down approach towards natural resource management, and will negate Kerala's goal of democratic decentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on 'transnational agrarian movements' by drawing upon the 'fishworkers' movement' in the 1960s in India's Kerala state, and the subsequent role it played in the formation of national and transnational networks. Against the prevailing teleology of movement network organization from local to national to transnational, I suggest that transnational and transregional flows produce the local and national as spaces of action. Instead of an unproblematic inclusion of fishers' movements into the general rubric of 'transnational agrarian movements', I argue that considering differences between agriculture and fishing, and within fishing, allows a better explanation of the potential and limits of solidarity within the transnational network of fishers' movements. I show that transnationality is not only about solidarity between movements but also about engaging with 'transnational regimes', which provide resources for network formation as well as produce stresses within networks. [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]

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become the panacea for development for many developing countries in the modern, knowledge-based world. Kerala, a state in India known for its model of development, has not only joined this bandwagon but has also selected ICTs as a means to pull the state out of its present crisis. The paper examines the institutions of knowledge production in Kerala (academic and scientific sectors), which are generally the forerunner of other sectors in terms of their use of ICTs. We examine the extent to which ICTs have affected research communication and collaboration, the processes, which are crucial in developing a knowledge-based economy. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eight pentads before the monsoon onset over Kerala (MOK), a spatially large area of deep convection formed near the equator south of the Bay of Bengal, which moved to Southeast Asia marking the onset of the South China Sea monsoon (SCSM) for many years. Three pentads before MOK, a similar area of convection formed near the equator south of the Arabian Sea. This heat source and the associated cross-equatorial low-level jet stream (LLJ) grew steadily in strength while moving north and at MOK the convective heat source passed through Kerala latitudes and the core of a well developed LLJ was located just south of Kerala. Eight pentads before MOK a warm pool was located over central Bay of Bengal and the area of active convection formed to its south near the equator in the region of large sea surface temperature (SST) gradient. Three pentads before MOK when the Bay of Bengal SST had cooled, a warm pool formed over central Arabian Sea and an active convection area was located south of it, also in the region of large SST gradient. A three-step method for objectively defining MOK has been developed in this paper. In step 1 of this operationally usable method, the date on which the zonal wind of 850 hPa, averaged over a box bounded by latitudes 5°N and 10°N and longitudes 70°E and 85°E, reached 6 m/s at 600 hPa is taken as the tentative date of MOK. Steps 2 and 3 checked whether the date thus chosen was a bogus monsoon onset or not and whether on that date there was widespread convection (low OLR) around Kerala, which moved north from the equatorial region. Copyright © 2006 Royal Meteorological Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supported by the labour geography framework, I analyse how spatial practices of labour shape the economic geography of capitalism, by looking into a model not at a global but at a very local scale of organisation and showing its effectiveness while confronting social actors organised at global or extra-local scales. Questioning global stereotypes on economic responses to globalisation, I argue that labour becomes actively involved in the very process of globalisation and the expansion of capital, empirically demonstrating the relevance of this in the globalisation literature. I deal with one region-Kerala-and processes in its labour markets, taking the case of apparel workers in an export-promoting industrial park. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Forest Pathology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: This study investigates the impact of international remittances on private school enrolment in Kerala. Using data from the 2010 Kerala Migration Survey and employing an instrumental variable (IV‐Probit) approach to address the endogeneity of migration, we found that remittances have a positive and significant effect on private school enrolment. After disaggregating the sample into different heterogeneous groups, we found that remittances have greater effect on boys, children residing in rural areas, and those belonging to socially advantageous groups and from higher wealth quintile. Children from lower wealth quintile and belonging to socially disadvantageous groups are least affected by migration and remittances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article is based on mixed-method field research in Adimalathura, a coastal village in south Kerala, India, which has been identified as one of the poorest communities in the area. Although this fishing community has been facing severe ecological challenges, including massive resource depletion, it has been able to put up stiff resistance to impending dispossession in the face of a large port project actively promoted by the government, most major political parties and globalized capital. This article traces the history of public action and work in Adimalathura since the early 20th century, and reflects on its significance in the context of the present resistance. It examines the role of women in bolstering the community in times of severe challenges to men's livelihoods, and highlights the importance of women's provisioning work. Ultimately, the author cautions against exaggerating community strength and the capacities of the women even when they are able to utilize available resources competently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Irrigation & Drainage is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

ABSTRACT India's oilseeds sector, which includes its coconut economy, experienced drastic changes in the wake of agricultural liberalization in the mid-1990s. A persistent coconut crisis 'narrative' emerged after sharp price declines between 2000 and 2002 in which small farmers in the state of Kerala, India's main coconut producer, were identified as victims of the liberalized importation of cheap palm oil. This article describes this crisis narrative based on a literature review of academic and official reports, and challenges its problem analysis by juxtaposing it with information from ethnographic research with local farmers and traders. The research indicates that local labour shortages and increased regional competition also had a strong impact on Kerala's coconut market, production and processing, which varied from region to region. Furthermore, small farmers, with their diversified livelihoods, did not recognize a 'crisis' as such. Drawing upon the 'advocacy coalition framework', the article also indicates reasons for the emergence and persistence of the coconut crisis narrative and points to complex processes of restructuring social space in the age of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the case study of a prominent electronics manufacturer in Kerala, southern India, to illuminate an approach to labour studies which focuses on local labour control regimes. Kerala was chosen for this study because of certain unusual characteristics of its labour market. Building on the theoretical base of local labour control regimes, empirical evidence from the case study reveals that local labour markets develop their own forms of labour control and worker response patterns. These are not always clearly visible and may require something more than superficial enquiry to bring their salient features into view. In this case, the Church is shown to play an unexpected role in local labour control regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article engages ethnographically with the neoliberalization of nature in the spheres of tourism, conservation and agriculture. Drawing on a case study of Wayanad district, Kerala, the article explores a number of themes. First, it shows how a boom in domestic nature tourism is currently transforming Wayanad into a landscape for tourist consumption. Second, it examines how tourism in Wayanad articulates with projects of neoliberalizing forest and wildlife conservation and with their contestations by subaltern groups. Third, it argues that the contemporary commodification of nature in tourism and conservation is intimately related to earlier processes of commodifying nature in agrarian capitalism. Since independence, forest land has been violently appropriated for intensive cash-cropping. Capitalist agrarian change has transformed land into a (fictitious) commodity and produced a fragile and contested frontier of agriculture and wildlife. When agrarian capitalism reached its ecological limits and entered a crisis of accumulation, farming became increasingly speculative, exploring new modes of accumulation in out-of-state ginger cultivation. In this scenario nature and wildlife tourism emerges as a new prospect for accumulation in a post-agrarian economy. The neoliberalization of nature in Wayanad, the authors argue, is a process driven less by new modes of regulation than by the agrarian crisis and new modes of speculative farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than four decades, local-level workers of the Marxist Left and Hindu Right in the southern Indian state of Kerala have been involved in a grievous political conflict. Drawing on my ethnography among members of the two groups, I describe how responsibility for this violence has been elided and effaced especially among members of the Hindu nationalist group, Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS). Crucial to this elision has been the workers' close-knit community of friends and supporters that they forge by extending everyday assistance, care, and mobilizing support in small neighborhoods, towns, and villages of the region. Modes of sociality and concepts of relatedness so generated not only mitigate individualizing experiences of suffering but also subsume individual responsibility for acts of violence within the whole. This article is about such dissolution of culpabilities, and the affects, emotive concepts and conditions of collective life that make it possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines suicide prevention among children in India's 'suicide capital' of Kerala to interrogate the ways temporalization practices inform the cultivation of ethical, life-avowing subjects in late capitalism. As economic liberalization and migration expand consumer aspiration in Kerala, mental health experts link the quickening of material gratification in middle-class parenting to the production of insatiable, maladjusted, and impulsively suicidal children. Experiences of accelerated time through consumption in 'modern' Kerala parenting practice reflect ideas about the threats of globalization that are informed both by national economic shifts and by nostalgia for the state's communist and developmentalist histories, suggesting that late capitalism's time-space compression is not a universalist phenomenon so much as one that is unevenly experienced through regionally specific renderings of the past. I demonstrate how experts position the Malayali child as uniquely vulnerable to the fatal dangers of immediate gratification, and thus exhort parents to retemporalize children through didactic games built around the deferral of desires for everyday consumer items. Teaching children how to wait as a pleasurable and explicitly antisuicidal way of being reveals anxieties, contestations, and contradictions concerning what ought to constitute 'quality' investment in children as temporal subjects of late capitalism. The article concludes by bringing efforts to save elite lives into conversation with suicide prevention among migrants to draw out the ways distinct vulnerabilities and conditions of precarity situate waiting subjects in radically different ways against the prospect of self-destruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the adsorptive removal of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) by steam pyrolyzed activated carbon from aqueous solution. The study uses rubber wood sawdust from a local timber in Kerala, India and batch adsorption experiments for the monitoring of the removal process. The study shows that EDTA removal presents the adsorbent effectiveness by setting the pH range of 4.0-6.0 for sawdust activated carbon (SDAC) and 5.0-5.5 for commercial activated carbon (CAC).

The article presents a study that investigates the activity of multiresistant non-O1, and non-O139 Vibrio cholerae strains from various aquatic regions at Alleppey district in Kerala, South India. The study examined water samples with the use of 0.22 µm membrane filters, and improved them in alkaline peptone water. Results of the study show the bearing wide range of critical virulence factors in various strains of Vibrio cholerae nonO1 and non-O139.

The article discusses the decentralization in Kerala, India. It states that Kerala is considered as one of the most decentralized states in India. Kerala has implemented a fiscal decentralization program through a big bang approach and then built the capacity of its local governments. Researchers used a diagnostic framework to examine the local government discretion and accountability in political, administrative and fiscal domains. They found that the local governments in Kerala have a very high degree of discretionary power and a high degree of accountability towards citizens.

Objectives. The objectives of this study were to: (i) test the hypothesis that urbanization is a risk factor for dental caries in children aged 6 and 12 years in Kollam, Kerala; and (ii) identify other possible risk factors for dental caries. Methods. A cross-sectional study design was followed. The subjects were stratified by socio-demographic status into urban middle class, urban poor, and rural poor. Caries experience was measured by visual examination of teeth according to the World Health Organization criteria. Data on potential risk factors were collected using a close-ended, structured, and interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data modelling was conducted using logistic regression analyses. Results. Eight hundred seventy-six children were examined; 53% of 6-year-olds and 90% of 12-year-olds examined were caries free. The caries experience rates were 1.40 decayed, missing, or filled primary teeth and 0.15 Decayed, Missing, and Filled Teeth (DMFT) for the 6- and 12-year-olds, respectively. Urban children did not have a higher caries experience compared with rural children. The only risk factor associated with a significant difference in DMFT scores was the dental visiting pattern. Children who visited the dentist had a significantly higher mean DMFT score ( P = 0.009). Conclusion. There was no evidence that urbanization is a risk factor for dental caries in Kerala. Dental caries experience was low, against any standard, in Kollam. Risk factors for caries were not identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was an ex-post assessment done to validate past funding on cassava research, based on economic surplus approach. Though cassava was introduced as a food crop in Kerala, India from Brazil, it has changed its status to commercial crop at present in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh states. This was made possible due to intensive research and development efforts of different R&D organizations. Cassava technologies developed enabled in sustaining the crop in the country with the world’s highest productivity. All the cassava production technologies considered in the study resulted in an economic surplus of Rs.3585.87 million in the target domain covering Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Consumers and producers benefited to the tune of Rs.2090.64 million and Rs.1495.23 million respectively. Net present value of economic gains was estimated to be Rs.3548.76 million. Present value of research investment on cassava production technologies was Rs.37.11 million resulting in benefit cost ratio of 96.63:1 with a high internal rate of return of 104 per cent. Thus the study indicated that the research investments incurred on cassava production technologies development was highly economical and provided evidence to the policy makers that supporting the research investment on underground, under exploited tropical root crops like cassava is an economically viable proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muslim entrepreneurs from Kerala, South India, are at the forefront of India's liberalizing economy, keen innovators who have adopted the business and labour practices of global capitalism in both Kerala and the Gulf. They are also heavily involved in both charity and politics through activity in Kerala's Muslim public life. They talk about their ‘social mindedness’ as a combination of piety and economic calculation, the two seen not as excluding but reinforcing each other. By promoting modern education among Muslims, entrepreneurs seek to promote economic development while also embedding economic practices within a framework of ethics and moral responsibilities deemed to be ‘Islamic’. Inscribing business into the rhetoric of the ‘common good’ also legitimizes claims to leadership and political influence. Orientations towards self-transformation through education, adoption of a ‘systematic’ lifestyle, and a generalized rationalization of practices have acquired wider currency amongst Muslims following the rise of reformist influence and are now mobilized to sustain novel forms of capital accumulation. At the same time, Islam is called upon to set moral and ethical boundaries for engagement with the neoliberal economy. Instrumentalist analyses cannot adequately explain the vast amounts of time and money which Muslim entrepreneurs put into innumerable ‘social’ projects, and neither ‘political Islam’ nor public pietism adequately captures the possibilities or motivations for engagement among contemporary reformist-orientated Muslims. Résumé Les entrepreneurs musulmans de l’état indien du Kerala sont en première ligne dans l’économie indienne en voie de libéralisation. Ces innovateurs ont adopté les pratiques d’entreprise et de gestion de la main-d’œuvre du capitalisme global, aussi bien dans le Kerala que dans le Golfe Persique. Ils sont également très engagés dans la bienfaisance et la politique, par leur activité dans la vie publique des musulmans du Kerala. Ils parlent de leur « esprit social » comme d’une combinaison de piété et de calcul économique, lesquelles sont perçues non pas comme mutuellement exclusives mais comme se renforçant mutuellement. En promouvant une éducation moderne des musulmans, ils tentent de favoriser le développement économique tout en plaçant leurs pratiques économiques dans un cadre d’éthique et de responsabilités morales considéré comme « islamique ». En inscrivant les affaires dans la rhétorique du « bien commun », ils légitiment du même coup leurs revendications de leadership et d’influence politique. L’orientation vers la transformation de soi par le biais de l’éducation, l’adoption d’un mode de vie « systématique » et une rationalisation généralisée des pratiques ont été largement adoptées parmi les musulmans sous l’effet de l’influence croissante des réformistes, et elles sont à présent mobilisées à l’appui de nouvelles formes d’accumulation de capital. Dans le même temps, on invoque l’islam pour fixer des limites morales et éthiques à l’engagement dans l’économie néolibérale. Les analyses instrumentalistes ne suffissent pas à expliquer la masse de temps et d’argent que les entrepreneurs musulmans consacrent à d’innombrables projets « sociaux ». Ni l’islam « politique » ni le piétisme public ne peuvent non plus rendre compte de façon adéquate des possibilités ou motivations d’engagement des musulmans réformistes contemporains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on a research regarding the economic framework for the assessment of private and social economic benefits of vaccination. The Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management has used several stated preference studies including contingent valuation and choice modeling for the analytic framework. The association demonstrated socially optimal policies using a graphical approach, as well as the economic and epidemiological data from Kolkata, India. According to the analysis, it is found that without the optimal subsidy, selling vaccines at full marginal cost may be a second option, rather than providing them for free.

The matrilineal castes of northern Kerala consider dowry demeaning and resort to it only in ‘exceptional’ circumstances. In local discourse, dowry is transacted when women are considered ‘old’ by the standards of the marriage market, where over-age is a condition reached usually on account of what is considered a deficit of a normative conception of femininity. Dowry is practised openly only by poor and socially vulnerable households, as the relatively affluent could mask dowry with hidden compensations. This article explores the ways in which gender mediates matchmaking and generates a residual category of women for whom dowry is openly negotiated. Open negotiation on the margins of the marriage market expose the terms of exchange in ‘respectable’ society, where matchmaking strategies reveal the emphasis placed on conjugality and on caste in the social construction of women's interests and identity. Up to the mid-twentieth century, matrilineal women derived their identity from their natal families. The political economy of marriage in Kerala brought a new emphasis to bear on conjugality and on caste, which generated new restrictions on women and produced a rationale for dowry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising opportunity costs for continuing to grow and conserve traditional plant varieties has led to an erosion of agrobiodiversity. This study compares two institutions of collective biodiversity management in Kerala, India. The traditional mechanisms of a scheduled tribe, the Kurichyas, are contrasted with the new institution of the People's Biodiversity Register (PBR) under the local form of governance, the panchayat. Collective action is analysed for the core variables of reputation, trust and reciprocity. In the tribal institutions, traditional seed exchange rests on reputation and gender complementarities, which are eroded by a diminishing degree of trust and dissolving property rights for women and weakened by failing norms of reciprocity. The new institution of PBR threatens tribal women's reputations and their knowledge by reducing it to a bureaucratic register, the disembodiment of knowledge into information reduces trust and unpredictable returns diminish reciprocity. A massive public investment in strengthening women's capabilities for a transformation from conservers and users to advocates, managers and decision-makers regarding biodiversity might halt the loss. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. The State of Kerala in southwestern India shows the highest gender development index in the country. Despite having the highest literacy rate and educational achievements of women, the suicide rate among females is very high, and domestic violence committed against women is increasing every year in Kerala. This article attempts to analyze the demographic, social, and cultural changes that are occurring in order to understand this apparent paradox of high human capital attainment and high violence and suicides experienced by women in Kerala. Methods. The study uses data from the Census of India (1991, 2001) , National Crime Records Bureau (1998–2000), and Reproductive and Child Health ( District Level House Hold Survey—2001 ) to analyze trends in crime, violence, and suicide rates, and demographic profiles of the different districts in Kerala. Results. High educational attainment has fostered new aspirations and attitudes among women in Kerala. Yet, societal and cultural norms still dictate that women should be subservient to men both at home and in the labor market. This imbalance often contributes to family violence and suicides in Kerala. Thus, beneath the veil of development lie some disturbing social, cultural, and economic issues that may be contributing to high rates of suicide and family violence in Kerala. Conclusions. This study demonstrates that high educational attainment alone will not promote gender empowerment unless the social and cultural fabric of a country or state ensures equality of women in all areas of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical and health risks are very high among aged persons. The precise implications of population ageing for future levels of health and healthcare utilization depend on whether the increases in life expectancy experienced in general are accompanied by an increase or a decrease in health problems in later life. The health risks of the presence of an aged person in a household can result in a catastrophic shock for the family and render such households more exposed to poverty. The increased cost of medical bills means that large numbers of the elderly in the developing world are deprived of access to health and to better health treatment. This article examines this question empirically, using the largest national survey in the Indian state of Kerala, comparing elderly with non-elderly households. We also attempt to find the impact of unhealthy lifestyles on the financial status of these households, due to hospitalization as a result of an aged person's illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tropical Medicine & International Health is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article attempts to analyse the social interface between formal institutions and local fishing communities along the Pamba-Achankovil River Basin in Kerala, India. It examines primarily the nature of the relationship between state agencies and traditional fishing communities in the context of (i) enforcing certain formal regulations of resource use and (ii) implementing resource enhancement programmes. The article also analyses the nature of social interfaces that emerge when local level formal organizations, such as cooperatives and gram panchayats, take up resource management or community welfare schemes on behalf of the traditional fisherfolk in the study region. Social interfaces can be understood in terms of social processes, such as cooperation, accommodation and conflicts between various actors involved in fisheries management. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork. Interview guides and focus group discussions were the primary tools of data collection. The findings show that the relationships between formal institutions and traditional riverine fishing communities lack mutual trust. Conflicts between fishing communities and state agencies emerge when the formal institutions threaten or contradict those elements of local culture that sustain livelihood needs. Conflicts and discontent with a particular formal institution can also lead to the modification or violation of coexisting institutional arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and analyses the ways in which public action in the State of Kerala in India helped to transform the standard of living of hired workers in agriculture. Specifically, the article analyses the extent of land and asset ownership, access to credit, access to social security schemes and food distribution systems and the conditions of housing and sanitation of households participating in agricultural wage work. The article is based as a case study of Morazha desam in the Malabar region of Kerala, which had one of the most oppressive agrarian systems in India before 1956–57. In 1955, another economist had studied Morazha desam; this study was conducted before one of the most important interventions through public action – land reform – took place in Malabar. The 1955 study had characterized the conditions of life of agricultural workers as ‘wretched in the extreme’. The present article documents the significant transformation in the quality of life that took place in Morazha after 1955, through a weakening of the factors that led to ‘wretched’ conditions of life in the earlier period. The destruction of traditional agrarian power by the state through land reform was the most critical step in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the politics and practices of gendered democratic citizenship in an educational setting in Kerala, India. Discourses of consumption as they intersect postcolonial cultural-ideological political fields; Focus on the contemporary trajectory among politicized male college students of a historically important masculinist political public; Logic and freedom of consumption.

Objectives. The aims of the present study were to describe the dental health status of 12-year-old schoolchildren in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, and to identify sociodemographic factors, oral health behaviours, attitudes and knowledge related to dental caries experience. Methods. The study took the form of a cross-sectional survey of 838 children in upper primary schools. A two-stage cluster sampling technique was used. Dental caries was measured using World Health Organization criteria. Sociodemographic factors, oral health behaviours, attitudes and knowledge were assessed by a self-administered questionnaire. Results. The prevalence of dental caries in the permanent dentition was 27%. The mean number of decayed, missing and filled teeth was 0·5 (SD = 0·9). The decayed component (D) constituted 91% of the total number of decayed, missing and filled teeth (DMFT). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that children had a higher risk of having dental caries if they lived in urban area [OR = 1·5, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1·1–2·1], had visited a dentist (OR = 1·6, 95% CI = 1·2–2·2), did not use a toothbrush (OR = 1·9, 95% CI = 1·2–2·9), consumed sweets (OR = 1·4, 95% CI = 1·0–1·9) or performed poorly in school (OR = 1·7, 95% CI = 1·0–2·3). Conclusions. The prevalence of caries in this sample of 12-year-old schoolchildren was low compared to that in other developing countries. The present study indicated that urban living conditions were associated with more dental caries. Since urbanization is rapid in India, oral health promotion at the present time would be valuable to prevent increased caries prevalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines discrimination against women in Kerala, India. Fertility decline; Increased gender bias in Kerala; Impact of socio-economic development on the worsening situation of women in India; Trends in juvenile sex ratio and child mortality.

Attempts at measuring decentralisation are still in an underdeveloped stage. The reason for this lies in the failure to devise common standards against which measurement is possible and the lack of consensus about the very meaning of decentralisation. An attempt to measure decentralisation was made by Vengroff and Ben Salem in the context of Tunisia nearly a decade ago. An expanded and adapted version of this model is used to measure decentralisation in Kerala using the same judgmental criteria that they used after involving a panel of nine experts. These experts had a fairly good understanding of the practice of decentralisation to score on the basis of the adapted criteria. An ideal form of decentralisation envisaged in this measurement exercise is devolution. It has been found that on a scale ranging between 0 and 5, the state of Kerala obtained a score of 2.00 in spite of the fact that the investment that the state had made in decentralisation has no parallels anywhere in the developing countries. Such a low score, despite the much publicised campaign for decentralisation, was due to the focus on planning rather than on decentralisation issues. Attempts to measure decentralisation will not only enable us to develop more contextually valid measures of decentralisation, but also contribute to the clarification of the concept of decentralisation, particularly by identifying aspects neglected hitherto. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With high levels of poverty and inadequate domestic food grain production, Kerala has been one of the most food insecure states in India. Its adverse implications, however, have been mitigated through active state government intervention and highly subsidized public distribution system operated under public vigil. As a result, per capita cereal consumption has increased in spite of a decline in domestic cereal production. Yet, about 80 per cent of the population suffer from inadequate calorie intake. The scale of the public distribution system is substantial; but its effective utilization is less than 50 per cent of the potential due to inadequate economic access and poor quality of food grains. Still the system is not sustainable for fiscal reasons. The ongoing adjustment programme has sought to streamline the food distribution programme by reforming its pricing rule and by targeting it only to the poor. The present article examines its implications for food security and social development in Kerala. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Introduction Though bladder and bowel control are important developmental milestones in all cultures, the prevalence of enuresis and encopresis has rarely been studied in developing countries despite there being factors in these countries that could affect it. This study reports the prevalence and associations of enuresis and encopresis in children in Kerala, India. Method The parents of 1403 randomly selected 8–12-year-old children were interviewed. The prevalence of enuresis and encopresis was ascertained using Rutter’s A2 scale. Subsamples of children underwent psychiatric, physical and psychometric evaluations. Results Of the children, 18.6% had had an episode of enursis in the past year and 4.3% in the past week. Four per cent had had an episode of encopresis in the past year. Enuresis was associated with parents’ education, physical and psychiatric symptoms in the child, poor academic achievement and lax parental attitudes to toilet training. Encopresis was associated with male sex, physical and psychiatric symptoms, poor academic achievement, early separation and not having a toilet. Discussion The prevalence of enuresis compares with western countries, but encopresis is commoner. The associations of enuresis suggested a multifactorial model in which parental competence was prominent. This study de-emphasized the importance of neurodevelopmental factors in enuresis and encopresis in this age group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the increasing number of returning migrant workers to Kerala, India since the mid-1980s. Profiles of the returned migrants and their prospects for employment; Inability of the Indian government to provide assistance for rehabilitation and development; Opportunity for channelling the development potential of the returned migrants into productive investment.

Copyright of European Journal of Forest Pathology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of European Journal of Forest Pathology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on the association of mycoplasma like organisms with yellow leaf disease. Yellow leaf disease of arecanut palm remains the most serious problem of betelnut palm growers of Kerala and Karnataka states. Mycoplasma like organisms (MLO) were found in the young sieve elements of arceanut palms declining with yellow leaf disease in Kerala and Karnataka States of India. The organisms resembled those MLO found in coconut palms affected with lethal yellowing in Florida and Africa. MLO were found in mature sieve tubes of diseased palms taken from the unexpanded rachilla. The young rachilla had more MLO than the partly expanded leaves. Fully developed MLO were not found in older diseased leaves of the affected palms.

This article reports results of the first migration study covering the entire State of Kerala. It encompasses both measurement as well as analysis of the various types and facets of migration. Migration has been the single most dynamic factor in an otherwise dreary development scenario in Kerala during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Kerala is approaching the end of the millennium with a little cheer in many people's homes as a result of migration which has contributed more to poverty alleviation than any other factor, including agrarian reforms, trade union activities and social welfare legislation. The study shows that nearly 1.5 million Keralites now live outside India. They send home more than Rs.4,000 million a year by way of remittances. Three-quarters of a million former emigrants have come back. They live mostly on savings, work experience, and skills acquired while abroad. More than a million families depend on an internal migrant's earnings for subsistence, children's education and other economic requirements. Whereas the educationally backward Muslims from the Thrissur-Malappuram region provide the backbone of emigration, it is the educationally forward Ezhawas, Nairs and Syrian Christians from the former Travancore-Cochin State who form the core of internal migration. The article also analyses the determinants and consequences of internal and external migration. It offers suggestions for policy formulation directed at optimum utilization of remittances sent home by emigrants and the expertise brought back by the return migrants. Migration in Kerala began with demographic expansion, but it will not end up with demographic contraction. Kerala has still to develop into an internally self-sustaining economy. The prevailing cultural milieu in which its people believe that anything can be achieved through agitation, and any rule can be circumvented with proper political connections, must change and be replaced by a liberalized open econom... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]