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The paper analyses how documents, particularly ration cards and voter IDs, mediate and constitute urban citizenship claims, especially on the part of the poor to gain access to welfare services in Delhi. It examines how citizenship is claimed, negotiated, performed, and realized through various documentary, inscriptive, and enumeration counter-tactics. Enumeration counter-tactics include letter-writing, office visits, self-surveys, the solicitation of information through the Right to Information policy, and the production of counterfeit documents. In this respect, I argue that the bureaucratic calculations marked by arbitrariness and indeterminacy remain a predominant mode of urban governance and dispossession. Yet these calculations also precipitate counter-tactics by the poor, drawing our attention to the heterogeneous character of the state. The counter-tactics provide an understanding into the ways in which communities implicate themselves with the state by forging relationships, establishing and inventing kinship ties, and subverting social hierarchies in unanticipated ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial discusses the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the ethical and practical challenges they present for social welfare. It explores the question of how to apply ethics and values in situations of ideological, religious, and political differences that can lead to oppression and violence. The journal also examines the extent to which social professions' values reflect a Western perspective and may neglect the values and interests of under-resourced areas and indigenous peoples. The issue includes papers on trauma-informed social work, the inclusion of diverse religious communities in youth work training, negative attitudes towards LGBTQ individuals in healthcare, and post-traumatic growth among survivors of mass violence. The journal also features two papers in the Ethics in Practice section, one reflecting on the experience of asking for help as a mental health patient and the other discussing ethical issues in researching migrant street children in Delhi. [Extracted from the article]

Economic values have dominated water policy discourse over the last four decades. Very little has been written on social, cultural, and ecological values and their roles in enhancing water security. The primary objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of diverse water values with a case study of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, India. To achieve this, a review of the existing scholarship on water values was conducted to develop a set of water values. Field surveys and interviews were conducted to comprehend the water values held by various stakeholders in Delhi. This paper is an attempt to show that viewing water security through the lens of diverse water values (social, cultural, economic and ecological) provides a better understanding of water policies, and enhanced comprehension could potentially result in better policies to promote water security. In the case of Delhi, we additionally found that the claimed predominance of water values such as efficiency, equity, equality, religiosity, and purity does not mean that these values are also actualized in water practices. Another major finding is that all four sets of values are integrated with one another, and policies underpinned by the identified values would be relatively better than policies solely based on economic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects upon the aftermath of the eviction of working-class communities from the core locations of Delhi to Narela, over 42 kilometres from Delhi's centre. The evictees were previously residing in 'informal settlements', which are colloquially known as bastis or labelled as 'slums' in policy documents. Drawing on interviews and focused group discussions, the paper examines the impact of displacement as experienced by the basti residents. I highlight the struggles that residents faced while making 'home' in their new area. Familiarity, repetition, networks, and safety are the few aspects I engage with to explain the process of placemaking in the city. I argue that displacement should be understood beyond the idea of physical dislocation. It should be seen through the lens of 'place' and how a place is constructed over a period of time against the larger spatial order that is produced in the cities. The paper contributes to academic understanding of the varying experiences of displacement within the affected communities and the contestations which produce spaces on the margins of cities in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence against women often stems from gender inequality, societal structures such as patriarchy, impunity, and institutional violence. Despite the remarkable progress it has made in establishing the representation of women in all fields, India still finds itself an unsafe country for women, with multiple cases of femicide reported every year. The present paper proposes a close look at violence against women in India through a multidisciplinary reading of Clea Chakravarty's novel La Voix de Sita [Sita's Voice] which is a retelling of the 2012 Delhi gang rape. Commonly known as the Nirbhaya Case, it ushered a lot of debates around women's modesty and morality, alongside controversial anti-feminist remarks by the dominant misinformed strata of society on women being responsible for crimes done against them and the branding of feminism as anti-national. By approaching the revisionist mythmaking of Indian epics in the novel through a feminist lens, the paper also traces the root cause of violence against women in India by analysing media reports, interviews, and anecdotes focused on the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eviction could hold a different meaning if a home's immediate surroundings contribute to its residents' livelihood, especially for informal laborers. This paper explores the notion of the fragility of a home within an expanded space—the space on which a home stands and its surroundings when turned into a contested area. It specifically looks at the slum of Yamuna Pushta in Delhi, which was demolished in 2004. The act uprooted thousands of low-income families who were blamed for polluting the river. The demolition was fueled by new urban visions and planning strategies, political and capitalist ambitions, projections of national pride, and an event-driven approach camouflaged under an environmentalist concern attempting to "clean" the river. Using the photographic works of artist, curator, and activist Ravi Agarwal as a case study, this paper argues the presence of a counternarrative in the works, challenging the projected environmentalist discourse around the river, the slum dwellers. This study further states the dual marginalization of the Pushta residents and the Yamuna by critiquing the economic format of majoritarianism through the growing normalcy and agreeability of the slum demolitions by the urban non-poor disguised as the "greater good". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the possibility of utilising coarse recycled concrete aggregate (CRCA) obtained from a construction and demolition waste (CDW) plant in Delhi to make 60 MPa self-compacted concrete (SCC) was evaluated. The CRCA was used in as-collected condition and was not processed any further. The aggregate packing (bulk) density (APD) method was adopted to prepare the SCC-CRCA mixture in order to obtain an aggregate mixture exhibiting maximum bulk density/least void content (45%). In addition, SCC was made using aggregate mixtures in which the natural coarse aggregate (NCA) was replaced with CRCA at 0%, 20% and 100% of the total coarse aggregate content by weight. The cement, fly ash, silica fume and water were kept constant for all SCC mixtures. The effects of CRCA on the flow behaviour, mechanical strength, shrinkage characteristics and microstructure properties of SCC mixtures were evaluated. The test results indicated that SCC mixtures made with up to 45% CRCA replacement can be used for structural concrete, which is higher than that recommended in Indian (20%) and international specifications (35%) for traditionally vibrated (conventional) concrete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the predicament of the Dalit youth in their pursuit of higher education through a qualitative study in a low-income locality of Delhi. In absence of control over material resources historically, education offered promise in liberating socially excluded groups for its instrumental link with modern occupational structure. The policy of universal public education backed up with affirmative action in India has formally aided its access across sections. Even as the participation of the hitherto marginalized groups has been increasing manifold, privatization and marketisation in the education sector under the neo-liberal regime have transformed the educational landscape. Dalit youth is largely segregated into low-quality distance and social sciences education. The paper discusses various constraining and motivating factors embedded within and outside the neighbourhood and educational institutions which shape their educational interests, choices, and decisions. It elaborates on how cumulative socio-cultural, spatial, and historical disadvantages continue to shape the process of educational exclusion, even when these groups live in a metropolitan city amidst educational institutions. However, we also stress that the state policies, informed mentors, shared aspirations, and diversity in socio-cultural interactions hold the potential to alter and widen educational aspirations, access, and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions on migration and leprosy in India, largely absent from historical enquiries, feature dominantly in epidemiological studies that frame the migrant with leprosy as a bacterium-carrying outsider, crossing interstate boundaries to spread infection and increase prevalence rates in urban spaces. The paper seeks to reframe the debate by analysing the migrant with leprosy not as a risk factor, but as a social identity that has historically animated public policy. By analysing leprosy policy in Delhi from 1920 to 1960, the paper explores how leprosy-affected beggars in Delhi were seen as an indolent class of outsiders burdening state finances, unworthy of adequate support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confronted by an increasing number of mahārājādhirājas and shahanshāhs during the period between the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries, how do we characterise state-making and royal projections of authority, unencumbered by teleological impositions of "regional" and "imperial"? This paper examines the strategies used by the Baghel kingdom to consolidate its territorial and political control within a palimpsest of warring polities in early-modern North India. In contrast to other nascent Rajput polities of this period who were establishing themselves in opposition to the Sultans at Delhi, Gujarat, Malwa and Jaunpur through the articulation of a strong martial ethos, the Baghels employed strategies of friendship (bandhubhāva) and brotherhood (bhrātṛbhāva). In examining these strategies, this paper argues, the Baghels offer an alternate way of conceptualising the political landscape of the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries, one that does not solely rest on the asymmetrical relations of power associated with the study of "regional" polities. Put more directly, this paper posits the study of the regional polity during this period not in terms of language/literature/art nor in terms of successive levels of subordination, but as a politics of consolidating power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the problem of Delhi's air pollution is well recognized, as is the class bias of the judiciary in targeting certain sources of air pollution over others, what is less will understood are the unintended consequences of air pollution interventions on indoor and outdoor air quality. This paper shows how the National Green Tribunal has targeted one source of air pollution in recommending waste-to-energy technologies that deprive waste pickers of their livelihoods. The pandemic-related lockdown provides an opportunity to assess the impacts of livelihood deprivation on fuel use. Using data collected from surveys of waste pickers, this paper shows that decreases in income are related to an increase in reliance on solid fuels. Therefore, we argue that air pollution interventions designed to control air pollution from poor waste management have the unintended consequence of increasing air pollution from a different source (biomass burning for cooking) that specifically impacts waste pickers by increasing their exposure to indoor air pollution, while also undermining the government's urban air pollution mitigation efforts overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an ethnographic account of elite neighbourhoods in Delhi. It unpacks the lived realities of these neighbourhoods by studying how elite-ness is both constituted and contested within gated residential areas and other public spaces of Delhi. It argues that elites extend the unequal world they inhabit outside their gated residences by identifying certain public spaces for their leisure activities, especially shopping malls, leaving the neighbourhood community centres or RWA clubs to cater to non-elite residents. It also focuses on the narratives of the domestic staff employed in elite households, who too inhabit the public spaces within these neighbourhoods, including parks, streets, and markets. In this way, the paper draws out the class contestations within elite neighbourhoods and explains how these spaces become sites of class fractions and factions as they are marked by the politics of who a 'real' elite is. As such, this paper is an account of how class exclusionary boundaries are drawn and subverted by elites and non-elites both in private (gated neighbourhoods) and public spaces (parks, shopping malls), thus bringing attention to the fractured realities of elite neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Near-fault ground motions (NFGM) may have a significant component of the long period velocity pulse (LPVP) due to the directivity effect. The structures subjected to such ground motions are prone to experience large displacements. In this paper, the damage potential of such motions is compared with NFGM (without LPVP) and far-field motions in terms of seismic demand (inter-storey drift and inelastic displacement). Due to the lack of site-specific recorded NFGM, the synthetic ground motions are generated and used in this study. For this purpose, first the bedrock motions are obtained through stochastic simulation approach in which the Specific Barrier Model (SBM) is used as source spectrum and then these motions are transferred to the ground surface using one-dimensional ground response analysis. In order to obtain the NFGM with pulse, the bedrock motions are superimposed with the LPVPs and then transferred to the ground surface. To illustrate, the case of a ten-storey reinforced concrete (RC) building is considered in Delhi region (India) which falls under the seismic zone-IV. The main finding of this study is the observation that the NFGM with LPVP impose almost double seismic demand compared to the NFGM without LPVP, specially for the structures lying in the velocity-region of the response spectrum. In this study, the effect of depth of bedrock on seismic demand is highlighted and recommended to be included in the design seismic demand of NFGM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the employment aspirations and struggles for upward social mobility of middle‐class Muslim female youth in Delhi, located in segregated and non‐segregated areas. The paper contends that women respondents navigate constraints such that their class, gender and religious background have an ambivalent role in the production of aspirations but a more definitive one in their realisation. This argument is anchored in the three key themes addressed in the paper. For women from middle and lower sections of the middle‐class the presence of high aspirations does not translate into gainful employment, leading to the problem of fraying hope and 'frustrated freedom'. They are engaged in prolonged waiting experiencing what Ghassan Hage would call 'stuckedness'. The upper stratum placed strategically in the Bourdieusian field, can leverage their economic and cultural capital to offset uncertainties around employment and marriage. The third section navigates religious, gender and class‐based constraints by participating in self‐employment activities in a segregated neighbourhood in Delhi. For these women, the segregated neighbourhood has a dual role as an enabler and a barrier to their aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor people in India routinely have to wait for short-term employment, basic services and subsidized goods. Based on fieldwork in Delhi, this paper describes how this waiting blends into an environment where men are underemployed and women try to make ends meet by engaging in contentious public activities. While negotiating destabilized gender roles, the latter downplay their wait for services and describe much of their paid and unpaid work as 'mere' waiting and just 'passing time'. In complex responses, they sometimes internalize the relations of power that keep them waiting, while subverting them on other occasions. Exploring what these women hide or minimize brings to light a host of activities that question our understanding of the boundaries of labour, idleness and the broader work of social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the sociocultural landscape portrayed in Chetan Bhagat's novel Five Point Someone to provide insights into the youth culture of metropolitan India. The narrative explores the lives of three protagonists as they navigate the demanding academic environment of an elite engineering institute in Delhi. Through a sociocultural lens, we examine how these characters grapple with societal expectations, peer pressure, and the impact of a rigid educational system on their identities and aspirations. The analysis focuses on key themes such as identity formation, rebellion against tradition, and the clash between individual desires and societal norms. We also investigate the characters' responses to familial pressures, the pursuit of personal goals, and the challenges they face while striving for academic success. This examination of Five Point Someone offers a deeper understanding of the sociocultural dynamics that shape the lives of metropolitan youth in contemporary India. By shedding light on the complexities of their experiences, we contribute to a broader conversation about the evolving youth culture in urban settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper delves into the landmark case of Amway India Enterprises vs. Union of India, adjudicated by the Delhi High Court in July 2019. The case pertained to alleged interference by e-commerce giants such as Amazon and Flipkart in the contractual relationships between direct selling companies and their independent sales representatives. The paper dissects the intricate legal facets of this case, encompassing constitutional matters, intellectual property rights, information technology laws, consumer protection, and contractual and tort laws. A central issue examined was whether e-commerce platforms were bound by the Direct Selling Guidelines, 2016, and if their actions constituted trademark violations. The case also probed the applicability of Section 79 of the Information Technology Act and intermediary responsibilities. The Delhi High Court's judgment wielded substantial influence over the Indian business landscape. E-commerce platforms were mandated to cease commercial activity on plaintiffs' products and furnish detailed seller data, necessitating operational adjustments. In conclusion, the Amway India Enterprises case signifies the evolving commerce dynamics in the digital era and underscores the pivotal role of the legal system in ensuring fair competition, consumer safety, and intellectual property preservation. As business landscapes evolve, this case illuminates the path toward a responsible, transparent, and secure online marketplace in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper seeks to focus on one of the prominent aspects of South Asian comics; the nature of urbanity, through a study of Sarnath Banerjee's All Quiet in Vikaspuri, a narrative primarily set in Delhi. Banerjee's Delhi is the space of the capitalists, urban planners, and corrupt policies; in short a 'social product', as Henri Lefebvre had formulated. The paper will examine how Delhi, in Banerjee's comics, is symptomatic of various states of discriminatory infrastructural development, failure and violence endemic to the system, as in many other emerging South Asian cities. It will further investigate the dynamics of uneven development and urban inequality of Delhi to argue the emergence of new socio-spatial and economic trajectories in post-liberalisation India. The paper seeks to argue that through the multiple references to pulp fictions, mythic and hybrid spaces, Banerjee maps the nuanced changes in urban lifestyle and the more liberal shift towards exclusionary spatial practices such as 'short-termism', but also present alternative histories and regional resistance of the lived space that go against the planned space of the city. Finally, the paper will borrow insights from theorists such as Sanjay Srivastava, Ananya Roy, David Harvey, and others to argue how social and spatial justice can be achieved through urban comics that, according to Dominic Davies, helps to restructure 'more socially and spatially just cities'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how transportation infrastructure projects are dependent on making aesthetic arguments through form, space and experience. It does this through a discourse analysis of the media coverage of the Delhi Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor. Tracing the planning history of the BRT, it explores how it was construed as ineffective, expensive and dangerous. Deconstructing the BRT discourse, the authors make two propositions about the politics of transport infrastructure; its truth claims must be aesthetic arguments, and transformational agendas must be coupled with a distinctive aesthetic. The paper concludes by suggesting that a renewed and situated understanding of aesthetics is critical for urban practitioners, especially in the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper lays out an experiential account of walking the city, an otherwise mundane everyday act, as a performative action. The specific act of walking that this paper examines is part of a series of performance actions titled 'Women Walk at Midnight' (Delhi, 2016- present) where women collectively walk the streets of the city at night. Breaking from the conventional article format, our paper draws on reflexive feminist research and performance analysis to narrate the performative dimensions of walking that foreground how women collectively negotiate fear and vulnerability in/of the city. We draw on our own memories and experiences of walking - embodied, sensorial, even intuitive - not only as participants of the Midnight Walk but as women who often negotiate varied agressions of the city streets. The paper weaves an intricate pattern of relations between space, time and movement of female bodies in the city of New Delhi from a gendered perspective. We posit that transformations of urban atmosphere through the course of the day shape our experiences of the city, reproducing it as a gendered site. Relation of bodies to space, we argue, shifts in response to time. We are interested not only in the singular and deliberate actions carried out by individual walkers, but unpack the shared notions of risk, adventure and pleasure, experienced fleetingly and afforded only through the collective. These performative actions of female bodies at night not only challenge the rehearsed understandings of urban citizenship but also stage its emancipatory possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wasteland governmentality has long shaped colonial and postcolonial landscape governance across the planet. While historically wasteland classification was deployed for agrarian land settlement and silviculture, with extended urbanisation it is increasingly used to consolidate landscapes of extended urban nature. These landscapes are in turn subjected to state-led land enclosures for urban and infrastructure development and for greenwashing. This paper investigates the political construction of one such landscape of extended urban nature, the Aravalli region, a geological feature which runs parallel to the extended corridor urbanisation in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR). Particularly, I examine how in the name of regulating mining, urban development, and pollution in the Delhi NCR, the revenue wastes including sacred groves, hills, and other village commons falling in the Aravallis have been consolidated as a state space. I examine how the patchwork of communities assembled in the extended urban fabric of the region deploys the sacred to counter land enclosure and the emptying out of meaning. I discuss three such modalities of the sacred in the region, namely, its use by agrarian villages to assert land rights over sacred forests, the misuse of the sacred by temple committees to produce faux nature, and its use by emergent urban environmental movements in the region to frame an anti-wasteland politics. Focusing my attention on the state, I discuss the need for a nuanced understanding of emergent urban environmentalism in the region as restorative commoning beyond the binary framings of bourgeois versus the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the newly developed Decision Support System version 1.0 (DSS v1.0) for air quality management activities in Delhi, India. In addition to standard air quality forecasts, DSS provides the contribution of Delhi, its surrounding districts, and stubble-burning fires in the neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana to the PM2.5 load in Delhi. DSS also quantifies the effects of local and neighborhood emission-source-level interventions on the pollution load in Delhi. The DSS-simulated Air Quality Index for the post-monsoon and winter seasons of 2021–2022 shows high accuracy (up to 80 %) and a very low false alarm ratio (∼ 20 %) from day 1 to day 5 of the forecasts, especially when the ambient air quality index (AQI) is > 300. During the post-monsoon season (winter season), emissions from Delhi, the rest of the National Capital Region (NCR)'s districts, biomass-burning activities, and all other remaining regions on average contribute 34.4 % (33.4 %), 31 % (40.2 %), 7.3 % (0.1 %), and 27.3 % (26.4 %), respectively, to the PM2.5 load in Delhi. During peak pollution events (stubble-burning periods or wintertime), however, the contribution from the main sources (farm fires in Punjab–Haryana or local sources within Delhi) could reach 65 %–69 %. According to DSS, a 20 % (40 %) reduction in anthropogenic emissions across all NCR districts would result in a 12 % (24 %) reduction in PM2.5 in Delhi on a seasonal mean basis. DSS is a critical tool for policymakers because it provides such information daily through a single simulation with a plethora of emission reduction scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on theories of transformational leadership and institutional entrepreneurship, this study explores the causal drivers that transformed a public organization involved in the construction of the Delhi Metro. It explores the under-examined antecedents that drive organizational change, seeking to understand the links between leadership and entrepreneurship and significant reforms in the operation of a public organization. This paper then refers to institutional structures, cultures, practices, and routines that were added or modified during the construction of a large public infrastructure project. Together, these actions demonstrate the value of transformational leadership and institutional entrepreneurship in action. The findings of the study affirm that transformational leadership and entrepreneurship can drive successful outcomes in a major public infrastructure organization. Observing and recording such changes in a specific longitudinal field study are a vital precursor to unlocking the infrastructural potential of a developing country like India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how uncertainty has become a central constitutive feature under the ongoing attempts at rapid extension of highway corridors across India. Contrary to the terra nullius assumption that India's highway programmes operate under, the pathways to accumulation they seek to open present a palimpsest of pre‐existing claims, occupancies and forms of dwelling that come into conflict with the attempts to extend urban space. The paper specifically follows the prolonged uncertainty surrounding a regional highway corridor between the cities of Delhi and Gurgaon, the Dwarka Expressway, which underwent multiple legal contestations over evictions and land disputes. In doing so, it analyses how managing uncertainty in the production of highway corridors becomes profitable for the state, powerful corporate actors and middle‐class homebuyer‐investors, presenting a form of value that can be commodified and exchanged. However, on the other hand, owing to its double‐edged nature, uncertainty also becomes productive for the urban majority in laying claims to urban space. As rapid extended urbanisation increasingly disrupts the lifeworlds of marginal communities, this paper calls for embracing the politics and practices of uncertainty in the continued efforts to push ex‐centric urban analysis beyond the narrow focus on state processes and commodification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits discussions about the pursuit of a singular location for ethnographic research. Citing challenges to the fixity of location, from circulation of people to the impossibility of containing digital worlds, scholars have proposed multi-sited, multi-scalar, multi-modal and multi-sensorial ethnographies, advocating that the researcher 'follow the actor'. Drawing upon these innovations, this paper traces the affects generated in the process of following the actors as well as the consequent blurring of the division between the researcher and the researched so that they together constitute the category of 'actors' who co-produce the field. Using the example of an ethnography with young lower middle class women in Delhi, this paper deploys the researcher's experience of dislocation or unexpected shuttling in the field to develop 'dislocation' as a methodological and analytical strategy for studying marginalisation in the context of socio-economic change by embracing intersubjective relations, affects and partiality of knowledge in ethnographic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a city where violence against women is an everyday reality and a highly contested subject, gendered claims to the city are also fraught with possibilities and problems. This paper evaluates some of these issues through speech act and resilience of young, unmarried, middle-class women in Delhi, India. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores how these women navigate public spaces, respond to violence and fear, and claim their rights to the city. I argue that these women's speech act and resilience are forms of everyday resistance to the violent gender order in the city. The paper also demonstrates that violence, fear, speech act and resilience are interlaced into women's everyday lives. In turn, I argue, the divide between gendered violence and women's agency is not discreet spaces but are relationally produced in a city where pluralities, contradictions, and contestations are embodied realities for women. Speech act and resilience thus provide spaces for meaningful discussions on how women (re)articulate their place in the city amidst gendered violence and fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present seismic microzonation maps of New Delhi, India, using the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) method with input seismic activity parameters estimated in Part‐I of this two‐part paper. Our calculations required three different attenuation equations for amplitude scaling of strong ground motion from three principal contributing sources: the National Capital Region (NCR), Northwestern Himalaya (NWH), and the Hindu Kush subduction (HKS). We show that uniform hazard spectral (UHS) amplitudes are dominated only by the local seismicity in the NCR at high frequencies beyond about 2 Hz. For intermediate and long periods, UHS amplitudes are dominated by contributions from the NWH and HKS earthquakes. Our results show that specifying strong motion amplitudes for use in engineering design by means of peak ground acceleration can lead to serious errors for buildings higher than four to five stories and hence should not be used. Our results also show that the shape of design spectra must depend on the nature of contributing earthquake sources, their relative activity, potential to create large magnitudes, and geographical placement relative to the site of interest, and thus a standard design‐spectrum shape cannot satisfy all these requirements. We use local geological site condition parameters directly in all calculations and present hazard maps for three different soil site conditions ("rock," stiff soil sites, and deep soil sites). Thus, the user can extract the UHS amplitudes of pseudo relative velocity spectra at any site in the National Capital Territory by experimentally determining the local soil site conditions and then applying the corresponding maps shown in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant diversity plays an important role in the life of human beings, by way of providing many valuables produces. They help in maintaining the biodiversity in an ecosystem. Abundant species diversity is essential for wealth of natural ecosystems and environment of the area. The present paper highlights comprehensive data on the current status of angiosperms diversity of Bundi district. The flora of Bundi comprises 629 species of angiosperms belonging to 381 genera under 104 families. The area shows much diversity of geographical forms and ecosystem ranges. This district is rich in scenic beauty and biodiversity. The ten dominant families of the area have been compared with those of adjacent areas as well as Upper-gangetic plain, North Gujrat and Delhi. The present work provides comparative analysis among angiosperms families, genera and species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yamuna khadar or the floodplains of the river Yamuna in Delhi is a deeply contested agrarian space. While thousands have been involved in farming these floodplains for decades, contestations over their legality, compensation, land use, displacement, and impact on the river, soil, and city have been significant public concerns over the last few decades. In this paper, I focus on one aspect of this agrarian landscape--the toxicity associated with river water due to the pesticides and fertilizers used in agriculture. I examine how toxicity is perceived, discursively constructed, and dealt with by differently located stakeholders in this landscape. The differently located stakeholders associated with the toxic agrarian landscape of Yamuna khadar are not experiencing pollution as a homogenous community, i.e., neither all of them see themselves as suffering from pollution nor do they see themselves as contributing to the toxicity of the landscape in a similar way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid growth in petrol and diesel-powered vehicles has resulted in significant increases in tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, both of which harm public health in Indian cities. Furthermore, India's dependence on imported fuel to transport people and goods threatens its fuel security. Therefore, electric mobility has been sought to deal with these issues. The governments have framed several plans and policies to promote electric vehicles (EVs) and achieve the target of EV30@30. However, EV adoption in Indian states has been slow. Therefore, this paper aims to estimate the number of EVs needed to be registered to achieve the desired target by 2030 by taking a case study of four states: Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Gujarat. The vehicular registration data used in this paper has been obtained from the government database. The study looks at the EV adoption rates of passenger vehicles such as two-wheelers, cars, auto-rickshaws (including e-rickshaws), and buses. According to the findings, the average annual share of passenger EVs is less than 2% in Delhi, less than 1% in Uttar Pradesh, and less than 0.5% in Karnataka and Gujarat during the study period. According to the models' estimates, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Karnataka will need to register 0.31 million, 1.51 million, 0.88 million, and 0.79 million passenger EVs, respectively, in FY 2030–2031 to achieve a 30% EV share of total registrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research and publishing are facing a crisis. The importance of access to academic literature in an interconnected world, the ever-growing cost of subscriptions to this literature, different revenue models of journals, and reduced or stagnant library budgets are pushing the academic community to find alternatives for research publications. In its 25 years of existence, the Open Access Movement and models which sought to contain the crisis have become the subject of considerable criticism. At the same time, a significant portion of academic literature remains locked behind steep paywalls. This has led to the growth of pirate websites and shadow libraries, which have been met with forceful legal retribution by publishers using copyright laws. Using the Sci-Hub case, a current copyright infringement case brought by a group of publishers before the Delhi High Court, this Paper evaluates the Open Access Movement, fair dealing in copyright law, academic piracy, and court cases in the United States, India, and other countries within the broad meaning of the right to research. The Paper concludes that a purposive interpretation of copyright law may have an answer enabling a just outcome.† [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living and working for a month at the Sanskriti Foundation in Delhi, the artist's life was watched and observed by a group of resident monkeys. This paper is based on notes begun during that studio residency and represents the critical reflections emerging alongside the hands-on sculptural practice. It is illustrated with close-up photographs of the artist's sculpture that asks how encounters with fabled animals in densely populated 21st century urban areas can alter our understanding of the gaze as an inter-species gaze. The sculpture and paper begin to ask broader questions, including how can sculpture provide a different, and perhaps more tacit and empathetic, encounter with the other to enable a physical, mental or spiritual experience of cultural entanglement between the various onlookers? In how far is modelling the other's gaze a form of embodiment and mimicry? Do the fast-changing camera angles and soundtracks of natural history programmes hinder an empathic inter-species encounter? Or, does the slow animation of the artist's sculpted surface heighten a sense of being alongside equally curious, cunning and adaptable others such as crows, foxes and monkeys? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes an attempt to review historical and recent seismicity in Delhi and presents updated seismic hazard map of Delhi integrated with ward-wise classified population data. Earthquakes are not destructive unless other factors that enhance the damage prevail. Population density and types or quality of buildings in an area are two such important factors that affect the risk during any hazards, particularly an earthquake. This paper presents the details of the seismic hazard analysis for Delhi with the latest available information on earthquakes and seismic sources within 300 km radius around the city, using state-of-the-art deterministic approach. Ten different attenuation relationships developed for the active tectonic region were considered in the present study. They were ranked using log-likelihood method. Ward-wise population maps along with classified population maps were developed based on the 2011 census data. Hazard contour map and population maps are presented in this paper to revisit the seismic risk prevailing in the region. An attempt was made to overlay the hazard map with population maps showing the distribution of various classes of the population that reflects the seismic risk exposure to different wards of Delhi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors of this article explore the relationship between the cultural, unconscious and conscious dynamics in setting up infant observations in Delhi. The specific focus of the paper is the concept of 'Nazar', Evil eye, in India. The paper presents the experiences of a young woman observer in India, going in to observe an infant as a requirement of her psychotherapy training. The paper is an attempt to make sense of what happened five years ago in setting up the observation. It sheds light on how a cultural artefact such as 'Nazar' becomes a barrier to being able to undertake baby observation. The article also extends its understanding of what 'Nazar' can symbolise, both in the internal and the external world of both observer and observed. It goes on to explore the link between mother's ambivalence both towards her child and towards the young female observer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid‐19 has impacted the financial markets dramatically. The risk and return expectations of investors have changed, leading them to reallocate their portfolios. This paper aims to analyse the impact of Covid‐19 on the portfolio allocation decisions of individual investors. The study examines the perceptions of investors about various investment avenues before and during the period of extreme uncertainty caused by the COVID‐19 pandemic. The data were collected from individual investors residing in Delhi and Mumbai. AHP is used to rank the investment preferences of the respondents. The results show that due to the present financial crisis pertaining to COVID‐19, investors have started reallocating their portfolios. Since the returns on risky assets are not as expected, investors are moving towards a conservative portfolio. However, the case of transition from risky to risk‐free assets is not the same in the case of all investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mass exodus of migrant workers from several cities during the nationwide lockdown in the early phase of the pandemic brought the social and economic vulnerability ofmigrant workers to the centre stage of public discussion. However, as the 'crises oflivelihood faced by migrant workers started to get some attention in the backdrop of an unprecedented pandemic, there is a danger of treating it as an isolated and transient phenomenon. The long-term factors that created such a widespread livelihoods vulnerability, however, need particular attention, particularly when designing policy alternatives to address the problem. The bottom line is that there is a large section of migrant workers who work and live under such a condition that, in the face of the lockdown, they could not simply survive such a sudden disruption of earnings. Rapid surveys indicate that a section ofthem did not have enough food to survive for the next few days. The vulnerability and precarious conditions of this section of the migrant workers were exposed by the pandemic. Its durability, however, defines the normal conditions of their existence. In this context, this paper argues that a political economy approach that takes into account the broader, structural contexts of migration is better suited to explain the reasons behind the persistent vulnerability of a section of migrant workers. In particular, the paper attempts to link the literature on the political economy of agrarian change with the vulnerability of circular migrants. Migrants' vulnerabilities can be examined at three levels-at the origin, during the migration process, and at destinations. Based on multiple rounds of field surveys on migration and agrarian change in one of the 'migration prone' regions in interior Odisha, as well as a survey of circular migrant workers in Delhi, the paper examines the factors that create and perpetuate vulnerabilities of diverse kinds among the migrant workers. At a more general level, the paper examines the question of vulnerable migrant workers in relation to the nature of contemporary, global capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academically gifted students or high potential learners don't feel challenged in regular classrooms. Teachers in schools are also note quipped with pedagogical interventions to meet the advanced learning needs of gifted students. Mentoring is considered an effective method to guide, motivate and optimize learning abilities of gifted students. The present paper discusses the process of developing a mentoring program for 32 gifted students in Science and Math who were selected through a two-tier identification process. Students were selected from three different locations in India and were invited to attend residential mentoring program in University of Delhi, Delhi. Students were administered Wechsler Intelligence Test (WISC) IV, Test of Intelligence and were closely observed during the mentoring session. Statistic alanalysis of WISC IV composite score and composite observation score indicated high positive correlation between the two scores and 93.75% students scored in top three categories of intelligence as specified in WISC IV score interpretation norm. Detailed qualitative analysis also helped to develop both learning profiles and a specific mentoring program for individual students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open waste burning is a significant contributor to air pollution in urban cities. The contribution includes sources from local and centralized waste burning. This paper focuses on the air quality changes in the surrounding regions of the Bhalswa landfill in the north-west part of Delhi, India, where a fire broke out accidentally in the landfill from 20 April 2022 to 8 May 2022. Bhalswa landfill is one among the three major landfills in Delhi, and during the waste burning, PM2.5 shows a maximum average concentration of about 107.32 and 338 µg/m3 for PM10. The average PM2.5 concentration increment was around 45–55%, and for PM10, it was 40–50% during the fire. Apart from particulate matter, fumes generated during open waste burning emit gaseous and toxic substances. Dispersion of pollutants was less during low (< 3 m/s) and calm winds (< 1 m/s) and more during high winds (> 3 m/s). The correlation value (R2) of gaseous pollutants with PM2.5 was significant and exhibited a moderate correlation (R2 around 0.5–0.6). It is high time for residents, government authorities and various other stack holders to be aware and implement policies and adopt technologies for segregation and processing. Identifying potential reuse of waste in energy and volume reduction forms should be encouraged to avoid further accidents/incidents related to open waste burning. The study's outcomes indicate the potential changes that occurred in regional air quality during the open waste burning in a short period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, English learning in India has undergone noticeable and subtle transformations. Alongside the massive increase in coaching centres to cater for widespread demand, there has also emerged a tacit understanding that it is no longer enough to speak English to be socially mobile: students must also engage in a range of self-work, or 'personality development'. In this article, I draw on ethnographic data from an NGO in Delhi that seeks to alleviate poverty through English and personality development training for disadvantaged youth. I show how discourses of personality development (re)produce and juxtapose particular understandings of the self that work to hyper-individualize and depoliticize the project of social mobility. Situating these discourses within the context of shifting political economic configurations in India, this paper demonstrates how these notions of 'personality development' both emerge from and obscure long-standing and newly-developing colonial, caste and class histories, and how they work to produce depoliticised subjectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite much impetus on economic growth, educational expansion, health and infrastructural development, women participation in labour force market is not improving. Women participation in politics, leadership positions, national parliaments and local government, judiciary and police force is very essential for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The said target is clearly mentioned as SDG 5.5 which entails—"Ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life". In India, percentage of female elected representatives in parliament rose from 9.0% in 1999 (13th Lok Sabha general elections) to 14.4% in 2019 (17th Lok Sabha general elections) as per the statistical reports published by the Election Commission of India. Thus, the paper tries to study the relationship between women in parliament (MP) and female labour force participation rates (FLPR) using panel data across Indian states for the period 1999 to 2019. The objective of the paper is to empirically examine the relationship between female (elected) political representation and FLPR, using fixed effect panel data model across 15 Indian states excluding Union Territories (UTs), North-Eastern States (NEs), Delhi, Goa, and Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). The panel data is created by taking data of female elected candidates of different states from the statistical reports of general elections published by Election Commission of India and that of FLPR is extracted from various rounds of National Statistical Office (NSO) and Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) reports, respectively. The empirical results suggest that higher political representation of women is associated with favourable female labour outcomes. Our result implies that Female Political Representation (FPR) has a positive and significant effect on FLPR under fixed effect model. However, the random effect model suggests net state domestic product (NSDP) per capita has a negative and significant effect on FLPR, while, Fixed effect model suggests that female literacy rate has a negative and significant effect on FLPR which are consistent with the established literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined how students' entrepreneurial inclinations are influenced by entrepreneurship education. These studies' contentious findings drew academics' interest and prompted additional inquiry. This paper investigates the moderating impact of entrepreneurship education on attitude, subjective norms, and self- efficacy-based determinants of entrepreneurial desires and aspirations. Entrepreneurial education is taken as a moderating variable for the study. True experimental design is chosen to analyze the respective relationship between some independent variables and a single dependent variable, such as EINT. From various higher education institutions in India, data were gathered from two groups, those who finished an entrepreneurship course (treatment group) and those who did not have the entrepreneurship course (control group). The period of the study is from 2020-2022. Out of the 500 respondents, 324 completed questionnaires were received, and 307 qualified as valid answers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesis. Using the partial least squares method, the statistical relationship between the modeled variables was estimated. The study found that the most important predictors of EINT are attitude, self-efficacy, and subjective norms. SEM showed that the association of entrepreneurial attitude and self-efficacy with entrepreneurial intentions was found to be moderated by entrepreneurship education. However, EE weakened the influence of subjective norms on professional objectives and intentions to start their own business. Education influences strong intentions to be an entrepreneur successfully. This study is limited based on the information available in Delhi and NCR when the research was carried out. The result might be affected when taken from different regions or states. This research is essential to policymakers because India has cultural barriers, a lack of entrepreneurship education, and very few support programs that prevent new firms from beginning. They should encourage entrepreneurship, R&D, and technology. Robust, inclusive measurements could aid researchers and practitioners. Financial educators help youth manage their financial issues and succeed in this sector. Behavior management requires financial researchers to understand behavior formation and change, which applies the implications of the true experimental design of the study. The study contributes empirically and theoretically by focusing on an area of research that has received less attention, especially in the context of the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing trend of multi-channel urban consumption, driven by the rise of E-commerce, has led to the emergence of new freight facilities. The COVID-19 pandemic further amplified this shift, with consumers relying more heavily on online purchases for regular needs, resulting in the advent of Q-commerce as a distinct subvertical within the E-commerce industry. However, there is a significant lack of understanding regarding the characteristics, requirements, and impacts of this sector in both existing literature and planning documents. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate the freight patterns and associated externalities within urban areas for this emerging trend in E-commerce, while also assessing the adequacy of planning documents in addressing these issues. The paper presents a case study-based examination of various Q-commerce grocery companies operating in Delhi, delving into their operations, freight patterns, and neighborhood-level externalities of last-mile delivery. By highlighting the externalities and deficiencies related to E-commerce, this study provides valuable insights into the planning implications of Q-commerce and its impact on urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uncovers a hitherto unnoticed pattern of communal segregation among establishments located in some of Delhi's most important bazars. It demonstrates that this pattern, emerging between 1913 and 1932, was driven by structural features of the ways in which Delhi's trade and retail interacted with communal violence in the 1920s. Those features include the dislocating effects of communal violence on bazars. More strident political activity by merchants, however, was important fuel to this fire. Merchants did not, also, restrict themselves to repeating communal tropes developed elsewhere. Their self-organisation gave shape to a conception of 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' trades. Rather than see a communal 'pre-Partition' in the 1930s, this evidence suggests that communal segregation was already well on the rise in the 1920s. Business as usual, then, was a source of deepening communal antagonisms rather than, as is sometimes assumed, a source of everyday bonhomie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]