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The paper critically dissects the contemporary policy landscape and its ability to counter precarious work for construction workers in the Indian context. By focusing on the governance challenges faced by welfare institutions and the pre-existing fault lines exposed by the pandemic, the paper argues that social policies are languishing and inefficient to respond to the challenges of growing precarity. The paper uses Breman's conception of 'Footloose labour' to understand informality related to construction workers and Gilbert and Terrell's social policy analytical framework to understand the institutional response. The two major arguments that make the social policy languish are the inability of the policy to alter neoliberal employment relationships and the operational challenges that institutions face in implementing welfare schemes for many footloose labourers. Moreover, the situation is further exacerbated by inherent contradictions of the state which is entangled between promoting economic growth through neoliberal policies while consecutively ensuring labour welfare. If the Institutional challenges persist along with the persuasion of neoliberal reforms, footloose labour is only going to be further marginalized and pushed to limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world has achieved massive economic progress in the past few decades, along with population explosion and rapid urbanization/industrialization, the effects of which are being realized across the world in the form of global climate change with huge environmental impact. Though climate change is a natural phenomenon, the release of several greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere through human activities has made a greater contribution to global warming. The present paper is a review of Indian climate features/trends and their consequences across the country. Recent countrywide trends in some selected climatic parameters like rainfall and temperature have been depicted. India is an agrarian country and is exposed to various hydro-ecological vulnerabilities, particularly successively occurring, extreme, climatic hazards like drought, flood and cyclone. Based on some indices, possible vulnerable areas due to the effect of climate change have also been depicted. Although the analyses are based on national level secondary data on selected parameters, some region-specific micro-level studies may better reveal the significance of these vulnerabilities. The present paper an attempt to map the climate variability across the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the complex interplay between economic development and environmental sustainability in the context of India's pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It examines the inherent contradictions and trade-offs involved, particularly in agriculture, industrialisation, and infrastructure sectors. The paper highlights how economic growth, essential for improving living standards, often conflicts with environmental objectives. The paper underscores the importance of integrating economic, environmental, and social objectives to achieve a sustainable and inclusive future for India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to verify whether the transportation infrastructure investment carried out by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has promoted the economic development of its recipient countries. Since the establishment of the AIIB, its investments in infrastructure development, aimed at promoting economic growth in Asian developing countries, have garnered considerable attention. This study selects India, the largest recipient country of the AIIB, as the research object and chooses the Gujarat Road Project as the research case, since it is a completed infrastructure construction investment project in the transportation field. This paper provides an overview of the project's operation and summarizes key factors in the project's implementation. In the data analysis section, the per capita GDP is selected as the explained variable to measure economic development, and the LASSO regression method is used to select several variables that affect economic development. Moreover, the random forest model is used to obtain the causal relationship between road construction and the per capita GDP from 2001 to 2022. The results indicate that road construction in India has a significant positive effect on per capita GDP growth, the Gujarat Road Project supported by the AIIB also has a positive effect on per capita GDP growth, and this effect is stronger than that at the national level. The main contribution of this work is the validation of the investment strategy of the AIIB and the quantification of the economic contribution of AIIB investment projects to the local area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between financial development and access to electricity for rural and urban India by incorporating economic growth, trade, and foreign direct investment in energy production function. In doing so, we have applied autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing to examine long run cointegration between the variables by accommodating structural break(s) stemming in the series. Our empirical results indicate the presence of cointegration association between access to electricity and its determinants. We note that financial development enhances access to electricity in rural India but declines it in urban India. Economic growth has positive effect on access to electricity. Trade openness and foreign direct investment lower access to electricity in rural India. In urban India, trade openness and foreign direct investment increase access to electricity. The association between financial development and access to electricity is inverted-U shaped for rural and urban India. This paper would present new policy direction for Indian government to enhance access to electricity by using financial development as an economic tool. • Financial development and access to electricity have a strong linkage. • In India financial development enhances access to electricity in rural area but has adverse effect in urban area. • Rise in economic growth of India has increased the access to electricity. • Growth of Trade Openness and Foreign Direct investment increase access to electricity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect of economic considerations is the routing and safety of hydraulic storage facilities such as dams for extreme probable water flooding. The routing of dam reservoirs requires more attention for determining the magnitude of extreme probable flooding. Apparently, the type of structure, importance, and economic development of the surrounding area guide the routing criteria for choosing the extreme flood magnitude. The Maithan and Panchet Dams in India have faced several major floods with diversified magnitudes since 1978. The present study aims to estimate the storage and routing of extreme probable floodings for these two dams based on real-time flood data like inflow, outflow, and elevation for the extreme flood years of 1978, 2009, and 2014. Reservoir storages at different elevations are calculated from the initial storage volumes. For both reservoirs, discharge equations are derived and calculated at given elevations during extreme floods. The Modified Puls technique is used for routing extreme floods. At the end of each extreme flood in 1978, 2009, and 2014, the variation in outflow discharges at different elevations and flood hydrographs is predicted. Finally, estimated outflow discharges are compared with the actual outflow discharges for the given inflows during extreme floods. Using this approach, extreme floods that occurred in 1978 are predicted with less than 10% error. Outcomes from this study may help in the future planning and routing of flood-control detention facilities and in predicting the variation in outflow discharges at different elevations. Based on this work, alternative studies and regional drainage planning can also be carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban transition is generally imagined as a large-scale permanent migration of people from villages to cities. The formation of new cities is also theorized as occurring through the migration of people. However, recent scholarship implies that parts of India may be witnessing an urbanization process that depends on natural population growth rather than in-migration. This claim carries significant implications for urban theory, but it has never been tested empirically. This article addresses that gap by examining migration patterns in India alongside urbanization—measured in terms of densification of population and built-up area and an economic transition away from agriculture. I find that certain parts of the country, notably the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain, are exhibiting all the trends constitutive of urbanization even as they experience negative net migration—a phenomenon I term "urbanization from within." My analysis also highlights that these same regions see high rates of temporary out-migration—suggesting that human mobilities may play a role in the in situ urbanization of rural settlements, but not in the ways that foundational urban and development theories would predict. I discuss the inequalities of India's economic transition and its spatial regime of social welfare as possible causal underpinnings of the trends I observe. The article's findings suggest that urban social scientists should reevaluate long-held assumptions about the relationship between urbanization and migration in the context of 21st-century urban transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between FDIs and economic growth has been analysed in order to examine the performance of FDIs in the Indian economy. FDI Equity Inflows and GDP are used as proxy for India's foreign direct investment and economic development. In order to examine the connection between FDI and GDP between 1991-92 and 2016-17, is both short-term and long-term. In other words, the main prerequisite for sustainable economic development in the Indian economy is foreign direct investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]