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Retracted articles by Indian scholars have received significant attention in recent times. However, no comprehensive study has been conducted to analyse the citations of retracted papers authored by Indian researchers. This study aimed to assess the citations to retracted works published between 2001 and 2020 pre‐ and post‐retraction. The study found that there was an increase in retractions over time, with empirical data suggesting that the number of retractions has increased significantly, from 72 papers between 2001 and 2010 to 365 papers between 2011 and 2020. Duplication (n = 128) and plagiarism (n = 119) were the primary reasons for retraction. Notably, 90% of the retracted articles continued to receive citations after retraction. Among the retracted papers, eight received more than 50 post‐retraction citations, 39 received 20 to 50 citations, 347 received one to 19 citations, and 43 were not cited at all post‐retraction. There was an overall 8% decrease in citations after retraction. Retractions were observed across journals of varying impact factor, with a higher number of retractions observed in journals with an impact factor of less than 5 (n = 286; 65%). Furthermore, smaller research teams of two to five authors accounted for 72% of the total retractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study which examined how farmers viewed the use of treated paper mill effluent for irrigation in Tamil Nadu, India using a well-structured interview. The study revealed that about 54% of respondents considered the effluent was appropriate for sugarcane cultivation. It was noted that most water intensive industries have applied treated effluent irrigation technology to the disposal of wastewater. Factors linked to such perception are cited including farmers' characteristics such as educational status and mass media exposure.

India's primary science funding agencies, the Department of Science & Technology, and the Department of Biotechnology (DST & DBT) together formulated an open access (OA) policy in 2014. This policy mandates immediate self‐archival of research articles generated from publicly funded research across all the institutions in suitable repositories. But with inadequate infrastructure and awareness, the OA mandate did not flourish as expected. This paper aims to understand whether journal policies impede the prospect of DST‐DBT OA policy and the possible routes to achieve policy compliance. The analysis presented in this paper tracks down the journal self‐archiving policies of the top 50 popular journals (among Indian authors) from each of the six STEM fields—Biology, Chemistry, Clinical‐Medicine, Engineering, Materials science, and Physics. The results show that most journals have an embargo of 12–24 months on self‐archiving of the post‐print (final author version after peer‐review), which contradicts the DST‐DBT OA mandate. The study also reveals that hybrid journals dominate, and article processing charges craft a new form of inequity for Indian STEM researchers. We expect that these findings will be helpful for the funding agencies to restructure their policies, and negotiate with journal publishers to resolve the contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an analysis of the available literature on women street vendors in the Global South, and then specifically in India, this paper identifies several knowledge gaps and future directions for research. The paper makes three broad claims: (1) street vending spaces are fundamentally gendered spaces; (2) the intersectional identities and caste‐based locations of women street vendors shape their spatial experiences, material realities and access to power; and (3) gender and caste are co‐constituted categories that produce a spatiality unique to the Indian subcontinent. While the geographical approach towards street vending recognises the importance of space and considers vendors as spatial practitioners, vendors are often assumed to belong to a homogenous (male) category with differentials such as gender, race, age, ethnicity and caste invisibilised. This research gap is of even more critical importance in India where caste intersects with gender to produce space. Examining the literature on gender and street vending reveals three broad analytical themes—socio‐spatial disparities, politics of space, and strategies of control. What seems to be missing is a critical, qualitative focus on the experiences of women street vendors, the gendering of vending spaces, the recognition of caste as a dynamic factor, and a spatial analysis grounded in the Southern urban context. Ultimately, this paper makes the case for a situated and postcolonial feminist geography approach to street vending in India, and calls for an intersectional research agenda that is attentive to the co‐constitution of caste and gender in the production of urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the motivations and actions of Indian Americans who actively oppose Hindutva, that is, a Hindu nationalist vision for India. Diaspora activists who advocate in favour of progressive values for India tend to be underreported in the media and underanalysed in scholarship. The following study addresses this gap. Based on public records, interviews with activist leaders, and participant‐observation, the paper demonstrates how anti‐Hindutva diaspora actors identify and leverage political opportunities in order to engage in moral signalling in local, national and global spaces. By shining a light on ongoing counternarratives to Hindutva, this study highlights contestations within Indian‐origin communities and challenges monolithic portrayals of diaspora politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the timing of one‐time fluctuations in births subsequent to the 1918 influenza pandemic in Madras (now Chennai), India. After seasonally decomposing key demographic aggregates, we identified abrupt one‐time fluctuations in excess births, deaths, and infant deaths. We found a contemporaneous spike in excess deaths and infant deaths and a 40‐week lag between the spike in deaths and a subsequent deficit in births. The results suggest that India experienced the same kind of short‐term postpandemic "baby bust" that was observed in the United States and other countries. Identifying the mechanisms underlying this widespread phenomenon remains an open question and an important topic for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Gang Canal region of Rajasthan, the cropping pattern changed from a labour intensive crop, cotton, to a mechanized crop, cluster beans. The shift in cropping pattern not only displaced workers from farm wage work but also brought changes in labour hiring contracts with large scale conversion of daily wage rate contracts to piece‐rate contracts. Drawing on a primary survey in a village from Gang Canal region, the paper examines the change in the agrarian relations in rural Rajasthan by analysing the emerging development in the rural labour relations. For piece‐rate work in farm wage work in some parts of Rajasthan, the wage rate is unilaterally decided by the landlords and large capitalist farmers and is denoted as the ‘village rate’. The manual workers have negligible bargaining power vis‐à‐vis the village rate. The conversion of daily wage rate contracts to piece‐rate contracts has enhanced the duration of working day that involves a rise in the rate of surplus value. Access and availability of low wage labour facilitates the accumulation of capital. With the limited availability of employment in the non‐farm sector (in both public and private sectors), workers are compelled to sell their labour power at wages that do not exceed the level of subsistence. The paper concludes with a brief examination of continuum of coercion and varied degree of unfreedom among worker in the village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to a special section brings together three papers first presented at a panel, 'Medical Professions in South Asia: Historical and Contemporary Analyses', at the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies, held in Vienna, Austria and online, in July 2021. All three papers deal with aspects of the professionalisation of biomedical doctors in India since its independence in 1947. The authors bring together historical and sociological approaches to illuminate the growth of specialisms, patterns of practitioner–patient interactions and efforts to maintain occupational closure and maintain status in the face of growing challenges. The introduction concludes with a discussion of the relevance of these papers for the sociology of health and illness in India and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist economists have long questioned the dichotomy between the "private" versus "public" spheres of women's work and have argued for a more nuanced understanding of the marketable paid work and the unpaid work of household caregiving. This paper focuses on women street food vendors' (SFVs) experiences before and during Covid‐19 pandemic to understand how street food vending as a livelihood activity interacts with social dimensions like gender and division of labor. Through multiple in‐depth interviews with 23 women street vendors in Bengaluru, India, before and during the pandemic, we show that there is a blurring of the dichotomy between the work done in the private and public spaces before the pandemic, which is disrupted by Covid‐19 crisis. The first half of the paper explores the household labor dynamics in the context of paid and unpaid work of women and explains how the women SFVs, capitalizing on their existing skills of "cooking," were able to gain agency and recognition for themselves within the households. The second half of the paper focuses on the narratives of the same women SFVs during the first wave of the Covid pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. We find that the Covid crisis brought back the dichotomy between private and public spheres, making it more pronounced, with women losing their control over the public sphere and their work being restricted only to the private sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Indoor residual spraying (IRS) with insecticides is the main vector control intervention for the elimination of visceral leishmaniasis in India. After a change in IRS policy in 2015 due to widespread resistance of Phlebotomus argentipes to DDT, IRS with DDT was replaced with alpha‐cypermethrin IRS in 2016. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the susceptibility of P. argentipes to DDT and its alternatives, namely malathion and pirimiphos‐methyl (organophosphates); alpha‐cypermethrin, deltamethrin, lambda‐cyhalothrin and permethrin (pyrethroids), and bendiocarb and propoxur (carbamates), in support of visceral leishmaniasis elimination in India. Methods: Phlebotomus argentipes sandflies were collected from the visceral‐leishmaniasis endemic states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. In the WHO tube tests, the phenotypic susceptibility of F1, 2‐day old, non‐blood fed females were determined against filter papers impregnated with DDT 4%, malathion 5%, pirimiphos‐methyl 0.25%, alpha‐cypermethrin 0.05%, deltamethrin 0.05%, lambda‐cyhalothrin 0.05%, permethrin 0.75%, bendiocarb 0.1% and propoxur 0.1%, which were sourced from Universiti Sains Malaysia. The knockdown of sandflies after 1‐h exposure and mortality at 24 h after the 1‐h exposure period were scored. Results: Mean mortality of P. argentipes 24 h after exposure in tube tests was 22.6% for DDT and ≥ 98% for other insecticide‐impregnated papers tested. Conclusion: Phlebotomus argentipes continues to be highly resistant to DDT with no reversal of resistance after DDT's withdrawal from IRS. P. argentipes was fully susceptible to pyrethroid, organophosphate and carbamate insecticides tested. Regular monitoring is warranted for insecticide resistance management in sandfly vectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both diabetes mellitus (DM) and tuberculosis (TB) are prevalent all across in India. TB‐DM comorbidity has emerged as a syndemic and needs more attention in India considering gaps in screening, clinical care, and research. This paper is intended to review published literature on TB and DM in India to understand the burden of the dual epidemic and its trajectory and to obtain perspectives on the gaps, constraints, and challenges in care and treatment of this dual epidemic. A literature search was carried out on PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar, using the key words 'Tuberculosis' OR 'TB' AND 'Diabetes' OR 'Diabetes Mellitus' AND 'India', focusing on the research published between the year 2000 to 2022. The prevalence of DM is high in patients with TB. Quantitative data on the epidemiological situation of TB/DM in India such as incidence, prevalence, mortality, and management are lacking. During the last 2 years convergence of TB‐DM syndemic with the COVID‐19 pandemic has increased cases with uncontrolled DM but also made coordinated control of TB‐DM operationally difficult and of low effectiveness. Research regarding TB‐DM comorbidity is required in the context of epidemiology and management. Detection and bidirectional screening are aggressively warranted. Management of DM in those with TB‐DM comorbidity needs more efforts, including training and supervision of frontline workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses findings of the 'PROWELLMIGRANTS'2 project, which qualitatively investigated COVID‐19 impacts on migrants' well‐being and mental health in Kerala, India. It draws on a novel conceptual framework that combines assemblage‐thinking with theories of social contracts in disasters. The paper first explores how past development processes and contemporary migration policies in Kerala, and India more widely, generated conditions of vulnerability for migrant workers in Kerala prior to the pandemic. Next it shows that Government of Kerala interventions, in some cases supported by the central Government of India, temporarily addressed these vulnerabilities during the pandemic. In acknowledging the helpful response of the Kerala government, we problematise its stance on migrant workers during 'normal' times and speculate that permanently addressing these conditions of vulnerability would be a more logical approach. We acknowledge this involves overcoming many wider barriers. Thus, the paper also contains national‐level policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many minoritised and marginalised populations, including young people, are debating what constitutes a 'survivable life' and, in turn, how life can be arranged so that it is more than just survival. Notwithstanding these trends, however, there is little scholarly work on local discourses and practices of life and viability. This paper addresses this gap by examining the spatial and temporal process through which young people imagine and build viable lives in an area of the Indian Himalayas. We highlight the importance for these young people of building life as 'jeevan', an idea particularly associated with survival. We also highlight the significance they attach to protecting a wider, 'puri life' ('whole life'), a process that affords opportunities for enjoyment and ethical fulfilment beyond survival. This account of life thought 'on the ground' provides a basis for reflecting on Agamben's (Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press; 1998) arguments about the prevalence of 'bare life' in the contemporary world. This paper examines how young people develop ideas of life in contemporary rural north India. It highlights their tendency to imagine life in terms of the relationship between 'jeevan' (core, human life) and 'puri life': the wider social, environmental and spiritual/cultural milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental education has the potential to help reduce negative human–wildlife interactions by increasing positive attitudes toward wildlife and providing participants with knowledge and skills that can help mitigate conflict situations and promote safety. To promote positive human–wildlife relationships, effective programs could be implemented widely in areas near remote wildlife reserves and protected areas. We created and evaluated a new environmental education program for 10‐ to 13‐year‐old students in rural schools in India where human–wildlife conflicts with large mammals frequently occur. Between July 2019 and March 2020, we tested the program at 129 schools, reaching 4331 students. The program, which was iteratively designed to fit the local context, is both cost‐effective and scalable. We found that participation in the program resulted in a significant positive increase in local environmental knowledge, in knowledge of safe behaviors, and in some measures of environmental attitudes. This paper reports on the lessons learned while creating this program that may help other organizations interested in using environmental education in regions where negative human–wildlife interactions frequently occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Via a multiple case study of work in microfinance institutions in India, this paper reports on the experiences of field officers and branch managers following work digitalisation. It identifies and explains an intriguing post‐digitalisation paradox of reported increased job satisfaction and tighter technological control diminishing branch managers' work‐life balance. The paradox draws attention to the significance of context in workers' experiences of mobile digital technologies (MDTs) and contradicts previous studies on workers' positive experiences of adopting MDTs: the workers in this study did not experience greater autonomy or flexibility but reported enhanced employment security and status. The paper also adds to literature on employment relations following work digitalisation by revealing powerful enforcement of technological control, with 'WhatsApp' identified as a key managerial tool used for surveillance and discipline, and worker resistance at the margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional thermal processing technologies are widely used to extend the shelf life of fruit juices. However, its detrimental effect on the nutritional and sensory properties of fruit juices paved the way for alternative food processing technologies. Non‐thermal processing methods can be a substitute for thermal methods because they have no/minimal effect on the nutritive and sensory qualities of fruit juices and improve their storage quality by deactivating enzymes and eliminating microorganisms. In this review article, combined use of thermosonication (TS) with other non‐thermal processing technologies in fruit juice processing has been detailed. Additionally, the impact of TS on the various qualities of fruit juices as well as the TS mechanism have been covered. TS, one of the emerging non‐thermal technologies have been preferred in fruit juice and beverage processing industries over the past few years, due to consumer's preference towards high quality and nutritious food products. When TS is employed in combination with other non‐thermal processing methods, it reduces processing time, improves process efficiency, and reduces power consumption. The content of this review paper might be beneficial for upcoming research and the commercialization of this hurdle‐based approach. Practical Applications: Generally, fruit juices were treated using thermal methods (e.g., pasteurization) for extending the shelf life by inactivating microbial and enzymatic activities. But it shows negative impact on the nutritional and sensorial attributes of fruit juices. Non‐thermal technologies like, TS has been preferred as an alternative method for the processing of juices due to their less/no effect on the quality parameters of juices. The benefits of TS as compared with thermal treatments include less flavor loss, significant energy savings, and increased homogeneity. TS reduces the processing temperature and time required for pasteurization of juices and it can be used to make high‐quality fruit juices that are additive‐ and preservative‐free. In the review, the effect of TS on fruit juice quality as well as its combined effect with high pressure processing and pulse electric field processing has been summarized. The finding of this review paper might be helpful for the further exploration of these technologies in the large‐scale food industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary academic debates on the history of the colonial Famine Codes in India-also considered to be the first coded and institutionalised normative frameworks for natural disaster response on the continent-generally are based on one of two perspectives. The first focuses on their economic rationale, whereas the second underlines that they constitute an anti-famine contract between the colonial masters and the people of India. This paper demonstrates that both of these viewpoints are limited in scope and that they simplify the nature of governance instituted through famine response practices in Colonial India. It links this reality to current disaster response policies and practices in India and shows that the discussion on the development of normative frameworks underlying disaster response is far from over. The paper goes on to evaluate the development of normative frameworks for disaster response and recovery, which remain embroiled in the politics of governmentality that underlies their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great deal of work argues that the entry of women into public spaces can promote political and institutional change. The COVID‐19 provides an opportunity to investigate whether and under what conditions women's political representation in rural local governments deliver effective local governance? Drawing from two rounds of data collected in 174 local governments and 1051 households in three Indian states, the paper shows that women Pradhans in the Gram Panchayats had no differential impact on the governance response to COVID‐19 compared to the unreserved ones. Analyzing the heterogeneity in these responses suggests that institutional factors like the proportion of women in village council and local entrepreneurship diversity can enhance women Pradhan's capacity to respond to the pandemic. We explore two channels that enable women Pradhan to govern effectively during the pandemic: improving women's participation in the labor force and reducing household's vulnerability to poverty in the pre‐COVID period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grasslands are contested ecosystems due to our scant understanding of their ecological and socioeconomic roles and also due to the ambiguity in understanding what exactly constitutes them. This problem escalates in the absence of proper governance. In this paper, we explore the historical accounts of Indian grasslands to trace how they have shaped contemporary grassland conservation and restoration policies. The paper draws from the concept of Biome Awareness Disparity and links it to grassland degradation through misleading nomenclature and flawed interventions rooted in misplaced governance. We found that Indian grasslands are negatively affected by India's commitment to global goals (with quantified targets of increasing tree cover) and the involvement of multiple government bodies in grassland management. This conundrum is fueled by the strong forest bias within government bodies and nongovernmental organizations. Based on the findings, we propose that India needs a more cohesive national policy framework and a robust ecosystem classification system to successfully conserve and restore grasslands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies have analyzed the determinants of financial inclusion in India, but few if any have focused specifically on the factors that shape women's access to finance. This paper draws on the trove of women‐specific data collected in the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS‐4), conducted in 2015–16 in India, to examine the factors that influence women's access to finance. The results indicate that while the forces that shape women's access to finance function at multiple levels, micro‐level factors appear to be powerful drivers of inclusion. The analysis reveals that household‐level economic indicators like wealth, gender of household head and their rural‐urban location are crucial, but so are individual‐level characteristics which explain approximately 83% of the variation in the multilevel regressions. Informal gender norms that govern women's mobility and economic activity crucially influence the ability of women to access loans and open bank accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2018, it was found that only a quarter of Grade 3 children in India were reading at grade level. A growing demand for English education has further limited children's literacy achievement. Despite a strong evidence base in favour of using systematic phonics for building English literacy skills, many teachers in India continue to use rote‐methods of literacy instruction. Objectives: We aimed to examine the efficacy of GraphoLearn (GL) English Rime, a computer‐assisted reading intervention, in improving the foundational literacy skills of 1st and 2nd grade students who were attending an English medium school in India. Methods: A total of 136 students across 6 classrooms were randomly allocated to play either GL or a control math game over a 5‐week intervention period. Students were pre‐ and post‐tested on various English literacy skills using tasks built into the GL software as well as through oral and paper‐based tasks. Results and Conclusions: Students who played GL showed significantly greater and faster development on in‐game measures of letter‐sound knowledge, rime unit recognition, and word recognition as compared to students who did not play GL. In addition, GL resulted in greater effects on these measures for students with stronger English literacy skills prior to the start of the intervention. No differences were found between groups on the oral and paper‐based tasks. Implications: GL was able to quickly and effectively teach critical sub‐skills for reading. However, a lack of effects on the out‐of‐game measures opens the door for further discussion on the successful implementation of such interventions. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic:India has an ongoing literacy crisis with many children failing to acquire functional literacy skills.Under‐resourced schools,outdated pedagogical methods, and a demand for English‐medium education are partially to blame.Globally, technology is being increasingly looked at to help improve student learning levels across all subject areas.There are a lack of studies examining the efficacy of various ed‐tech tools to improve literacy in the context of India.What this paper adds:The study aimed to test GraphoLearn English (GL), a mobile game designed to teach and practice early reading skills through phonics with first and second graders.Results showed that children who played GL outperformed those who did not play on critical literacy skills such as letter‐sound knowledge and word recognition.In addition, GL was more effective for those who had higher pre‐existing English literacy skills.However, improvements were only seen on measures assessed in the game and not on measures assessed orally or on paper.Implications for practice and/or policy:GL and other educational technologies can be extremely effective tools which allow for an individualized learning experience.However, it is important that for any educational game, learning moves beyond the game itself.Teachers are critical players in this process and must ensure that tech‐based instruction is integrated with teacher‐led instruction.Policy makers and school administration must ensure that teachers are adequately trained on when, with whom, and how to use such technologies before they are introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a systematic exploration of the linkages between environment impact assessment (EIA) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the Indian context through a critical analysis of the socio‐ecological impacts of development projects and the policy climate for environmental clearances. A conceptual framework portraying the interlinkages of the systemic disruptions in the socio‐ecological realms, policy challenges, and SDGs is developed, which argues for integrating the SDGs into the EIA framework in India. The paper argues that the legal fluidity and dilution in the design and enactment of EIA retrogrades the crucial socio‐political transformation required for achieving sustainability. The systematic literature review of empirical, conceptual, and grey literature, undertaken on Indian EIA, highlights its instrumental role as a political tool for achieving developmental sustainability. The paper concludes by highlighting the urgent need to mainstream ecological decision‐making into all governance processes for achieving the SDGs in a transforming society like India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Prosocial P2P lending platforms are a novel and powerful example of a digital social innovation (DSI) in which the operating model relies primarily on digital technologies and the overarching focus is on the "social" aspect of the innovation. These platforms establish a virtual connection between low‐income individuals and lenders, helping the former access loans at low rates of interest. In realising their mission of fighting poverty, prosocial P2P lending platforms maintain a challenging hybrid – online and offline – focus. This paper explores how prosocial P2P lending platforms enact their hybrid orientation. It draws on an inductive qualitative study of Rang De, India's first prosocial P2P lending platform. The analysis highlights five clusters of actions: digital attention‐building, digital credibility‐building, digital empathy‐building, intermediary relationship‐building, and borrower relationship‐building. The paper argues that significant strengths on the online side help establish a sustainable business model. A willingness and commitment to maintain a high degree of engagement with the complex offline world of low‐income borrowers helps develop the model as an impactful social innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether investing in R&D reduces the impact of exogenous shocks like the COVID‐19 on stock market performance and accounting performance of manufacturing firms in India. For the sample of listed manufacturing firms, the paper finds that the firms engaged in R&D activities had lower negative cumulative abnormal return than those firms that did not invest in R&D in the pre‐pandemic period using multiple event windows. The result suggests that R&D investments can lower value erosion for the shareholders during a severe crisis period. Further, using a difference‐in‐difference fixed effects model, the study finds that manufacturing firms engaged in R&D activities in the pre‐pandemic period exhibited higher return on sales and growth of total income during the pandemic quarter vis‐à‐vis the non‐R&D firms. The favorable accounting performance indicates the possibility of firm‐level R&D being associated with the firm's ability to adjust its functioning during a crisis, thereby reducing the effect of the crisis. Finally, the study documents that government intervention to reduce the spread of the virus had a differential impact on firms based on their industry of operation. The findings have implications for investors, corporate managers, and policymakers in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railways were an important driver of global economic growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Whilst their role is well documented in industrial economies, we know less about their macro‐economic impact in developing countries. In this paper, we first estimate the aggregate growth impact of Indian railways, one of the largest networks in the world in the early twentieth century. Then, we compare their impact in India to four emerging Latin American economies (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay) and the Cape colony. Using growth accounting techniques common to the cross‐country estimates, we argue that the aggregate growth impact of Indian railways was significant, increasing Indian gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 13.5 per cent by 1912. We also find that the growth impact of Indian railways was similar to Brazil and Mexico, but smaller than Argentina and the Cape. Compared with the latter, India had a smaller size of railway freight revenues in the economy and lower wages to fares leading to lower passenger time savings. Railways were the most important infrastructure driver of economic growth in India during the first era of globalization from 1860 to 1912, but they contributed less than in richer and more dynamic developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new and improved estimates of wealth concentration in India during 2012–2018. Official surveys show a decline in wealth inequality and mean wealth per adult for the first time in three decades. We argue that although these wealth surveys are meant to be nationally representative, they underestimate the upper tail of the Indian wealth distribution—top wealth levels appear orders of magnitudes below externally measured estimates and unrepresentative of increasing stock‐market participation over this period. By combining official surveys and rich lists, we provide new estimates of top wealth shares and total personal wealth in India. We find that personal wealth is underestimated by nearly 54 percent in official data, and this gap increased sharply during the 2010s. Our revised estimates show wealth concentration to have sharply increased during 2012–2018. The share of India's top 1 percent is higher than similar estimates for Asia, and second only to Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a traumatic lockdown in 2020, India's migrant factory workers have headed back to work and on worse terms than before. Struggling with new levels of denial of entitlements, workers respond by withdrawing from their fragile hold on formality, moving instead further into the informal sector. Based on voice notes recorded on Saajha Manch, a phone‐based community media platform, the paper examines workers' experience that their efforts to claim their rights lure them into a quagmire in a bureaucracy which sucks their energy while assuring no clear outcome. Seeing evidence of failed enforcement and structural inequality all around them, workers conclude that the law is not meant for them and hence show little interest in the new labour codes hastily enacted at the height of the pandemic. The paper highlights the dysfunction of the formal sector in delivering to its low‐waged workers who remain unserved in spite of registration and documentation in place. As they join the ranks of informality, however, migrant factory workers do not lose interest in associative and contentious activity. On the contrary, freedom from the bureaucracy of rights may be a boost to new forms of struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the impasse climate‐informed development practices currently find themselves in. This is represented by the fact that while "solutions" to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance capacities for adaptation and resilience are increasingly adopted around the world, we have enough evidence to suggest that strategies adopted "from above" have been unable to engender transformations towards more just and liveable futures. Situating the paper within recent calls for a "post‐adaptation" turn in the field, I propose a generative critique of climate‐informed development through the lens of care as a place from where to begin thinking and practicing development differently. The aim of this critique is not to discard or discredit development practices as necessarily tainted or flawed but to make them accountable to a whole set of concerns and cares going into their stories of success or failures. Throughout the paper, I therefore speculatively ask the reader to think though the possibilities that may be opened when we stop treating climate‐informed development projects as neutral and undisputable "matters of fact," engaging with them instead as necessary and non‐innocent "matters of care." Thinking through a tryptic notion of "matters of care," as at the same time a neglected doing necessary for the sustenance of life, an affective state, and an ethico‐politics, I look at examples from semi‐arid areas of India to give visibility to those practices, relations, and emotions of care that have been marginalised by mainstream development circles. Through this shift in perception, a deeper understanding of vulnerability as a state of shared fragility emerges, one that grounds an ethico‐politics of climate‐informed development to concrete circumstances and becomes the foundation upon which more inclusive practices can be built upon. Situated within a post‐adaptation turn, this paper propose a generative critique of climate‐informed development through the lens of care. The aim of this critique is not to not to discard or discredit development practices as flawed but to make them accountable to whole set of concerns and cares going into their stories of success or failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study provides empirical evidence on how Indian Accounting Standards (Ind‐AS hereinafter) adoption has affected earnings management (EM hereinafter) in India. The study uses the Beneish Model and Modified Jones model to detect EM. The sample of the study comprises 240 companies listed in the S&P BSE MidSmallCap index for the period 2013–2019. The results of the Modified Jones model reveal that Ind‐AS have no significant effect on EM. However, the Beneish model shows that all ratios except leverage index have a significant relationship with EM after Ind‐AS adoption. Nine industries out of 28 sample industries are suspectable to indulge in manipulating financial statements. The ratio of manipulators to nonmanipulators has grown after Ind‐AS adoption. The paper adds to the literature by examining the impact of new accounting standards on EM in an emerging economy. The findings of the study would be relevant to the public accounting bodies, regulators, accounting professionals, and the public at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the outcomes of Internet domain name dispute arbitrations in India through a quantitative analysis of all domain name arbitrations (N = 1147) involving the Indian country code top‐level domain from 2006 to 2019. Specifically, we investigate whether the nationalities and corporate/individual identities of the complainants and respondents affect the outcome of the arbitrations. The most common type of dispute during this period is an international entity petitioning against another international entity (46%). In sum, the domain name arbitrations under INDRP are dominated by international and organizational complainants, but there is more variation among respondents' profiles in terms of nationality and identity. Our analysis suggests that the INDRP process, in the 14 years examined, tends to generate outcomes that favor corporations. Although the complainants almost always won, corporate respondents, compared to their individual counterparts, are more likely to retain the disputed domain names. Also, cases, where a respondent contested a complaint, had a higher probability of rulings in favor of respondents, compared to cases where the respondent filed no response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective seed dispersal is critical for forest regeneration and recruitment as well as the restoration of degraded lands. Most tropical tree species depend on frugivorous animals to disperse their seeds; frugivore‐mediated seed dispersal is thus crucial for biodiversity conservation in megadiverse tropical systems such as India. The fauna in India are increasingly threatened due to anthropogenic interventions such as deforestation and hunting. Thus, it is imperative to have an understanding of plant–frugivore interactions across the country to curb further biodiversity loss by ensuring the maintenance of these ecological processes. In this paper, I reviewed the literature on seed dispersal by animals in India to identify important groups that disperse many plant species and/or are the only recorded dispersers of certain plant species. Hornbills, bulbuls, bears, cattle, deer, civets, elephants, macaques, nilgais, Old World fruit bats, and wild pigs meet these criteria; overall 18 species were included in this list. Six of these species are currently "Threatened" on the IUCN Red List and their loss can lead to limited dispersal for at least 86 plant species. I suggest ensuring the protection of the important seed dispersers identified in this paper, irrespective of their conservation status, to prevent further biodiversity loss. The review reveals that plant–animal interactions in India are understudied and a major knowledge gap exists with regard to seed dispersal networks within the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There was a growing realization that Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are overarching, ambitious, complex, and less impactful. Consequently, the 193 member countries of the United Nations (UN) came out with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a well‐thought‐out global development agenda in the year 2015. By involving the private sectors in the designing of SDGs, UN has rightly identified their potentials in offering solutions to the most relevant sustainability challenges. SDGs came into force in January 2016 across the globe when corporate social responsibility (CSR) was already legalized in India. There has been a whooping investment of approximately Rs. 15,000 crores by nearly 20,000 companies every year under CSR in the country. However, it is argued that the contributions to SDGs are not substantial. Based on review of relevant literature, the current paper makes a modest attempt to explore the connections between CSR and SDGs in contemporary India. Further, it critically examines how CSR in India contributes to SDGs. The paper also analyses the underlying reasons for the inadequate engagement of CSR with SDGs. Despite CSR practices in India having linkage with the SDGs, the outcomes are not as per the expectation as a number of firms operate with less involvement and strategic efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By tracing specific moments in the history of the more‐than‐human landscape constituting the food geography of western Avadh, a long settled agricultural heartland in the Indo‐Gangetic plains, this paper challenges the neat formulations of the Anthropocene laying out decisive global impacts of humans on the environment. Building upon the concept of the 'patchy Anthropocene', we show how outcomes are shaped by an imbrication of humans and non‐humans—where powerful human actors seek to coerce people and corral the environment into their projects of remaking the landscape, but also where recalcitrant ecologies and resistant people thwart these intentions, especially during the colonial encounter. Contestations across power hierarchies and unintended outcomes litter the wake of the Anthropocene — as we show, efforts to save the non‐human cow in the last decade have intensified processes associated with the Great Acceleration. Instead of treating the trajectory of food geographies like western Avadh as outliers and marginal to the normative process of defining change, we argue for treating it as constitutive of the norm. Only through such a process of decolonisation, by 'provincialising the Anthropocene', can we hope to push for epistemic justice, ecological sustainability and a more equitable world. By tracing the history of the more‐than‐human landscape constituting the food geography of western Avadh, a long settled agricultural heartland in the Indo‐Gangetic plains, this paper challenges the neat Anthropocene formulations of decisive global impacts of humans on the environment. We show how powerful human actors seek to coerce people and corral the environment into their landscape remaking projects, but also how recalcitrant ecologies and resistant people thwart these intentions. We also describe unintended outcomes – efforts to save the nonhuman cow in the last decade have intensified processes associated with the Great Acceleration. Only through decolonisation and 'provincialising the Anthropocene', can we hope to push for epistemic justice, ecological sustainability and a more equitable world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the ratification of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, the Indian state digitized its food rationing infrastructure, replacing paper‐based ration cards with digital rationing documents and other technologies of authentication. The shift from analog to digital documentary practices has rematerialized documents and devices to enable closer monitoring of the exchange of food entitlements in ration shops. Making biopolitics digital has enabled the state to exert greater control over rationing practices by rendering them more transparent. However, the state's obsession with preventing practices of corruption has hindered, rather than facilitated, access to entitlements for some rightful beneficiaries of the NFSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to government‐sponsored health insurance schemes (GSHIS), many microfinance institutions (MFIs) and community‐based organizations (CBOs) in India have started microinsurance health insurance schemes. These include health mutuals for the benefit of their members. This article explores these as an alternative health‐financing model in India. A literature search produced 926 relevant publications. After applying advanced search options and removing duplicates, abstracts of 324 papers were read and then 47 papers reviewed, and finally 29 were included in this review. Five key themes emerged: (1) "Health for all" arguments and opportunities in favour of micro health insurance schemes; (2) micro health insurance products; (3) impact of micro health insurance schemes; (4) systematic irregularities and regulatory framework; and (5) innovation. We also look at the emerging market patterns that will define micro health insurance products. Health mutuals can effectively provide mass health protection to the poor and not so poor through efficient business models, bespoke benefit packages and multiple payment plans. They can reduce financial vulnerability and improve health outcomes. While GSHIS can cover a substantial tranche of expected health‐related costs, the balance can be supplemented through innovative financial products that reduce financial risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impact of North‐eastern Region Community Resource Management Project for Upland Areas (NERCORMP) and draws inferences on mechanism of change, context of an intervention and implementation design. Utilising data from three waves of surveys, we find that while there is evidence of significant changes in financial inclusion, productivity and social security, there are some issues in replication and sustenance aspects. Since the impact of intervention is observed across various domains such as socio‐economic situation and natural resource management, thus, we believe that this paper presents an important case study in understanding the intervention efficacy, relevance and sustenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ventilago Gaertn. (Rhamnaceae) is widely distributed in pantropical areas of Africa, Asia, and Australia. However, fossil records of this taxon are sparse, which limits understanding of the evolution and biogeographic history of the genus. In the present study, we report and describe two new fossil species of Ventilago, V. siwalika sp. nov. from the Miocene sediments of Himachal Pradesh, western Himalaya, and V. pliocenica sp. nov. from the Pliocene sediments of Jharkhand, eastern India based on single‐winged samaras. Ventilago pliocenica is characterized by a prominent midvein, obtuse to sub‐round apex with mucronate tip, longitudinal secondary veins extending the full length of the fruit, and reticulate nature of higher‐order veins, the presence of equatorial rim, the hypanthium, and short pedicel. On the other hand, V. siwalika is characterized by a prominent midvein, obtuse to sub‐round apex with mucronate tip, longitudinal secondary veins extending the full length of the fruit, and reticulate nature of higher‐order veins. Our discovery represents the first unambiguous fossil record of single‐winged samara of Ventilago from India and provides valuable insights into the evolution of this genus. In this paper, we also review its biogeographic history and add new information to understand its hypothetical migration route. Present and earlier records of Ventilago also suggest that this genus was a common forest element during Neogene (Miocene time) in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using cross‐section data on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the paper examines the importance of gender on discouraged borrowers in India. We distinguish the role of women across various capacities, such as owner, manager and owner‐manager. Controlling for potential endogeneity, the findings indicate that firms with women managers and those where women perform dual roles are more likely to be discouraged from borrowing. Furthermore, we show that interest rates and procedural complexities to be the key reasons that inhibit borrowing. Robustness tests lend credence to these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetlands have historically been considered hindrances to development, with 'reclamation' considered the appropriate management practice. This is no different in India, where most cities are built on wetlands. This study examines the case of fast urbanising Kozhikode City on the south‐west coast of India by overlaying political and developmental interventions of the city with its ecological realities. While pre‐colonial settlements in the region were predominantly along the coast leaving the marshy inland areas, the need for resource mobilisation by colonial forces led to the development of Conolly Canal through the wetlands. The spoil bank of the canal spawned the development of roads cutting across the wetlands, a process continuing to this day, with consequent ribbon development. Wetland loss due to reduction in depth, core area loss, fragmentation and salinity intrusion have gone hand in hand with the city's rapid urbanisation. While the looming threat of climate change is forcing Kozhikode's planners to revive the canal, wetlands that sustain the canal (and the city) are buried too far beneath the piecemeal undertakings that have shaped the city. This paper reconstructs the environmental history of the city, the canal and the wetlands from the establishment of the city to the present, spanning a period of 500 years. Determinants of urban growth including canal construction, transport network development in line with the spoil banks and rapid urbanisation processes are chronicled to understand the interconnectedness between ecology, urban sprawl and the rationality of disaster preparedness. In this context, the future development proposals for the region are examined especially with the wetlands as the backdrop. We employ mixed methodologies to track this history including satellite imagery, geographic information systems (GIS), archives and interviews with senior citizens. This framework can be applied to other cities to understand the metabolic relationship of urban growth with ecology and its changing history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the innovative alternatives to the traditional cooperative structure has been the new generation cooperatives or cooperative companies, known as producer companies (PCs) in India since the early 2000s. This paper examines the impact of PCs on the member farmer livelihoods, which is not well studied, with the help of member and non‐member farmer interview survey in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is found that though the PCs were inclusive of small farmers in their membership, the PC interface with members for farm inputs was not very strong and the output linkage was poor, reaching only a small proportion of member farmers. The Sufal Bangla public supermarket franchise by some PCs was found to make a large difference to the PC performance and its impact on member farmers. The small size of membership in most case study PCs hindered the equity size, leading to working capital and market interface constraints. Therefore, it is important to encourage members to contribute more equity and to reward their output linkage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Financial inclusion, that is, access of excluded households and small firms to financial products and services, is seen as a way to promote more inclusive growth by providing the previously unbanked with access to means for savings, investment, consumption smoothing, and insurance. Financial technology (Fintech), that is, using software, applications, and digital platforms to deliver financial services to consumers and businesses through digital devices such as smartphones, has become recognized as a promising tool to promote financial inclusion. The present paper investigates the developments of financial inclusion and Fintech in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries and India to identify the ways that Fintech is contributing and can potentially contribute to increased financial inclusion. It also examines potential risks arising from use of Fintech, highlights differences in the strategies and implementation of financial inclusion and Fintech between India and ASEAN, and draws lessons and policy recommendations from these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on ethnographic material to analyse how unemployed youth create work in the private educational sector. It shows how a set of educated young men, who moved from rural areas to a north Indian city to find work, are seeking to create jobs after an extended period of unemployment. Having attended coaching clinics and private tuition centres to prepare for white‐collar jobs, they draw on the experience, knowledge, and skills they have gained to create work in those same institutions. They do so by running errands and creating services for institutions, as well as undertaking administrative duties and teaching classes. Our main argument is that young men creatively engage with notions of enterprise to make an income and acquire a measure of respect. Studies of enterprise culture and neoliberal subjectivity formation often emphasise how individuals shore up their own value by competing with others and promoting their own interests. But we highlight how youth also maintain their value by making sense of their strategies in terms of assisting other young people. At the same time, however, their practises work to reproduce gender norms and class inequalities. This paper draws on ethnographic material to analyse how unemployed youth create work in the private educational sector in north India. Our main argument is that young men creatively engage with notions of enterprise to make an income and acquire a measure of respect. Studies of enterprise culture and neoliberal subjectivity formation often emphasise how individuals shore up their own value by competing with others and promoting their own interests, but we highlight how youth also maintain their value by making sense of their strategies in terms of assisting other young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both China and India are adopting information and communication technologies to facilitate openness and transparency in their governments, and hence reduce corruption. Distinctive from their traditional anticorruption approaches, is the innovative e‐government approach an effective solution to corruption in these two large developing countries? This paper addresses the question through comparative in‐depth interviews with 44 mid‐ or senior‐level officials in the public sector in these two countries. The first study of its kind, our research shows that civil servants in both countries overall think positively about transparency and technology in reducing corruption. However, to what extent these innovative measures will be effective is conditional on various factors, such as political willingness, income inequality, and infrastructure readiness. What is worth noting is that the Chinese respondents were more positive regarding the role of transparency, whereas the Indian respondents were more positive about the role of technology, which may reflect the different facilitators of corruption and the constraints of anticorruption in China and India. Both China and India are increasingly adopting information and communication technologies (ICTs) to facilitate openness and transparency in the government. Is this innovative e‐government approach an effective solution to corruption in the two countries? This paper addresses the question through investigating the important yet underexplored perceptions of the senior and mid‐career civil servants on anti‐corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on gendered politics of the field has delved into the practices of accompaniment and its implications on research and knowledge production, particularly through the case of researchers' children and partners. In comparison, the tendency to seek assistance from parents is neglected within the scholarship. Drawing on the PhD fieldwork experiences of two researchers in their "native" country, specifically a Sri Lankan researcher conducting fieldwork in Sri Lanka and a North Indian scholar researching in South India, the paper reveals parents' contribution to the research process, in terms of enhancing researcher credibility, facilitating contact‐making and access, and providing emotional and practical care. The discussion illuminates two aspects of parents' involvement in fieldwork: (1) how the unique nature of parent–child relationships shapes the research process at multiple stages, and (2) how the gendered notions of knowledge production result in parents' contributions being typically unacknowledged. The paper emphasises that a researcher's positionality as a daughter shapes her ability to navigate gendered field sites in her "native" country and is implicated in the wider research process. This paper will illuminate why researchers take their parents to field sites and how this strategy helps them to negotiate gendered challenges in the field. Despite the benefits of parental accompaniment, parents' roles are frequently underplayed. This invisibility of certain actors' contributions to the research process reveals the gendered politics of knowledge construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The typification of names validated in a paper of 1803 concerning the plants encountered on a journey through what is now Tamil Nadu in southern India is reviewed. A number of name changes are necessitated. Psilotrichum patulum becomes the correct name for P. elliotii, Euphorbia glaucescens is the correct name for E. corrigioloides, Oldenlandia pusilla is the correct name for O. attenuata and Kohautia attenuata is the correct name for K. aspera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater depletion in India is a result of water, energy, and food policies that have given rise to a nexus where growth in agriculture has been supported by unsustainable trends in water and energy use. This nexus emanates from India's policy of providing affordable calories to its large population. This requires that input prices are kept low, leading to perverse incentives that encourage groundwater overexploitation. The paper argues that solutions to India's groundwater problems need to be embedded within the current context of its water‐energy‐food nexus. Examples are provided of changes underway in some water‐energy‐food policies that may halt further groundwater depletion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory article makes a critical estimation of the impact of pandemics on the Global South consumer's well‐being. Our paper moves beyond the concerns of the other papers of this Special Issue. Instead, we focus on the issues of the vulnerable, marginal, and subaltern consumers of the Global South—experiences and anxieties, distinct from those of more "modern," capitalized, industrialized, democratized, and economically liberated Global North consumers. We offer the North–South comparisons across national lines or from block to block that bring in a series of promising directions and new currents in the critical, interdisciplinary studies of consumer affairs. Primary perspectives and associated topics for future agenda impacting TCR highlighted are (i) socio‐economic inequalities and injustices, (ii) environmental injustice and sustainable future. We finally suggest an innovative research paradigm, "altruistic‐activist consumer research," to address the concerns and impact the well‐being of marginal consumers from the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government around the globe are striving to improve their public finance to meet their public expenditures and for sustainable development of their economies. However, the capability of the governments to generate adequate revenue is limited and refrained by numerous factors. The non‐compliance behavior of GST taxpayers is one of the major factors attributed to this phenomenon. Therefore, this paper endeavors to frame and validate a comprehensive instrumental scale with the application of the extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) for analyzing the determinants of compliance behavior of GST taxpayers in India. The current study has adopted the quantitative design through exploratory and confirmatory studies by incorporating qualitative semi‐structured interviews with 100 GST consultants to validate the instrumental scale. The study has collected a random sample of 339 GST taxpayers using snowball random sampling. Meanwhile, the study has employed the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for analyzing the collected data. The result affirms six major factors in determining the compliance behavior of GST taxpayers explaining 65.166% of the total variance. The findings have instituted perceived complexity, trust and moral obligation in addition to three major constructs of TPB theory namely attitude behavior, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control of the GST taxpayers. The results explicate that the compliance behavior of GST taxpayers is a dynamic and multifaceted phenomenon and it is critical for GST authorities to comprehend the compliance behavior of GST taxpayers. The result explicates that there is a need to simplify and rationalize the GST system in India to increase voluntary compliance of taxpayers. The results also endorse for building trust between GST taxpayers, GST authorities and the state. This study may act as a baseline for formulating policies and strategies on GST in India. There is hardly any national and international study that has applied the extended theory of planned behavior for studying the antecedents of compliance behavior of GST taxpayers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]