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Background: To advance occupational therapy knowledge and practice in Southeast Asia, it is pivotal that quality master’s degree programs in occupational therapy are in place. Such a program must respond to the needs of the region in terms of occupational therapy education, practice, and scholarship. By recognizing the diversity of the occupational therapy education and training in the region, it has become possible to consider alternatives in establishing a graduate program in occupational therapy through partnerships and consortia. In order to make an informed decision to decide whether co-creating a master’s program in occupational therapy through an international consortium within the region is possible or not, a needs assessment is warranted. Objectives: To describe the profile of occupational therapists living and working in the Southeast Asian region who would like to pursue a master’s degree in occupational therapy via an international consortium. Materials and methods: An online survey design was used to produce data that would be used to inform the co-creation of an international master’s program in occupational therapy. The survey questionnaire was designed specifically for this study and included three sections: 1) information and consent form; 2) demographic information; and 3) information about the need for and preferences on a master’s program in occupational therapy. Participants were recruited through professional organizations and various social media platforms of national and international occupational therapy groups. Results: Eighty-five final-year occupational therapy students and 143 occupational therapists from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and other countries completed the survey. Majority (62%) of the respondents was interested in pursuing a master’s degree in occupational therapy because they perceived that an advanced degree can enable specialization in practice, promote personal and professional development, and help generate new

For all the complexities of India's politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to have his economic path cut out for him. His 'Achche din aane waale hein' (good days are coming) campaign, which had won him a resounding election victory in 2014 for his first term, suggested that Modi's primary goal was growth and development for his country and people, and hence also an agenda of economic reform. Focusing specifically on India's negotiations in the context of the WTO, I show in this paper that India has continued to hold on to its former trade policy priorities and negotiation positions and adopted even more hard-line positions in some cases. Interestingly though, the same policy priorities and negotiation patterns that had ill-served India in the past may now no longer be a liability. This is only in part a credit to the Modi administration per se. Rather, it is mainly due to the rise of the phenomenon of "weaponized interdependence", which in turn legitimizes - sometimes even necessitates - the securitization of foreign economic policy, and more specifically, trade politics. Taken in this changing context and as other countries also adopt a more market - cautionary approach, India's historic and oft - reviled trade scepticism and reluctance to integrate in global value chains may yet allow it to have the last rhetorical laugh.

This article explores the consequences major power rivalries over connectivity investments have for small states in Asia and thereby contributes to a better understanding of small states' strength and capabilities in an increasingly multipolar world. With reference to the literature on small states, field work, and interviews, the article explores Bangladesh's remarkable success in reaping the benefits from relations with rivalling major powers over the past decade. Three explanatory factors stand out: first, Bangladesh's 'intrinsic' value to major powers increased; second, its political leadership has been particularly adept in dealing with such major powers; and third, systemic factors - the number and kind of major powers with stakes in Bangladesh - has been beneficial. Thus, Bangladesh's foreign policy responses suggest that the competitive nature of connectivity investments substantially improves the autonomy of recipient countries. Moreover, contrary to theoretical expectations, the intensification of major power rivalry so far has not constrained Bangladesh's autonomy. Thus, the case study also exhibits infrastructure investments' limitations as a power resource. Nonetheless, the potentially most beneficial cooperation schemes involving rivalling major powers have become less likely. Consequently, the case study dampens incipient hopes in turning competing connectivity schemes into major power positive-sum games.

Gender based violence (GBV) is a heinous crime that Pakistani society is facing. To deal with this menace, both the government and non-governmental organizations have taken steps at various levels to improve police service delivery, competence-building and awareness-raising on GBV, establish women’s shelters, establish women’s development and welfare units in district welfare departments, and open helplines. However, these initiatives are limited, scattered and lack coordination. Our research aims to understand how the introduction of ICT might improve both competence on GBV and the coordination of the mechanisms dealing with GBV. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted in-depth interviews of relevant actors involved in the process of dealing with GBV. Our research findings show that GBV is a deeply rooted and complex structural phenomenon that requires a well-planned, well-coordinated and politically driven strategy. While ICT has the potential to improve competence of stakeholder and processes of reporting, mitigating and preventing GBV, access to technology by rural women is limited. It is therefore important that technological innovations take account of contextual constraints and opportunities.

Youth are the backbone of any nation, and they are decisive in its development or destruction. A considerable portion of the population in both Afghanistan and Pakistan consists of youth. This paper discusses the impacts of unemployment, poverty, drug abuse, corruption, conflicts, and extremism on the experiences of young people in these countries. Vulnerabilities can become risk factors that, in turn, can increase the likelihood of youth being involved with the police. Although vulnerability and insecurity are common to both young women and men, girls and young women face additional challenges that increase their vulnerability to insecurities, such as gender-based violence. This article details how livelihood and personal insecurities are closely intertwined and further considers how these insecurities involve the police in one way or another. It argues that local community-oriented police initiatives and civil society organisation contributions can increase cooperation between youth and law enforcement agencies in addressing these challenges in a collaborative and trustful manner.

The literature on the decline of democracy and the causes of democratic backsliding primarily emphasize domestic factors as causal variables for the worsening quality of democracy. However, analysis on the extent to which external factors influence democratic backsliding is largely neglected. My paper attempts to grapple with this lacuna, by looking into the effects of terrorism, as a causal variable of democratic backsliding. I hypothesize that increased casualties out of terrorism result in change in the quality of democracy subsequently leading to backsliding. The study of democratic backsliding has mainly concentrated on Europe and Latin America, and to some extent, on South-east Asia. This research delves deep into the South Asian region to understand the impact of terrorism on the quality and stability of democracies and hence, forms my case study. All seven states that this region is comprised of - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka along with all cases of terrorism, within the period 1970-2017 come within the purview of this research. South Asia features within the top five regions of the IPE Global Terrorism Database as the acute sufferer of terrorism, both domestic and international. Operationalizing terrorism in terms of the count of casualties that resulted from various acts of terror, I specifically hypothesize that increased terrorism result in change in the quality of democracy subsequently leading to backsliding.

After years of mandatory remote education, there is still a question that remains to be answered: "Is the online medium inclusive enough to be deemed a solution?" As classrooms relocate to online environments and pedagogies rely on technologies, it becomes imperative to ensure that no one is left behind and education remains accessible to every learner. The issue of the universality of access to technological resources in India mingles with various socio-economic disparities that hinder the successful implementation of online education. This chapter attempts to analyze and bring forward the factors that may contribute to the stark contrasts regarding the practicality of the online education scene in India, including accessibility, gender, socio-economic factors, and policy issues. In mitigating the impact of an educational disruption (e.g., global health crisis) as well as the future adoption of online instruction, this chapter summarized the topics that need addressing into themes: content understanding, learning outcomes, technological, pedagogical, and behavioral.

This article examines the construction of gender agendas in left-wing populist movements that mobilise for armed struggle, by focusing on the case of the Maoist movement in Nepal. Feminist scholarship has highlighted how left-wing populism, when appealing to a generalized "people", tend to produce homogenizing discourses that erase inequalities and difference, even when such movements integrate a gender dimension. Examining the trajectory of the Maoist movement over time, we argue that this 'sameness' may become contested and utilized by women participating in the lower echelons of the movement, as the political reality shifts from conflict to post-conflict context. As our main contribution, we develop a bi-directional approach that employs the concept of collective identity and allows us to examine the construction of populist agendas as a two-way interaction between the leadership of a movement and its grass roots supporters. Through this approach we show how the gender dimension was not merely a bi-product but central to both the construction of the Maoist movement's war time 'progressive' identity, and the fragmentation of this identity and the movement’s populist appeal in the post-conflict context.

India and China share a complex bilateral relationship, consisting of military confrontations, diplomatic dialogues, and intense economic activities, concurrent with multilateral engagements. Their growth prospects and future visions set them on a path of intense competition. Also, China's consistent growth to become a major player in the global arena poses many strategic challenges to India’s growth story. The foremost challenge is that China poses a direct military threat to India, due to its rapidly modernising military forces, as well as the bloody history of India-China territorial disputes. Second, China's burgeoning economic muscle affords it the luxury of shaping world opinion in its favour and to India’s detriment. This factor is compounded by China's influence on international bodies like the UN and financial institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which may impinge on India's national interests. Coupled with this is the consistently expanding Chinese influence in South Asia, directly challenging India’s dominant position in the region. This commentary examines the challenges that India faces from China and further evaluates possible strategic options for India.

Compared to other cross-national surveys, the religion-modules of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) include a larger number of indicators on individual religiosity and thus allow for more differentiated analyses of cross-national differences. In this paper, we use these findings to point out in which ways the forms and development of religiosity differ between the major religious cultures of the world. In order to have a sufficient number of cases for all geographical macro-regions, three data sources were used: ISSP 2018 data from 37 countries, the 2018 Templeton survey that fielded ISSP 2018 survey questions in another 10 non-European countries, and data from the ISSP 2008 religion module for 10 countries that did not participate in ISSP 2018. The comparison covers three dimensions: religious affiliation and non-affiliation, private and public forms of religious practice, and different types of religious beliefs. In the final section, we discuss what conclusions can be drawn from the results with regard to the secularization thesis, i.e., the assumption that socioeconomic modernization leads to a decline in individual religiosity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant policy challenges in developing countries, where operational resources and policy capacity are limited. Yet, some developing countries have fared better than others, and part of this success seems to be attributable to the use of prudent policy instruments within a policy mix that exhibits coherence. This article presents a COVID-19 case study of Pakistan and considers the following aspects of Pakistan's policy mix: (1) polio and rural support infrastructure deployed for COVID-19 detection and awareness-creation; (2) the establishment of a national command and operation center (NCOC) to centralize real-time decision-making; (3) the use of the largest income support program to generate a targeted pro-poor stimulus; and (4) optimally targeted (smart) lockdowns. The findings suggest that developing countries can adjust sound policy responses to pandemic conditions despite their resource constraints, by calibrating extant policy instruments and mobilizing new ones within a coherent policy mix.

Peace and tranquillity in the Himalayas are essential for India’s security and cordial relations with China. This has been a long-standing understanding of the Indian government and was also stressed and reiterated by the Indian officials during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to India in March 2022. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said that relations between the two countries cannot be normal unless there is total disengagement of forces by China. He reminded China to respect treaties and agreements signed between the two countries on border-related issues.1 A peaceful and stable border is relevant for not only the Indian Himalayas but also for the Himalayan countries having common borders and border-related issues with China.

The physical map of the Indian subcontinent depicts an integrated landmass, bounded by the Pamirs/ Hindukush to the North West and the Himalayas to the North, with the Patkai Range, Naga, and Chin Hills forming a natural border between India’s North-Eastern states and Myanmar. The ends of the Indian Peninsula are bounded by the seas in three directions. This article attempts to review important aspects of the continuously evolving India-Bangladesh relationship - as Bangladesh, today with the second largest GDP in South Asia, journeys through its fifty-first year as an independent nation.

This paper explores the new alternative politics popularised by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as an antidote to the conventional politics that plague Indian democracy. It locates this politics not in an already constituted framework like other caste-, community- and class-based political parties, but as a performative construct articulated through the symbols of the broom, the muf-fler and the Wagon R. Contrary to the understanding that AAP leaders are fully evolved com-mon men, it is proposed that their commonness was a product of these symbols. These repre-sentational devices are made to resonate among the people through a carefully orchestrated spectacle of de-elitisation. This process involves both disavowal of the elite Self and a kind of reverse mimicry of an irrational other. It is this strategy that successfully converts administra-tors, academics, lawyers, etc. into appearing as one of the common people. The paper argues that the characteristic features of the common man found among AAP leaders are not natural conditions but manifestations of what may be called self-othering.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the problematics that the neighbourhood states face, their fault lines, and how they affect the peace and stability in South Asia in general and towards India in particular. The analysis of the same would lead us to define India's strategic outlook and decision-making. It would hence be necessary to cast India's Strategic outlook in relation to the conceptualisation of the term National Interest, the emerging global order and the fault lines in the new Global Order, and a brief understanding of the phenomenon of nuclear proliferation, collapse of Communism and keeping in mind Huntington's postulation of the clash of civilisation and its aftereffects as we see in the 21st century.

This article examines the emerging political and social mobilisation of Rohingya women activists in connection with the forced displacement of nearly a million Rohingya from the Rakhine state of Myanmar in August 2017. In exile, a promising number of Rohingya women have become actively engaged in social and political domains that have been historically male-dominated. The findings reveal how the internationalisation and the considerable global attention to the Rohingya refugee crisis have provided the space to navigate traditional gender roles and created an opportunity for Rohingya women to become important civic actors in this relatively nascent diaspora. Varying levels of education, age, technical and linguistic skills, along with diverse opportunities offered by the host countries, impact the (in)ability of Rohingya refugee women to play their part in diaspora activism.

"Elites and Aristocracy in Colonial and Postcolonial Sri Lanka" attempts to answer two major questions: First, what is an "elite" and how can we define one? Concentrating on aristocracy and with reference to Georg Simmel, I will describe forms of social and cultural self-aggrandisement and self-construction, which have served many elites as a model and ideal type for emulation and further development. My second question is: How did the Sinhalese up-country Kandy aristocracy in Sri Lanka react to British, colonial change and how did it interact with newly emerged and much more numerous low-country elites? This interaction will be described as a process of political marginalisation of the Kandy aristocracy and of cultural emulation on the part of the new low-country and Colombo elites.

This article looks at the emergence of the Kalakshetra sari as an object of consumption for the Indian nationalist elite in the 1930s within the context of the Theosophical Movement, preoc-cupations with the role of women in public life, and the material culture practices of colonial South India. The Kalakshetra School of dance and music, founded by Rukmini Devi Arundale, is considered a leading institution in the classicisation of the performing arts to promote pan-In-dian nationalism. This article looks at the way discourses on female attire, women's cultural role in society and middle-class nationalism were shaped by the Kalakshetra School through its strategic use of colour and design in the Kalakshetra sari. The visual-material atmosphere the sari created and inhabited off-stage reinforced the aesthetics and classicism of on-stage perfor-mances. In the process, the Kalakshetra sari became part of the visual palette of elite national-ism in colonial and post-colonial Madras/Chennai.

The Indian Space domain capability can be expanded in the South Asian Neighbourhood for offering solutions in the ISR, communication, Meteorology, Navigation, Guest Astronauts for the Human space flight programme and space infrastructure building. India's South Asian communication satellite launched in 2017 was one such initiative leveraging the space capability for diplomatic outreach and developing the new space services market for Indian enterprises. The Indian Military has a strategic and friendly relationship with the neighbouring militaries and now the time has come to upgrade the existing security cooperation through Military Diplomacy and believe in the dictum of India's 'Neighbourhood First Policy'. India's growth is tethered to a secure and well-governed South Asia and the emerging space market is one of the sunshine sectors which like India's outreach to evolve the digital payments ecosystem can also be employed to improve the cooperation in South Asia.

Until recently, India's wealthy were held in contempt and perceived with suspicion both by the general public and the media; newspaper articles about the greedy rich and their excesses pro-liferated. However, following the global financial crisis of 2008, magazines like Forbes India began aggressively pushing the idea of the generous and caring Indian business elites, a "force of good"; annual events such as the Forbes sponsored Philanthropy Awards and art and fashion galas for a good cause became popular and the notion of philanthrocapitalism was embraced by the elite. It is argued here that behind this development is a particular convergence of underly-ing legitimation crises, the first within the realm of business and the second within the realm of fashion and the arts. These then force the two realms into collaboration in a pursuit of the com-mon goal of social legitimacy, accumulation of symbolic capital and (re)production of the pow-er mystique of the elite. The article is grounded in extensive ethnographic fieldwork among the North Indian business and fashion elite, from 2008-2013.

Transformation is apparent in Nepal, a country that underwent a decade of civil war 1996-2006, abolished the monarchy to become a republic in 2007, agreed on a new constitution in 2015 and is currently struggling to implement federalism. Decentralisation and minority repre-sentation are being put on the political agenda alongside efforts to rebuild infrastructure dam-aged through two major earthquakes. Beyond this, Nepal appears to have developed into South Asia's beacon of gender equality. Since 2016 Nepal has had a woman president, a woman chief justice and a woman speaker of parliament. Implementing a quota of 33 per cent women in politics, women politicians now come from a great variety of backgrounds reflecting Nepal's ethnic, cultural, regional and educational diversity. This study takes the entry of 197 female members into the constituent assembly of Nepal in 2008 as a baseline to study the transforma-tion of "patriarchy" and its impact on the heterogeneous group of women politicians in high office in Nepal.

The border incident that took place in the Galwan Valley on June 15th and resulted in casualties - the first in over forty-five years - has severely deteriorated relations between India and China and caught analysts and policymakers off guard. The incident marks the end of the diplomatic phase commonly referred to as "the Wuhan spirit" or "the Wuhan consensus." Initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017 and consisting of a series of summits with the Chinese President Xi Jinping, the purpose of “the Wuhan spirit” was to reset relations between the two countries, stabilize the border areas, and focus on issues of common interest. It is unclear what China was attempting to achieve by unnecessarily antagonizing a neighbor large enough to balance against its rise, but that was also willing to build a stable and pragmatic relationship at a time when Beijing is facing an increasingly challenging international environment. Going forward, India will most likely continue to invest in issue based coalitions by strengthening security and defense cooperation with a number of like-minded middle powers.

Since the toppling of the Taliban regime in late 2001, Afghanistan has been experiencing a democratic centralized governance system established jointly by the Afghan elites and the international community. It was hoped that the centralized system would overcome the ethnically motivated problems, stabilize the country, and strengthen institution-building. However, it seems that the system has not been very successful in containing the issue of ethnic politics and bringing stability. The country is likely to witness new changes in the political and social dimensions after a possible peace deal with the Taliban. While such a deal is likely to end the war with the Taliban, it might also spark new social disputes and problems. As has been asked by Thomas Barfield, "how you can compromise with the Taliban if whoever controls Kabul sets the rules." Taliban, as a conservative fundamentalist religious group, will with all certainty not accept all or even most of the democratic values gained in the past years, and the liberal parts of society presumably intends to object the strict rules and regulations that the Taliban are likely to demand. Therefore, to avoid possible conflicts, a form of post-peace deal system has to be designed in such a way that all segments of society are able to live the way they want. Such a system has to be decentralized in that whoever controls Kabul must not set all the rules, except at the national level. The solution this policy brief suggests is to decentralize Afghanistan via a federal model in which the people feel self-governed and set the rules for themselves at the local level while also obeying the rules set by the national government for the sake of national issues.

While accountability has gained significant traction within the contemporary discourse on disaster governance, what it means and takes to be 'doing accountability' in promoting democratic governance of disasters remain scantly understood. Using the concept of social accountability and drawing on an ethnographic case study of a civil society-led accountability campaign in post-earthquake Nepal (the Mobile Citizen Help Desk, or MCHD), this article shows how MCHD sought to amplify local voices regarding failures in aid delivery and expanded opportunities for dialogue between disaster-affected communities and local powerholders. It highlights the potential of such initiative in safeguarding and promoting the rights of disaster-affected communities, while also helping overcome the post-disaster environment of mistrust, unfounded allegations and power inequalities. The article also draws attention to the challenges facing such an initiative. It shows that the effectiveness of such efforts in translating citizens' voices into state response was undermined by: (i) its incorporation into a donor-driven humanitarian accountability initiative, in which generating and reporting feedback to donors proved more pressing than amplifying citizen voice; and (ii) unclear structures of governance at the local level of service delivery, which impeded the civil society actors' aim to engage with 'the right authority'. The article draws attention to the political potential of social accountability in a post-disaster context, while also raising caution that such activism is unlikely to succeed in holding powerholders to account in the absence of supportive national bureaucratic and international aid structures.

The purpose of this study was to see whether the Taliban regime poses a threat to the international community. The research primarily examined the threats that the formation of a theocratic regime in Afghanistan poses to neighboring countries and the international community. With regards to research methods, a document analysis method was used to obtain valid information and to analyze and describe the complex situation in Afghanistan. A wide array of documents and scholarly articles were analyzed to obtain reliable and objective information. This research revealed that the Taliban has not changed at all and still rules Afghanistan with medieval methods and strategies. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the economic situation has deteriorated considerably and people face severe hardship. Therefore, hundreds of thousands of Afghans want to leave their homeland and migrate to the West. The Taliban violates constantly human rights and discriminates against women, ethnic and religious minorities. The Taliban has transformed Afghanistan into a narco-state. Neighboring countries fear that Afghanistan might become a hotbed of terrorism and extremism again.

South Asia is one of the most unstable and volatile regions of the world and stands second least peaceful region out of nine regions that were evaluated by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). The ranking of the peacefulness of most of the South Asian countries is also rather low. In a developing country like India, the economic cost of violence at 5 percent of its GDP is too high. The causes of internal conflicts can be attributed to factors like ineffectiveness of the governance systems, sub-nationalism, deprivations, discrimination, social injustice, ethnic, sectarian, and religious polarisation, socio-economic exclusion, identity crisis, and competition for fast depleting crucial resources. These conflicts manifest in the form of insurgencies, terrorism, low-intensity armed conflicts, civil wars, and related political violence. There is a definite relationship between terrorism and internal armed conflicts, as both generally follow near similar contours. The terrorists have tried to destroy the very idea of India - democratic, secular, growth-oriented economy, excellence in IT and industry. Almost all elements of national power have a role - direct or indirect - on matters of national security, to suppress internal armed conflicts, and finally to resolve them. The legitimate aspirations and grievances of the people must be identified region-wise and addressed with a sense of urgency. The Government needs to formulate a comprehensive National Security Strategy (CNSS), to give a definite direction to the role of each element of national power in the short and long term, and minimize its economic cost of violence.

In the era of Fourth Industrial Revolution, technology has transformed the ways of doing any business, including warfare. The human element is slowly giving way to machines who would perform major functions including substituting and supplementing rank and file in the Military. Over 22,500 km of India’s frontiers are guarded by various Border Guarding Forces including the Coast Guards to prevent surprise incursions by the adversaries’ State, State-sponsored or Non- State Actors. The Border Guarding Forces act as eyes and ears of the frontiers and can take on basic defensive actions for which colossal manpower is used. For a Military threat, Regular Forces take over the responsibility for the Defense of the Nation. There is a case for optimizing manpower and increasing efficiency by bringing smart systems in delivering constant situational awareness and response solutions. This would also ensure that all stakeholders are networked in real-time. A combination of sensors, electronic and digital platforms, Data and Communication centers, using Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial means, would build a ‘system of systems for Common Operational Picture at Strategic, Operational and Tactical levels. Data/intelligence analysis and automation would be possible if such systems are ubiquitous and part of the overall National security apparatus. The smart frontiers would soon be an inescapable necessity for the Defense of the nation.

Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), part of Pakistan occupied Kashmir, is swiftly ascending on the geopolitical horizon in the wake of coveted China Pakistan Economic Corridor being built through it. Given India’s strident reservations on CPEC based on its extant claim on the region, GB has gained considerable focus in the India-Pakistan equations as well. GB represents a stark reality that stares at India’s broader quest against burgeoning Sino- Pakistan nexus on its periphery. The paper relooks at India-Pakistan dynamics-bilateral and geopolitical through the lens of GB while listing out India’s approach, position, and implications vis-à-vis GB.

Terrorism has emerged as one of the major challenges for the Eurasian regional peace, security, and cooperation. Keeping these challenges in perspective, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was established to eliminate the menace of terrorism, fundamentalism, and secessionism. Against this background, the main objectives of this paper are to examine how terrorism emerged as a major determining factor in the Indo-Pak relations and how the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), was failed to play its effective role in the Indo-Pak conflict given the Pulwama terror attack. For this research, descriptive and analytical methods were used and the data was collected from secondary sources. The major findings of this article are that terrorism has emerged as one of the major determinants of Indo-Pak relations and the same has become a major challenge for the SCO to resolve the issue. Against the background of terror attacks, it was anticipated that the SCO would play a crucial role to pacify the situation. However, the role played by the SCO in this situation proved marked as a Whack-a-Mole.

Contrary to popular discourse, the threats emanating from the internal security issues pose serious security threats to the Indian state and its people. Faced with numerous internal security challenges, the Indian experience of dealing with them has been a mixed experience. Arguably, no other country has ever faced such multiple internal security threats, in various forms and intensity than the Indian state. While the threat perception emanating from the internal security challenges has de-escalated over the last few years, they refuse to die down. Considering the immediacy of the issue, this paper critically engages with the contemporary internal security challenges that the Indian state encounters. In doing so the paper reflects upon the very process through which each of these internal security threats operates and highlights the nature and the intensity of threat perception. Through providing a conceptual framework, the paper also evaluates the state's responses to the internal security issues. The paper limits its scope to four major internal security issues in India: The Left-Wing Extremism (LWE), the violent conflicts in the Northeastern states, Separatism and terrorism in Jammu, and Kashmir (J&K), and communal violence and religious radicalization.

Defence Diplomacy is an integral part of foreign policy and state security, it helps in increasing military cooperation between the countries and strengthening relations between the states. India’s growing global outreach and vibrancy of its foreign policy can be gauged by the fact that it has made substantial efforts in defence and security cooperation, however, India’s defence diplomacy efforts do not commensurate to its rising global status, since all tools of defence diplomacy have not been used optimally. In this context, the paper argues for the need to revisit and formulate a strategy that is aligned with India’s foreign policy. It is because defence diplomacy is vital for a state to not only ensure its stable and strong international position but is also significant in shaping a structured and functional security policy.

Purpose: The quality of vocational education and training (VET) processes plays an important role in international education policies and research. In India, issues of quality came into focus in recent years due to an increased demand for skilled workers, and continuing challenges in the area of quality of VET. Existing quality assurance mechanisms of VET in India are characterised by a lack of comprehensiveness and uniform standards. This paper addresses the contextualised development of an Indian-specific approach for quality measurement. It centres on following research question: Which quality areas, criteria and related indicators are of relevance for measuring quality comprehensively? Approach: Design-based research substantiates the research objective, which is to develop a model that is theoretically and technically sound, as well as adapted to the national context. The question of how to create "cultural-fit" was essential for the research process illustrated in this paper. Starting point for the development of the approach was to build a structured review, and following analysis, with reference to existing models and approaches to quality management. The initial search examined national and international academic sources for quality management in business and education, as well as governmental sources for quality management strategies in VET. A significant number of models were selected, based on inclusion criteria, and these models were aggregated to provide a source for a first own conception of an approach. Results: Quality dimensions and criteria were collected and identified with reference to distribution across models. In total, seven major quality areas are identified, namely Institutional Sphere and Context; Personnel; Educational Planning, Provision and Assessment; Learning and Teaching; Leadership and School Management; Industry Linkage and Learner Achievements. In addition, 40 quality criteria are determined under these major quality fields, and

Many have argued that supporting women’s leadership is an important pathway to women’s empowerment. However, there is still a need for better understanding of how women become leaders, particularly at the grassroots level, and how they support social change. This article explores women’s leadership as part of a grassroots microfinance organisation, Rojiroti. Through interviews and focus group discussions, it finds that Rojiroti’s women leaders were motivated to become leaders to create better opportunities for their families and communities, and that they lead in line with frameworks of transformative leadership by supporting relationship building, by facilitating and guiding knowledge transfer and by providing space for reflection and skills for action (Wakefield, 2017). In particular, their situated knowledge was essential for inspiring shared vision for challenging unequal power relations. Overall, better understanding their leadership, that particularly nurtures relationships and collaboration, due to their position as being from the social groups they sought to support, is critical to the current challenges facing interventions and activism that seek to promote women’s empowerment and contribute to social change.