Ms. Christina Brian, Vice President/Books (Business, Economics, Political Science & Law) and Mr. William Achauer, Editorial Director (Asia Pacific)/BEPL Books), editorial team from Springer Nature, shared their views on current and future trends and patterns in book publishing during the round table held on 13 Sept, 2019. The Round table was followed by Q & A round where faculty and researchers seeked answers to their publishing related queries on open access journals, pricing, process of publication, minimum standards for publishing etc.

Dr. Lynda Cheshire, Professor of Sociology from The University of Queensland, gave a talk on her paper which addresses the issue of dumping grounds via a case study of Logan city in Australia. She discussed academic and lay discourses around disadvantaged urban areas which often draw on the language of ‘dumping grounds’ to encapsulate the poverty, marginalisation and social problems. The paper identified five constituent features; the perception of people as waste whose fate is to be discarded; the need to accommodate this human ‘waste’ and the logic by which places are selected for this purpose; the mechanisms through which this spatial sorting occurs as problem populations are moved to their ‘rightful’ place; the relations of power which enforce or encourage this mobility; and finally, the reactions of incumbent residents in neighbourhoods that are compelled to host unwanted social groups.

Speaker: Dr.Elisa T. Bertuzzo, Guest Professor, Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin, Germany

Date: 6th April 2018

Abstract: Elisa T. Bertuzzo’s recently published monograph, Archipelagos: from Urbanisation to Translocalisation, is a remarkable collection of storytelling, in nine jatrapala, enriched with graphs, diagrams and mental maps, nine people‐on‐the‐move tell about the multi‐level effects of translocalisation. Through a 15‐month‐long fieldwork spanning three years, the author accompanied circular migrants on their journeys from home places experienced as increasingly temporary and fluctuating to varied worksites in towns, cities, agricultural areas, mines, etc., of Bangladesh, West Bengal and Kerala. Their everyday–life–stories of movement are witnesses to translocalised livelihoods, practices, representations, and mediate haunting lessons of resistance in transforming landscapes. In her lecture, Dr. Bertuzzo presented her findings and relate them to broader discussions on contemporary patterns of mobility and urbanisation in India, proposing a bold hypothesis: under the current historical circumstances, the relations of production of space, livelihoods, values, representations, are not determined by the “urban phenomenon” any longer but by movement. Are we moving towards a completely translocalised society?

Speakers’ Profile: Elisa T. Bertuzzo holds a doctoral degree in Urban Studies from the habitat unit of University of Technology Berlin, Germany. She was a Post‐Doc at the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies of Free University Berlin (2008‐09), researcher at Humboldt University Berlin (2011‐12), associate researcher at University of Technology Berlin (2012‐15) and senior researcher at the Future Cities Lab of Singapore‐ETH‐Centre (2017‐18). Within the framework of her multimedia project Archives of movement, on the livelihoods of circular migrants in Bangladesh and West Bengal, she was affiliated with the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, in 2013. Bridging discourses from the fields of migration and urban studies, Bertuzzo observes everyday life facets of self‐ organisation and empowerment to critically expose political and economic relations in the context of India and Bangladesh. Her texts of poetic‐literary, sociological‐analytic, journalistic‐programmatic nature have appeared in several academic and non‐academic publications. Currently, she is guest professor at the masters programme »Spatial Strategies« of Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin, Germany.

Speaker: Dr. Lorenza Monaco (Ph.D., SOAS), Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, South African Research Chair in Industrial Development, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Date: 20th October, 2017

Abstract: Within what appears a generalised race to the bottom, characterised by a widespread erosion of labour standards and workers’ rights both in the Global North and in the Global South, processes of casualisation and precarisation seem to have touched even what used to be the most protected industrial segments. Not even the auto industry, once stronghold of formal employment relations, unionised workforce and relatively high salaries, has proven to be immune from such trends. This work analyses different ‘shades’ of casualisation in the auto industry, referring to two structurally different contexts: the National Capital Region (NCR, Delhi) in India, and the Gautengauto cluster, in South Africa. Ultimately, by comparing two different industrial settings, forms and degrees of precarisation, and different labour responses, the work also reflects on opportunities and challenges for labour organising.

Speaker’s Profile: Dr. Monaco is a PhD in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where she also taught as a Teaching Fellow in Political Economy of Development. She is a member and organiser for the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE) and has earlier worked for the UNIDO – ITPO Office in Rome, Italy. Her research focuses on industrial development within emerging economies, the automotive industry, and the impact of industrial restructuring on employment.

Speaker: Dr. Karin Astrid Siegman, Senior Lecturer, Labour and Gender Economics, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague, The Netherlands

Date: 7th October, 2017

Abstract: Based on a mixed method comparative study of tea plantations in North and South India, as well as Sri Lanka, the seminar focused on the influence of Fair trade International certification on wages, working conditions and collective agency of tea estate workers. Primary data was generated through focused group discussions, semi-structured key informant interviews and field survey. Preliminary findings showed that Fair trade certification made little difference on wages of tea estate workers. Overall, it did not make a dent in plantation workers’ poor working conditions, either. The seminar tentatively concluded that in order to address the structural causes of plantation labourers’ poverty, workers need to drive the Fair trade agenda more to address power hierarchies on the estate and in the wider tea supply chain. Fair trade, trade unions, workers’ representatives and concerned NGOs should work collectively with the government to counter the trends of globalisation that lead to unequal distribution of gains from trade, while increasing work intensity on plantations to lower labour costs, undermine workers’ standard of living and trade union rights.

Speaker’s Profile: Holding a PhD in Agricultural Economics, Dr. Siegman works as a Senior Lecturer in Labour and Gender Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague, the Netherlands. Dr. Siegman has researched extensively on how precarious workers challenge and change the social, economic and political structures that marginalize labour. She investigated such dynamics in the context of global production networks, global care chains and international migration. Moreover, she conducted research jointly with actors who have a direct stake in progressive social change, such as workers’ and migrants’ organizations. The geographical focus of her work has been South Asia, with Pakistan in particular.

Speaker: Aya Matsuurai, Chief Technical Advisor, ILO

Date: 15th September, 2017

Abstract: The ILO/MAMPU project and IKEA (International furniture brand company) collaborated to carry out a research on “Employment relationships and working conditions in an IKEA rattan supply chain” in 2015. The research sought to examine production processes and arrangements in the IKEA rattan supply chain and methods used by IKEA to implement its code of conduct and assess the impact of the IKEA code of conduct on working conditions in the supply chain. The presentation shared the findings on the working conditions of home workers engaged in the lowest tiers of the IKEA rattan supply chain, and presented recommendations to strengthen labour standards compliance in the supply chain so as to benefit both workers and businesses. The presentation shared the findings on the working conditions of different tiers of suppliers in the supply chain of IKEA rattan furniture including home workers engaged in the lowest tiers of the supply cycle, and presented recommendations to strengthen the labour standards compliance in the supply chain to benefit both workers and businesses.

Speaker’s Profile: Aya Matsuura is the Gender Specialist of the ILO Decent Work Technical Support Team (DWT) for South Asia, based in New Delhi. She provides technical advisory services to seven countries in the sub-region: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Aya has a B.A. in Speech and Communications Studies from San Francisco State University, CA, USA and an MPA in International Management from Monterey Institute of International Studies, CA, USA.

Speaker: Professor Atul Sarma, Visiting Professor, IHD

Date: 5th July, 2017

Abstract: The discussion was on the features, implementation and implications of GST in India at both the Central and State levels.

Speaker’s Profile: Atul Sarma after completing his tenure as a Vice-Chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar joined as Professor of Economics at Institute for Human Development, New Delhi. Previously, he was Professor of Economics and Head, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi Centre., Faculty of Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research, Ahmedabad and a Post-doctoral Fellow at MIT, Cambridge. He was Visiting Professor at a number of universities in India and abroad. He served as an independent Director of Steel Authority of India, Limited., as Economic Adviser to the Eighth and Tenth Finance Commission and as a consultant to international agencies such as ADB, FAO, ESCAP and UNIDO. He was a Member of Technology Development Board, a Member, Assam State Planning Board and Manipur State Planning Board. He was Chairman ICSSR Institutes (South Zone) Review Committee and on various committees constituted by the Union and state governments, and by other agencies such as the Planning Commission, UGC, and ICSSR.He is also Chairman, OKD Institute for Social Change and Development, Guwahati.

Speaker: Dr. Mark Anner, Associate Professor, the Pennsylvania State University

Date: 27th June, 2017

Abstract: The global value chain approach has always assumed some degree of power asymmetry in supply chains (Bair 2009). This imbalance is most noticeable in buyer-driven apparel global supply chains such as apparel (Gereffi 1994). The presentation suggests that this imbalance has grown in recent years due to shifting trade rules, state development policies, buyer consolidation, and supplier dispersion (Abernathy et al. 1999; Anner, Bair, and Blasi 2013; Bonacich and Appelbaum 2000; Gereffi and Frederick 2010). We are now seeing a dramatic ‘sourcing squeeze’ in price, lead times, batch size and a series of other factors imposed by buyers on suppliers. This sourcing squeeze is then transformed into a squeeze on workers in terms of wages, working conditions, and multiple forms of labor control. Empirical findings for this argument are probed through trade and workers’ rights data on 20 top apparel exporting countries and findings from a recent survey of Bangladeshi suppliers. Very initial findings on the Indian garment sector will also be discussed as part of a new research initiative on the sourcing squeeze in India.

Speaker’s Profile: Mark Anner is an Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Relations, and Political Science, and he is also the Director of the Center for Global Workers’ Rights. He directs the School’s Master’s Program in Labor and Global Workers’ Rights, which is a part of the Global Labour University network. He holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies from Stanford University. Dr. Anner’s current research examines how pricing and other sourcing dynamics in global supply chains affect working conditions and workers’ rights. He has researched and written on international labor solidarity, labor law reform in Latin America, strikes in Vietnam, and corporate social responsibility in the global apparel industry. His field research has taken him to El Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Before beginning his academic career, he lived in Latin America for eleven years where he worked with labour unions and a research center and he has advised the international solidarity section of the Norwegian Trade Union Confederation.

Speaker: Janine Rodgers, Senior Visiting Fellow IHD

Date: 8th April, 2017

Abstract: “Feminisation of agriculture” is a catchphrase that refers to the greater reliance of agricultural production on female work accompanying the move of male labour from agriculture towards more remunerative non-farm activities. As the Bihar economy has not been able to create enough employment opportunities to absorb the surplus labour spilling over from villages, every year millions of Bihari men leave their villages to work for shorter or longer periods in other states, leaving their spouses and children behind. Male migration has been the major driver of change in the village dynamics. The role of women in farming, agricultural labour, and management of livestock has increased but is not always acknowledged. Patriarchal norms and structures constrain their access to economic, social and political resources such as land, extension services, etc. The analysis of the gendered processes involved relies on primary data collected in villages of North and South Bihar over four decades.

Speaker’s Profile: Janine Rodgers is a development economist, specializing in gender and labour market issues. She has qualification from Paris, Sussex and Geneva universities and experience of working with International Labour Office, and also been Deputy Executive Secretary of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI). She has been conducting research in rural Bihar since the 1970s and is currently Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi. She has co-authored several articles on Bihar published in Economic and Political Weekly and the Journal of Development Studies as well as the book “The Challenge of Inclusive Development in Rural Bihar.

Speaker: Prof.Saumya Chakrabarti, Associate Professor of Economics, Visva-Bharati (Central University), Santiniketan

Date: 27th February 2017

Speaker: Prof. Geof Wood, Emeritus Professor, University of Bath

Date: 16th March 2017

Speaker: Dr. Ambar Zahara, Consultant, Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), New Delhi

Date: 26th August 2016

Speaker: Alice W. Clark, Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley Extension

Date: 18th February 2015

Presentation Abstract: Commonly demography analyzes large datasets to establish rates of basic life events for a population. This research is unique in its experiments with very small- scale, face to face research with women. This approach can be called qualitative social de- mography and is used here to historically understand the lived experience of women, their choices and constraints and their impact on the prevalent mode of social reproduction.

Using a feminist lens, the demographic events can be charted over time to the present. Women’s lives are defined by three quarters of all the most basic life course events i.e. be- ing born, giving birth and dying. Women’s lives and deaths define population parameters; fertility and mortality together create the rates of population change, whether of growth or of decline. Hence women’s lives, their goals, thoughts, hopes and disappointments should be central to the study of demography. However, women have been abstracted in demography and only rather general variables are considered in trying to explain changes in their fertility and mortality, or their marriage and migration.

One of the drivers of modernization theory is female autonomy. To better comprehend the changing motivations of women and the actual elements of female autonomy, a more nuanced approach than modernization theory is required. Ethnographies of demography and social behaviour at highly disaggregated levels like villages, neighbourhoods, castes, tribes, and religious groups are more suitable.

Speaker: Dr. Neeraj Kaushal, Associate Professor and Chair of the Doctoral Program at Columbia University, School of Social Work, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, USA, and a Research Fellow at IZA, Germany

Date: 14th January 2015

Presentation Abstract: This research studies the effect on nutrition of an exogenous increase in food grain subsidy in rural India resulting from a program targeting the poor. The analysis suggests that an increase in income resulting from the food price subsidy changed consumption patterns in favour of subsidised grains and certain more expensive sources of calories. There is a simultaneous reduction in the consumption of coarse grains which are cheaper and are inferior sources of nutrition. But this had no effect on calorie, protein and fat intake in poor households. Further, it showed that households allocated part of the increased income from food price subsidy to expenditures on non-food items. Estimates of the price effect of food price subsidy on the three measures of nutrition are also negligible. The evidence reveals that the price decline of wheat and rice, changed consumption patterns towards increased intake of wheat and rice and lower consumption of coarse grains, the unsubsidised staple food. Finally the analysis demonstrates that food price subsidies are likely to affect agriculture markets without impacting nutrition.

Speaker: Professor Jacqueline Bhabha, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health & Director of Research, Francois-Xavier Bag- noud Centre for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University

Date: 8th January 2015

Presentation Abstract: This presentation underlines the challenges presented due to the quality of education, despite the fact that access to education is necessary but not a sufficient condition to address and improve life chances. The research emphasis is par- ticularly on the various key players of the education sector and the role of educational

policies. The quality of education is indicative of and influences the future chances and opportunities of a child. Further, the nuances and intricacies involved are fundamental in the understanding of the agency of a child. Relationship between age and agency play a role in defining the nature of choices and the factor of age denies the embedded nature of agency in the actor.

Speaker: Professor Dev Nathan Professor, Institute for Human Development & Visiting Research Fellow, Duke University

Date: 11th July 2014

Presentation Abstract: The presentation is based on a study of 20 manufacturing firms in the Northern (NCR), Eastern (Kolkata and Ranchi) and Southern (Chennai) regions of India. it looks at the changes in labour practices within the ambit of existing labour laws. The study identifies some forms of emerging labour practices that seem to provide ben- efits to both employers and workers. It establishes a connection between labour practices and firm strategy, as manifested in the the automotive sector struggles in the Gurgaon- Manesar region where the institutional structure, workers’ associational power and labour market conditions, were the factors at play. After summarizing the main findings of the empirical investigation, the presentation places them within an analytical framework that relates employment systems to firm strategies and capabilities.

Speaker: Professor Arjun Singh Bedi, Professor of Development Economics, Internation- al Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam

Date: 5th August 2014

Presentation Abstract: In recent years there has been a proliferation of Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) schemes designed to enhance access to modern health

care services and provide financial protection to workers in the informal and rural sectors. In June 2011, the Government of Ethiopia introduced a pilot CBHI scheme in the rural parts of the country. This paper assesses the impact of the scheme on utilization of mod- ern health care and the cost of accessing health care. It adds to the relatively small body of work that has evaluated such schemes in a rigorous manner. It finds that the enrolment leads to a 30 to 41 per cent increase in utilization of outpatient care at public facilities,

a 45 to 64 per cent increase in the frequency of visits to public facilities and at least a 50 per cent decline in the cost per visit to public facilities. The effects of the scheme on out- of-pocket spending are not as clear. The impact on utilization and costs combined with a high uptake rate of almost 50 percent within two years of scheme establishment, suggests that this scheme has the potential to meet the goal of universal access to health care.

Speaker: Professor Atul Sarma, Chairman, OKDISCD, Guwahati and Visiting Professor, IHD

Date: 19th August 2014

Presentation Abstract: In recent years, social protection programmes have found a place in the agenda of many governments. Generally, what is widely discussed is the fiscal im- plications of social protection measures but its economic effect on output, employment, income and revenue are often neglected. This has motivated the present study which evaluates the economic impact of a few major social protection programmes launched in India using the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) framework. In the present exercise, a 32- sector SAM for India for year 2007-08 has been constructed. The household cat- egories are based on expenditure classes.The study has computed output, employment, income and revenue impacts of the government expenditure made on three select social security measures by the Government of India, viz. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) and National So- cial Assistance Programmes Programmes (NSAP) in 2011-12 by using SAM framework. The exercise reveals that these programmes have significant impact on output, income across class and locale, sectoral employment and government revenue generation.