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This article analyzes key factors affecting transboundary water cooperation in the Brahmaputra River basin at multiple scales. The analysis of multi-track diplomacy reaffirms the potential of actor-inclusive approaches, arguing for a need to go beyond purely focusing on formal legal norms and consider the possibilities of cultural norms of informal processes of cooperation. Various ‘windows of opportunity’ exist in the current phase of the Brahmaputra basin’s development, leading to exploration of a Zone of Possible Effective Cooperation, arising from the effort to scale up multi-track initiatives as well as broader geo-political-economic changes happening across and beyond the basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orthodox approaches to managing Himalayan rivers endorse a singular focus on water as a resource to be harnessed for national security and economic progress, as epitomised by the proposed acceleration of large-scale hydropower construction in the Brahmaputra basin. In reality, existing large-scale hydropower development in the region frequently involves corruption, environmental destruction and forced displacement. This paper argues for an alternative approach to understanding the role of water in India's extractive zones within and beyond the boundaries of the nation, utilising the notions of ‘embeddedness’, ‘hydro-informality’ and ‘rescaling politics’. It is argued that reframing the river in this way can open up space for more just and sustainable practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Literature on impact assessment and involuntary displacement mostly explains the impacts that might occur or have occurred on the local communities during and after involuntary displacement induced by development projects. However, there is only very limited research that considers the impacts local communities experience during the pre-implementation phase of the project. Our research attempts to highlight the impacts caused by large-scale projects trapped in a long pre-implementation phase and it seeks to explain the factors that intensify the impacts on affected communities. The research is based on a case study analysis of the West Seti Hydropower Project, a proposed dam in Far-Western Nepal. We argue that an adequate understanding of the impacts that occur during the pre-implementation phase of large-scale development projects is crucial to addressing problems related to displacement and resettlement. Since most of the problems of involuntary displacement begin during the pre-implementation phase, if this phase is not properly understood and its issues addressed, there will be long-term impacts on people, community and overall development processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, the authors discuss hope, therapeutic honesty and adaptation in the midst of dying and death. Topics include identification of short-comings in the care of dying patients; mishandling of negative ethical and clinical repercussions for the care that patients with serious illness receive; and connection between denial and acceptance of the ultimately personally fatal consequence of patient condition.

The vulnerability of communities in the Himalayas to water stress caused by climate change depends on changes in the availability of water as well as how it is used. There has been little work done to reconcile these drivers of water stress in the Himalayas. This paper evaluates how climate change may affect water availability in two Nepalese mountain communities, Panglin and Tallo Lorpa, and assesses whether these changes drive vulnerability to water stress. First, estimates of hydrological change are made based on climate model output and hydroclimatological theory. Household surveys, focus group discussions and participatory rural appraisal techniques are used to assess vulnerability and adaptive capacity in each community. Finally, the expected effects of climate change on water availability are linked to findings on the communities’ vulnerability to these changes. The results show that both communities are vulnerable to changes in water availability under climate change, but this vulnerability is small in comparison to adaptation opportunities. However, the ability to appropriate benefits from these opportunities is constrained, and it is the extent of this inhibition that determines vulnerability. These findings demonstrate that Malthusian interpretations may be inappropriate in the Himalayas, and highlight the importance of the constraints to climate change adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hydropower development clearly has a significant role to play in the closer integration of different parts of the Himalayas and in facilitating downstream benefits throughout South Asia. However, the neo-liberal approach to infrastructure-led growth frequently overlooks the significant social, economic and political issues associated with this model of development in the region. Furthermore, the ongoing securitisation of water constrains the terms of debate under the guise of a unified national interest and enables large-scale dams to be constructed without due process. To desecuritise water in the Himalayas is to open up this dialogue and in so doing create the conditions for just and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several perspectives to understand complexity of actors involved in carbon forestry in Eastern and Southern Africa. Topics include effects of carbon forestry on forestry governance, perspectives of political economy on the neoliberalisation of nature, critical perspectives on green economy and crisis of economic recession, environmental degradation and climate change.

While earlier cinemas were built in response to growing urban populations during the twentieth century, the first wave of multiplexes in India were built in anticipation of future wealth. In recent years, multiplex developments have been targeting various areas identified for growth in the urban redevelopment plans now being adopted across India, anticipating a larger “consuming class” spreading beyond existing pockets of affluence and occupying suburban and satellite townships in what were until recently brown and greenfield sites. Exclusive leisure facilities such as the multiplex illustrate the growing socio-spatial segregation in Indian cities, and suggest the ways the consuming classes are transforming urban space in their own image. As such, while the significance of the multiplex to cultural perspectives in the “New India” is widely noted, they also illustrate much broader issues of the political economy of India that are almost never discussed in the same breath as cinema, including taxation and investment, environmental management and the politics of land zoning and land acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Carbon forestry represents a degree of continuity and discontinuity with traditional conservation practices, rescripting forestry management/governance and land access through projects on the ground in variegated, context-dependent ways. Utilising the comparative lens of two distinct projects operating on state-led protected areas in the east of Uganda, and focusing on their contested boundaries, this paper reflects on these dynamics and tries to make sense of the implications for the rural communities within the project vicinities. The projects and their framings reassert the claims to territory of the state in different ways which are contingent upon and emergent from the local institutional and historical context, or ‘legacies of the land’, which can be seen in context to be disputed and contested. Whilst it must be said that there can be selectively progressive elements within carbon forestry initiatives, it can be observed that techno-centric interventions, which depoliticise their local contexts and selectively transnationalise access to land and forestry resources, can further marginalise local communities in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The already divisive politics of South Asia's trans-boundary water resources are further complicated by the rush to construct large- and medium-scale dams. While highly contested in India today, hydropower construction reflects a nexus of state and capital that discriminates against the poorest and most marginalised citizens. Alternatives to the multiple crises of water within and beyond India must look beyond state-centrism and, instead, promote multi-scalar civil society organisations and networks, which may contribute to a more sustainable and transparent South Asia in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two annual content analyses of programming from the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 television seasons (n = 1,276 and 1,439 programs, respectively) were conducted to assess the presence of behaviors and verbal messages related to the sexuality of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Sexual content associated with nonheterosexuals was found in about 15% of programs overall; however, rates of occurrence within episodes were low. Of 14 genres, only movies and variety/comedy shows had substantial percentages of programs that contained nonheterosexual content. Programs on commercial broadcast networks were less likely to have nonheterosexual content than those on cable networks, especially those on premium cable movie networks. Implications of the continued lack of attention to sexual minorities are discussed for both heterosexual and nonheterosexual viewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]