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This case note discusses the 2022 Supreme Court of India's judgement in X v NCT of Delhi & Anr in which the Supreme Court has held that termination of pregnancies between 20 and 24 weeks is available to all women who are undergoing any "change in their material circumstances". Delving into the reasoning used by the Supreme Court, this case note argues that while the case engages in a sound contextualization of women's problems with the legal regime on abortion in India and the use of a rights-based language, it does little more to improve access to abortion in India. The case note tests the judgement using the methodologies from the feminist judgement-writing project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Infectious diseases such as measles and rubella (MR) spread quickly to infect vulnerable populations, especially children below 5 years. Mass vaccination had been implemented to prevent it and its success has been observed through decreasing numbers of cases. The Government of India started MR campaign in February 2017, and Maharashtra was one of the selected states for it. The study was planned to find out the trend of measles cases before and after MR campaign and also to find out the effect of lockdown due to pandemic on vaccine usage. Aim: The aim of this study is to find out the trend of MR cases before and after MR campaign. Materials and Methods: A Descriptive observational study was done in tertiary care center for 2 years. Measles cases from the past 5 years were taken, and the impact of MR campaign was seen. Lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on the vaccination drive. To find out the impact, data for different vaccines were collected from different health centers, and analysis was done in Epi-info. Results: Post MR campaign, there was a sharp decrease in measles cases. Measles mostly targeted children below 6 years, and infants were seen having the longest stay in hospital due to the infection. At the onset of lockdown due to pandemic, vaccine consumption has gone down everywhere in the study. Conclusion: Vaccination is a proven weapon to prevent vaccine-preventable diseases, and measles is no different from other infectious diseases. Lockdown hindered the process of mass vaccination of vaccine-preventable diseases and which has gone down everywhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the discourse of the then Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, following the 2018 July wildfire disaster in the Eastern Attica suburbs including Mati to reveal the frames employed by the main protagonist utilizing existing framing models while also incorporating the notions of ethic of care and strategic ambiguity. The then government received extensive criticism by the media and political opponents in regard to the management and communication responses of the then Prime Minister. A content analysis was conducted to the statements made by the then Prime Minister. Findings indicate that Tsipras during the initial stages of the crisis acknowledged the extent of crisis while also emphasizing the successful crisis response efforts. Moreover, strategic ambiguity along with low levels of "caring" were important elements of Tsipras' narrative at the initial stage. As the public outrage and criticism intensified, Tsipras incorporated a more caring profile and presented the disaster as a "critical opportunity" by shifting the blame to previous governments and proposing policy changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article titled "Real effects of loss of vaccination will be known in coming times reply to Measles-Rubella vaccination campaign: Pandemic as speed breaker" discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the measles-rubella vaccination campaign in Maharashtra, India. The study found that the pandemic hindered the vaccine uptake, leading to outbreaks of measles cases in the state, particularly in Mumbai and surrounding areas. The authors emphasize the importance of childhood vaccination in India and highlight the role of healthcare workers in addressing vaccine hesitancy. They also mention the potential long-term consequences of the vaccine gap caused by the pandemic. [Extracted from the article]

Does political alignment at different levels of government influence centralized bureaucratic processes? Environmental clearances are important regulatory tools that allow governments to target the distribution of public goods/bads by both controlling negative externalities and allocating rents from project developers. While commentators advocate for central authorities to control environmental licensing of major projects, in emerging markets with weak formal institutions, it is still possible for local politicians to influence this process. We use data on environmental clearances in India for thermal (primarily coal-fired) power plants between the years 2004 and 2014 to test whether local legislators influence an otherwise bureaucratic process in which they play no formal role. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that partisan alignment with the state chief minister results in a sharp increase in local clearance applications. This is consistent with the hypothesis that this type of political influence "greases the wheels" of bureaucracy by facilitating more environmental approvals, rather than creating regulatory bottlenecks. Our results contribute to a growing literature that suggests that lower-level politicians can still exert influence on the policy process despite having few institutionalized powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regimes around the world are experimenting with combinations of economic liberalization and revived state‐activist strategies, producing 'new developmentalist' hybrids. This article suggests that a distinctive variant of new developmentalism is emerging in India. Its paradigmatic example crystallized in Gujarat, before and during Narendra Modi's tenure as Chief Minister (2001–14), and was taken national during Modi's first term as India's Prime Minister (2014–19). While scholars have highlighted the aggressively pro‐business industrial policy of the 'Gujarat model', closer examination reveals that this state intervention was more direct and extensive than previously acknowledged. The state took on a diversity of functions, particularly focused on infrastructure. These included not only classic developmental activities such as midwifing new industries or supporting select private enterprises, but also corrective functions: disciplining consumers, compensating reform losers, and repairing the bureaucratic apparatus. Today, in the face of predictions of radical deregulation or corporate rule, this reinvented statism is visible at the all‐India level. However, its history also illustrates the brittleness of India's new developmentalism, including its tendencies towards incumbency bias, resource misallocation, and debt. Political responses have often weakened accountability rather than tackling underlying problems. Both in India and elsewhere, the sustainability of new developmentalism appears uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact of Self-Help Group (SHG) participation on the frequency of domestic violence in rural India. The study hypothesizes that SHG participation can raise tensions between married men and women because husbands may perceive some aspects of women's empowerment as a challenge to patriarchal cultural norms. Using household panel data collected in rural Andhra Pradesh in 2004, 2006, and 2007, this article employs double difference methodology with an instrumental variables approach for impact evaluation. The estimation results show that, while SHG participation reduced domestic violence in the short-term, medium-term participation increased the frequency of domestic violence, particularly after women's credit access through SHG participation had improved. This article furthermore reveals that the impact of SHG participation on domestic violence was more pronounced among couples who married with dowry. Spouses who practiced dowry appear to be more susceptible to financial inflow through the wife. HIGHLIGHTS Self-Help Group (SHG) participation impacts the frequency of domestic violence in conflicting ways. Women's SHG participation initially reduces tensions with their husbands. In the medium term, women's access to credit creates conflicts with their husbands. SHG participation alone is not enough to overcome patriarchal practices and structures. Effective gender-advocacy programs should include training to change both women's and men's attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global literature examining the association between mental health of women living with HIV (WLWH) and child development is scarce. In this study, we examined the relationship between mothers' mental health and their children's social development outcomes 6 months later. Data for these analyses come from several waves of interviews of 600 WLWH in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, India. These women were enrolled in a 2 × 2 factorial clinical trial designed to assess the impact of food supplementation and nutrition education, both in addition to ASHA support, on adherence to ART and improved health outcomes for the women and one of their children. They were assessed on food security, stigma, social support, quality of life, depressive symptoms and child development outcomes. Results of longitudinal GEE regression analysis indicate that mother's depressive symptoms were significantly negatively associated with child's social quotient 6 months later. These findings have important implications for targeted health interventions, integrating mental health, both for WLWH and their children in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholarship on "retrospective voting" has found that incumbent politicians can be punished for a range of events outside their control, the literature has paid scant attention to the role of political alignment between the different levels of government in disaster responses and its implications for voting decisions. We argue that retrospective voters punish only opposition incumbents (candidates in office but not aligned with the government leader), who have limited access to government resources for relief, for natural disasters. We use monthly data on precipitation and evaporation to capture droughts and floods in India's four thousand State Assembly electoral constituencies over the years 1977–2007. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that Members of State Assembly from the party of the Prime or Chief Minister do not face an electoral backlash under bad weather conditions during the monsoon season, whereas opposition politicians face major losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, in India was widely contested by both political parties and various civil society formations. Shaheen Bagh, a sit-in protest demonstration which continued for over a hundred days in the nation's capital from mid-December 2019 to late March 2020, occupied the central position within the corpus of these protest demonstrations. The protests at Shaheen Bagh were led by poor, Muslim working-class women, who had come out on the streets protesting and asserting their rights amidst the dominant ruling-class communal politics. The Shaheen Bagh protests were a potent force of the working-class and oppressed minorities of the country. The paper brings in Marxist and Gramscian perspectives to explain how Shaheen Bagh has contributed to Indian left-wing politics. The paper argues that the women in Shaheen Bagh have been successful in bridging the gap between the civil society and political society in the country and has to an extent, altered the very nature of Indian politics. Moreover, the assertive nature of the Muslim women regarding their religion and the support which they garnered from the Indian left, widely accused by many of being Islamophobic in nature, has wide repercussions as far as political and social alliances between the left and Muslim politics in India is concerned. The present paper locates the protest within the notion of subaltern unity and tries to analyse the possible impacts of the support for the protests, within and beyond the anti-CAA protest movement, from the Indian left. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks closely at the relationship between gender and environment in the context of sustainability. It has been seen that without the inclusion of feminist concerns for gender equality, most environment public policy approaches will be incomplete and may even threaten to intensify women's subordination. This is illustrated in this article through a case study from Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, India, wherein local organizations that operate successfully for environmental sustainability and women's financial inclusion do not achieve gender equality due to the chokehold of patriarchy. The article is theoretically situated in Bina Agarwal's idea that differences in attitudes to conservation between genders can stem primarily from the gendered division of economic resources, and the gendered division of labor. The article concludes that the relationship between women and nature in the Global South is a political issue that is fraught with power relations that operate at different scales and through different modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a collaborative project on building citizenship among adolescents and young people in Gujarat, western India, and describes lessons learned from its approaches and strategies. The conceptual framework on which our work relies includes gender, intersectionality, rights, inclusion, and social accountability. In addition to rural, tribal, Dalit, and urban poor young people, the project engages with adolescents and young people living with disabilities and young people from sexual minorities groups. The implementing partners are four community-based NGOs and two collectives: of women living with disabilities and transpersons. The strategies include building a common understanding of the conceptual framework of the project partners' teams, capacity building of peer leaders to mobilise young people in their villages, creating local support systems for adolescents and young people, and engaging with public systems that deliver health and nutrition programmes for adolescents and young people. The paper provides valuable lessons that can contribute to programming and research for adolescents and young people in the context of the 'leave no one behind' maxim of the Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sabah 2020 State Legislative Assembly (DUN) General Election (GE) was held following the declaration of the dissolution of the Sabah State Legislative Assembly by the Yang Dipertua Negeri Sabah at the request of the Chief Minister of Sabah, Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal. He acted in this way because of the endless political game in Sabah by the opposition party in the state which managed to gather a number of Sabah state assemblymen with a simple majority to shift support to the former Chief Minister, Tan Sri Datuk Seri Musa Aman to be appointed as the new Chief Minister. Although the former Chief Minister brought the case of the dissolution of the Sabah State Legislative Assembly to court but in the end the GE of Sabah State Legislative Assembly was still held. This Sabah State Legislative Assembly GE is seen as a test to see the influence of WARISAN-PKR and the Perikatan Nasional (PN) in the situation of the Covic-19 epidemic. The purpose of writing this article to analyze the political influence of ethnic parties based on the Sabah 2020 GE. Based on the analysis of Sabah 2020 GE results data and analysis of secondary sources such as journal articles and conference papers, the findings show that voters support political parties in the GE of Sabah State Legislative Assembly is based on sentiment leadership partisan ethnic namely UMNO (BN) and PN (BERSATU) led by Malays support in the majority ethnic Sabah Malays and Brunei Malay by UMNO and BERSATU leadership and Rungus-Kadazan-Dusun-Murut by STAR and PBS Kadazan-Dusun ethnic leadership while WARISANPKR support in the majority ethnic Bajau by WARISAN Bajau leader and Chinese in urban by Chinese ethnic leaders from DAP and PKR allied with WARISAN. The implication from the writing of this article is that ethnic-based party politics continues to gain the trust of voters as voters are more confident and trust their own ethnic leaders to fight for their destiny in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did the Tang political elite evolve between the seventh and ninth centuries? Using network analysis and a large prosopographic database, this article approaches this question from four perspectives: the marriage network of political elites, the backgrounds of chief ministers, the composition of the capital elite during three time slices, and the makeup of the provincial elite. Despite important continuities in the elite marriage network's basic structure, there were also significant discontinuities. Between the seventh and eighth centuries, Luoyang emerged as a secondary political center, and Luoyang-based families—including so-called "marriage-ban" clans—acquired a renewed significance, partly at the expense of old southern clans, whose political significance declined over the course of the dynasty. In addition, the political divide between capital and provinces grew over time, culminating in the ninth century with capital-based men occupying nearly all significant provincial posts and provincials serving only locally and in second-tier offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his youth, John Reynolds showed a talent for arithmetic and was destined for a career as a mathematician at the Tower Mint in London. He became skilled in the algorithms needed to determine the correct relationship between the weight and purity of coins and their values. This was a matter of national importance, and his work came to the attention of King James I, who reigned from 1603 to 1625, and his chief ministers, including Robert Cecil and Francis Bacon. It seemed that John might attain high office himself, but the murky administration of the early Stuart period cast its shadow over his career. Nevertheless, for the next forty years he continued to play a major part in the nation's affairs. He produced books of tables for the valuation of coins in the commercial world, and for the highly technical work of the assayers. Also, he was actively involved in the production of standard measures and instruments used by the excise officers. His life and works illustrate how mathematical ideas were employed by the English government in the period of the early Stuart kings and the Commonwealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scope of healthy convention in India is very wide despite the detailed, elaborate, and precise drafting of our constitution. Instead of resorting to frequent amendments, we can develop healthy political habits. Healthy conventions are specially required in the center and state relations, appointment of Prime Minister or Chief Minister, and in the electoral process. The present political scenario has blackened to the criminalization of politics and politicization of criminals which is very dangerous for the growth of a country that is against the constitutional mandate of justice social, economic, and political. Good conventions, which have been tested on the time scale, should be maintained in a democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1990s, state governments within India’s federal system have taken a greater interest in foreign relations. They have sought indirect influence by lobbying the central government to take account of their preferences and direct influence by seeking investment and making links with international organizations and other national and subnational governments. This article considers how chief ministers engage in parallel diplomacy noting how they draw on regional cultural resources and make connections with a regionally defined diaspora. The article finds that some chief ministers have embraced the role of “chief diplomat,” while others take a more discreet approach to international activity. Comparing the cases of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu reveals the political logic for expanding, de-emphasizing, or avoiding international engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ndayishimiye, a 54-year-old former army general, gave no reasons for Bunyoni's dismissal, but a week earlier he had warned of a coup plot against his regime. I (© AFP; Iwacu, Bujumbura 7/9) i I Africa Confidential i comments that a deepening political crisis has been averted for now after Ndayishimiye sacked his prime minister Alain Bunyoni and his cabinet chief General Gabriel Nizigama. B The move follows allegations of a coup plot. b President B Evariste Ndayishimiye b replaced his prime minister and a top aide in a high-level political purge on September 7th after warning of a "coup" plot against him. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses several political developments in Australia's Northern Territory (NT) between July 2015 and December 2015. Politician Adam Giles' role as the Chief Minister of the NT is addressed, along with leaked documents which reveal that Country Liberal Party (CLP) members and politicians in the NT had direct involvement with the Foundation 51 nonprofit educational firm. Political corruption in the NT is examined, as well as political donations and various judicial appointments.

An interview with David Tollner, Deputy Chief Minister of Northern Territory is presented. Tollner informs about the contribution of Northern Territory to Australian Defence Force alongwith information on Territory's role in world war second. Tollner states there are some misconception in people's mind regarding the relocation of 7th Royal Australian Regiment to South Australia. Tollner reveals that Territory's small population and its economic growth differentiates it from other states.

This article aims to unravel the rise of Gujarat's current Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his brand of personality politics that has dominated Gujarati politics in the past decade. It uses the legal battle between the eminent sociologist Ashis Nandy and the Government of Gujarat, that unfolded in 2008, as a case study to illustrate the dominant impulses of what has been termed 'Moditva' or the Modi model and its implications. The state-sanctioned prosecution of Ashis Nandy over a newspaper article that criticized the Gujarati middle classes was ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court of India but the legal battle, and the public discourse around it, serves as a useful prism to understand the deeper processes at work within Moditva and the particular brand of authoritarian developmentalism it offers, with little scope for dissent. The legal battle erupted just a few months before a galaxy of India's top industrialists publicly backed Modi as a future prime minister, hailing his excellent developmental record post-2002 and the creation of an investment-friendly climate in Gujarat. At one level, the Nandy case can be read as a straight narrative of an iconic battle for freedom of speech, one in which Gujarat and its politics were once again at the centre of the debate. But the debate about Moditva is also a metaphor for alternative visions for India. Its future trajectory will be decisive not only for the future of Gujarat but equally for the future of the BJP and for the idea of India itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]