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This book seeks to answer a number of key questions about the relationship between the IMF, developing states and the impact of financial crises on human rights abuses, including: Why do some but not other IMF-assisted developing states experience the joint outbreak of currency and sudden reversal crises under the Fund's program?; What are some of the short-term political ramifications of such crises?; Why do human rights violation by governments increase sharply in the wake of twin currency and sudden reversal crisis in some but not all crisis-affected countries?

Adam's Bridge offers the first comprehensive transdisciplinary study of the famous eponymous tombolo (also known as Ram Setu) combining its sacral, historical, geological, political, performative, and heritage aspects into one framework, viewed under the critical lenses of island studies and cultural theory.The book elucidates the entanglement of Adam's Bridge's discursive history with India's colonial history, contemporary geology, domestic politics, and the nation's emerging position in a complex geopolitical order in and around the Indian Ocean region, vis-à-vis increasing Sino-American involvement in Indo-Sri Lankan relations. Without foregrounding any absolute scientific claims on the location of the sandbars that inspired sage Valmiki's Ram Setu and the Ramayan legacy or hindering narratives of religious faiths and folklore revolving around the structure, this intellectual historiography traces the parallel evolution of traditions of compassionate questioning and devotion for Indic sacred beliefs among commentators across the millennia from both Indian and non-Indian spectra, seen in juxtaposition with the biotic and abiotic diversity of the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay. Looking beyond secular-versus-religious debates, this book will be of interest to scholars of ocean and island studies, coastal economies, archipelagic geographies, environmental history, heritage studies, colonial studies, and cultural theory.Adam's Bridge unifies a consortium of themes, ranging across ecological and livelihood sustainability, environmentalism, soteriology, economic and geostrategic history, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in conceptualizing a compellingly nuanced chronicle for India's enchanted ‘bridge.'

The capability approach is a versatile framework rooted on issues of justice and multidimensional assessment of quality of life developed in the 1980s as an alternative approach to prevailing mainstream development ideas focused narrowly on economic development. Most closely associated with the work of Amartya Sen, it has become of great interest to development scholars from a variety of different disciplines. Much has already been done exploring the conceptual foundations of the capability approach and discussing Sen's contribution to the field, but few books have explored the links between social choice (another field with rich contributions by Sen) and human development issues. Featuring many of the world's leading experts on social choice theory and capability indicators, Social Choice, Agency, Inclusiveness and Capabilities combines these interrelated themes into one volume and fully explores the relevance of social choice to human development.

Agency, Security and Governance of Small States examines what seems to be a defining paradox of Small-State Studies: the simultaneous coexistence (and possible co-dependence) of vulnerability and opportunity related to small-state size.This book analyses small states within the framework of this apparent paradox. Traditionally, Small-State Studies has focused on three guiding questions: what constitutes a ‘small state'? What explains small-state influence in global affairs? Are small states truly vulnerable to security threats given the expansion of multilateralism and regionalism throughout the world? This book contends that new questions should be asked which recognise the important shifts in twenty-first century security paradigms, to better understand how some states deploy their smallness as a resource for agency in supranational contexts. By varying historical, geographical, security, and governance contexts, the book embraces a most-different-cases approach. The historical perspective is often neglected in Small-State Studies but contributes to understanding how small states have often, over time, transformed perceived insecurity into agency. By focusing on different world regions, the authors enable the comparative analysis of collective actions, and the creation and implementation of institutions for ‘common sense purposes'within a geographical region. Of particular contemporary importance, the book includes contributions which contend with hard-security issues alongside other soft-security challenges. The comparison of case studies confirms that hard-security vulnerability and soft-security opportunities seem to be two sides of the same coin, which reinforces the book's focus on small-state paradoxes, and raises the question of whether smallness can be considered the defining characteristic of governance in these countries.This book will have a broad appeal because of the different world regions it analyses. It will be of interest to postgraduate students, scholars, and researchers of international relations, security, sustainability, governance, development, and political economy, as well as Small-State Studies.The Chapters 4, 8 and 11 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. The publication of Chapter 4 as Open Access has been made possible by the Institute of History at the University of Luxembourg. The publication of Chapter 8 as Open Access has been made possible by Western Sydney University. The publication of Chapter 11 as Open Access has been made possible by the University of Hamburg.

India, with its vast population, has become a focal point of global attention due to its remarkable economic growth and potential. In addition, India's geo-political influence has assumed significance within the context of Indo-Pacific strategy. This has further intensified the need to understand and examine India's great transition from an inter-disciplinary perspective. The first two decades following independence were significant in highlighting the challenges faced by a newly independent nation and the strategies employed to address them. The pivotal turning point in 1991, when India initiated comprehensive economic reforms, also set the stage for a diverse political climate characterized by evolving ideologies.This book comprehends ongoing transition in India from interdisciplinary perspective. The chapters in the book highlight the key milestones and shifts in India's journey since its inception as an independent nation in 1947. Written in a simple and accessible manner, the book comprehensively addresses a diverse range of issues concerning India's significant transition, engaging prominent scholars from respective fields.

This book extensively examines various contemporary macroeconomic themes of India, namely growth and macro policies, tax reforms, government finances and intergovernmental fiscal transfers, banking and monetary policy, and environment and social sector policies. It has three to six chapters devoted to each of these broad themes, with the contributors being eminent economists from the region. The book serves as an excellent reference for students in economics, finance, and management, and a valuable tool for professionals such as policymakers and investment analysts and other stakeholders in the areas of global economics and finance, in general, and India in particular.Excerpt from the Foreword:'This book examines various contemporary macroeconomic themes of India: growth and macro policies, fiscal reforms, government finances and intergovernmental fiscal transfers, banking and monetary policy, and environmental and social sector policies. Forty-four eminent economists who have had the privilege of working with and learning from Dr. C. Rangarajan have contributed 25 chapters.I am sure that this book will serve as an excellent reference for professionals such as policymakers and financial analysts, students, and other stakeholders interested in the field of economics and finance.'- Dr. Manmohan Singh, Former Prime Minister of India and eminent economist

This volume examines the role of higher education and employment in economic development in emerging economies like India. It looks at the contours of higher education policies and the labour market dynamics to explore ways to address joblessness and income disparity.The book discusses themes such as quality and access to higher education, the shift towards private investment in higher education, demographic dividend and joblessness among youth, social and income inequalities, labour migration and employment, and the participation of women in the workforce, among others. It provides insights into the challenges relating to employment generation in the industrial sector. It also offers solutions and policy measures to move towards sustainable growth, better employment opportunities in various sectors of industries, and human development.Rich in empirical data, this volume will be of interest to students and researchers of education, economics, development studies, sociology, gender studies, and social and economic policy.

This book offers a thorough description of the challenges posed by increasing global urbanization. In addition, comprehensive perspectives are offered on how the contemporary urban challenges of our time are tackled by existing designers, architects, urban planners, and landscape architects thereby considering climate change, migration, resilience, politics, and environmental degradation. It includes insights from environmental design, geography, strategic planning, and engineering design. It goes beyond the jargon of technical innovation, and exposes the political, social and physical effects of digitalizing the world in smart cities. The book focuses on the application of geospatial technology of smart cities – including system design for basic services, real-time control and the Internet of Things. It highlights the planning of land use, strategic development, and ecosystem-based knowledge to enhance economic growth and healthy urban environment and smart city management. The book also shows the contradictory aspects of smart city studies, and provides useful insights into the creation and execution of policies to strengthen decision-making processes in smart cities. This book leads the reader to a greater understanding of smart city growth, both theoretical and realistic and as such it provides an interesting read for urban geographers, urban designers and planners, environmental specialists, practitioners, students.

This monograph explores the full context of sex-selective abortion (SSA) in India by examining the historical forces, political movements, government policies, and gender regimes that shape this reproductive practice. Using qualitative research methods within a feminist methodology, including in-depth interviews with service providers and professionals in New Delhi and a content analysis of Indian newspapers, the study engages the following areas of analysis: the social structures and determinants of SSA in India, the potential for women's agency in SSA, and the representations of SSA and SSA-seeking women in the Indian media. This research expands the discourse and analysis of SSA by facilitating a nuanced and multilayered exploration of a profoundly contextual, personal, and gendered reproductive issue by grounding data and interpretation in the lived experiences of research participants with systems-wide knowledge of SSA. Further, the feminist theory-informed analysis moves awayfrom normative victimhood frameworks. Lastly, the book contributes to the understudied area of media discourse analysis on the intersections of gender and SSA in national news coverage. This book will be relevant for students, scholars, and teachers across the humanities and social sciences interested in reproductive rights, justice, and feminist research methods. It will also be a critical resource for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) advocates.

This book argues that the creative industries, which include publishing, music, cinema, crafts, and design, have a crucial role to play in the future of culture, and contribute to national GDP and wealth creation in both the formal and informal economies. The book is the collection of papers from researchers, academicians, and industrialists in different, allied fields of design, and covers the areas of applied art and design; built environment; fashion and textiles; and spatial design and interior environments.

This book explores the relationship between the production of new urban spaces and illiberal community-making in contemporary India. It is based on an ethnographic study in Noida, a city at the eastern fringe of the state of Uttar Pradesh, bordering national capital Delhi. The book demonstrates a flexible planning approach being central to the entrepreneurial turn in India's post-liberalisation urbanisation, whereby a small-scale industrial township is transformed into a real-estate driven modern city. Its real point of departure, however, is in the argument that this turn can enable a form of illiberal community-making in new cities that are quite different from older metropolises. Exclusivist forms of solidarity and symbolic boundary construction - stemming from the differences across communities as well as their internal heterogeneities - form the crux of this process, which is examined in three distinct but often interspersed socio-spatial forms: planned middle-class residential quarters, ‘urban villages'and migrant squatter colonies. The book combines radical geographical conceptualisations of social production of space and neoliberal urbanism with sociological and anthropological approaches to urban community-making. It will be of interest to researchers in development studies, sociology, urban studies, as well as readers interested in society and politics of contemporary India/South Asia.

This book offers a detailed narrative of Dalit migrants'everyday experience in urban areas with regard to the availability and accessibility of welfare services and state institutions. It discusses caste, specifically the identity of integration for Dalit migrants and the social work profession to integrate a marginalized community. Further, the book also highlights social, political, cultural, and economic changes among Dalit migrants in cities.The book traces the trajectory of Dalit migrants and captures their mobility from rural to urban areas, which is a complex economic and social phenomenon. In consideration of this complexity, the author explores the process of migration in its finer details through a focus on lived experiences of Dalit migrants in cities. Dalits often migrate to cities in search of better employment and livelihood opportunities because their occupations are invariably associated with their caste in villages. This book investigates the role of caste-based identity in Dalit migrants'emancipation and integration in cities. In addition, the book examines the role of caste in the exclusion of Dalit migrants in cities and explains the dynamic nature of the'state'and Dalit migrants'assertion.Among the topics covered in the book's seven chapters:Mumbai/Bombay: Migration, Caste, and DalitsCaste and Migration: The City—A Site for ‘Inclusion'and EmancipationEntitlement, Deprivation, and Basic Services: Everyday Experience of Dalit Migrants with the StateDalit Migrants: Assertion, Emancipation, and Social Change is intended for students, academicians, and researchers in social work, migration studies, labour studies, development studies, population science, and economics. Developmental professionals also will be keen to read the book.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Private Equity (PE) financing in the infrastructure and real estate sectors. In doing so, it analyzes the impact of such investments in the two sectors, evaluates the types of financing strategies, and explores the value created by such investments. Infrastructure and Real Estate have emerged as a significant asset class for PE investors. In the last three decades, PE firms have invested significant amounts of capital in infrastructure and real estate – sectors which did not feature in their radar before 2000. Between 2000 and 2009, PE firms invested more than USD 200 billion in infrastructure. Real estate sector also witnessed investments of a similar scale as that of infrastructure. Fundraising for infrastructure and real estate was about USD 100 billion and USD 150 billion respectively in 2019, setting new records and reaching all-time highs. This book examines such PE investments – both at a global level and at an emerging economy level, to identify how PE firms have created an impact with their investments, to provide both ready capital and value-addition to sectors which seem to urgently need both. The book is divided into three sections – impact of PE investments, strategies used by PE firms, and value created by such investments. The findings of this research and the corresponding best practices are useful and applicable to students, academicians, researchers, financial institutions, policy makers and law makers, commercial banks and funding agencies, practitioners, the Government, and other parties who are directly or indirectly associated with the development of infrastructure and real estate; and could aid funding agencies, practitioners and policy makers who are directly responsible for creating and developing infrastructure and real estate for their economies.

Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS) have witnessed great upheaval and change over the last decade and a half – from the global economic recession of 2008, the 2010 and 2021 earthquakes in Haiti, to hurricanes that devastated islands like Jamaica, Barbuda, Dominica and The Bahamas, volcanic eruptions, and health crises. These events are reminders of how vulnerable Caribbean SIDS are to external and internal shocks; today Caribbean SIDS are grappling with how to restart their economies and embrace a “new normal” in the wake of disasters and the sharp losses in tourism. Pandemics, Disasters, Sustainability, Tourism examines the resilience of Caribbean SIDS and their tourism industries from the perspectives of culture, economy, environment, politics, psychology, social justice, and socio-historical context. Pandemics, Disasters, Sustainability, Tourism's broad-based topics engage scholars, students, and the public in discourse regarding Caribbean SIDS'resilient Island economies that, facing calamity, implement new initiatives to forge environmentally sound policies for sustainable tourism and hospitality development.

This book explores the emergence of identity politics and violence at the forefront of political life in an Indian state. Through a close reading of everyday politics in West Bengal, India, which until recently boasted of the longest-serving elected communist government in the world, the volume presents unique observations on Indian politics and its trajectories.One of the first ethnographic studies of religious polarisation and its interface with politics in West Bengal, this book: Offers a fresh perspective, both theoretically and empirically, by using longitudinal, multi-site ethnography, to explain the mechanisms by which identity issues have re-emerged; Studies key policy changes, political practices and series of invented traditions during periods of political transition; Examines intricate details of the micro-dynamics of the formulation and expansion of Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism and their political counterparts, which carry a capacity to push away secular, democratic forces from the existing political spectrum; Sheds light on the mechanisms of riots, its design, organisational bases and mechanisms of spread; Includes key observations from the 2021 elections in the state. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political science, social and cultural anthropology, sociology and South Asian studies.

In today's rapidly evolving society, there has been an increase in technologies and systems available to support the elderly throughout various aspects of life. We have come a long way in the quality of life we can offer our aging populations in recent years due to these technological innovations, medical advancements, and research initiatives. However, further study of these developments is crucial to ensure they are utilized to their utmost potential in securing a healthier elderly population. The Research Anthology on Supporting Healthy Aging in a Digital Society discusses the current challenges of aging in the modern world as well as recent developments in medicine and technology that can be used to improve the quality of life of elderly citizens. Covering a wide range of topics such as smart homes, remote healthcare, and aging in place, this reference work is ideal for healthcare professionals, gerontologists, therapists, government officials, policymakers, researchers, academicians, practitioners, scholars, instructors, and students.