Feature Article

The General Agreement on Trade in Services does impose limits on many developing countries’ ability to regulate the financial sector. A response to the article “Regulatory Freedom under GATS: Financial Services Sector” which argued otherwise.

Gender has not been fully integrated into the mainstream of either the infrastructure debate or the debate on transport services. This article attempts to locate gender in public transport through an ethnographic study of the Delhi Metro services. Delhi Metro has not only promised women comfortable travel but has also provided private space for them in public transport. Thus a distinct power dynamics has been created, which has reproduced or transformed the internalised meaning of public space for women.

Over the years, research on women in the fisheries moved from a framework of political economy to a framework of political ecology. This meant that analyses shifted away from labour, production relations and surplus value extraction typically grounded in Marxian modes of analysis, in favour of those focused on environmental sustainability, livelihood sustainability and a discourse on poverty. During this period, women’s labour has been mobilised at an unprecedented scale and concentrated in the most exploitative jobs to fuel economic growth in fisheries.

The resettlement packages offered to slum dwellers in Mumbai not only violate their right to shelter but also lead to deterioration in their quality of life. There is an urgent need to calculate the cost of repeated demolitions that push slum dwellers to the city’s outer limits against that of acknowledging their right to housing.

The main reason for the continued low use of quality seed has been inadequate access. Though the private sector has taken a lead in harnessing technological innovation in some segments, it has concentrated on particular types of seed. It has also occasionally supplied spurious and low quality seeds and charged exorbitant prices. There is, thus, a strong need to promote competition, strengthen the role of the public sector and encourage investment in seed production.

In Sikkim at least 17 large hydropower projects on the Teesta River and its tributaries have their environmental clearances in place, despite warnings, improper assessments and negotiated conditions. At a point of time when a natural seismic occurrence has shaken the stability of an already unpredictable Himalayan ecosystem, it is important to revisit the concept of hydropower projects as a green, clean and safe option.

The India Human Development Report 2011 makes a number of mistakes in its analysis of the relative performance of states and also offers conceptually wrong perspectives in its comparison of the sectoral performance in health and education.

The central government claims that allowing foreign direct investment into India’s retail sector will benefit small farmers, expand employment and lower food inflation. What has been the experience in India with organised retail so far and what has been the global experience with FDI?

Although a number of studies have assessed the effects of geological and climatic changes on species distributions in East Asian, we still have limited knowledge of how these changes have impacted avian species in south-western and southern China. Here, we aim to study paleo-climatic effects on an East Asian bird, two subspecies of black-throated tit (A. c. talifuensis–concinnus) with the combined analysis of phylogeography and Ecological Niche Models (ENMs).