Hothouse India Published: 15 June 2022 Article India has entered a new age of hot extremes that will get worse if we fail to limit global warming. By Chandra Bhushan
Disruptive Technologies: The Case of Indigenous Territories of Andhra Pradesh, India Published: 28 March 2022 Article Sagari Ramdas shows how agribusiness use big tech and big data to fulfil their ‘sustainability goals’ from indigenous Adivasi farmers of Andhra Pradesh, India. It turns out to be a case of exploitation in the name of sustainability. By Sagari Ramdas
International Women’s Day: The diverse meanings of “work from home” for women in Asia Published: 7 March 2022 Increase in domestic violence, lay-offs, care responsibilities, restrictions on domestic and international movement, economic insecurities, psychological burdens - these are just a few of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in Asia in the last two years. The gendered nature of COVID-19 impacts is obvious and has sparked large feminist responses in the region. By Shalini Yog Shah
Your Health Data is Others’ Wealth Published: 2 November 2021 Over the past few years, there has been a drive towards the digitisation of healthcare in India. Though policy frameworks have begun taking cognizance of this increasing datafication of health, they are responding to it within frameworks, which incentivise further datafication by considering health data to be a commodity. Recognising the intimate interconnections between our bodies and data through a feminist lens, an analysis of the health datafication in India through emerging developments under the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) ecosystem is done, with a focus on private health insurance companies, and the implications for the bodies and rights of patients. By Radhika Radhakrishnan
Health expert KM Gopakumar speaks about global vaccine monopoly and challenges facing equitable COVID-19 vaccination Published: 6 September 2021 Interview K.M. Gopakumar speaks to Shalini Yog Shah about global vaccine monopoly, TRIPS Agreement and hurdles in vaccine production By Shalini Yog Shah and K.M. Gopakumar
The art of missing the bus Published: 17 August 2021 Last year, even as the coronavirus ambushed India, disrupting the economy and wreaking untold suffering on millions of its citizens, many saw in it a godsend opportunity to hit the reset button and build back a green and just economy. More than a year later, as we crawl out of the horrifying abyss of the second wave, green fantasies have given way to the more urgent task of quickly vaccinating everyone and reviving a battered economy. By Rakesh Kalshian
Netting India’s villages Published: 15 January 2021 For nearly a decade, India has been deploying various iterations of its ambitious broadband expansion plan, looking to bring those in the country’s remotest areas online. While private sector expansion and proliferation of cheap smartphones gave it a boost, the recent double whammy of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and escalating territorial tensions with key trade partner China has put a spanner in the works of the project that has already suffered several delays. Updates to the project now must consider alternative sources of equipment, while ensuring that those at the margins don’t miss the digital bus. By Kim Arora
Environmental regulation and post-COVID-19 economic recovery Published: 24 November 2020 On 24 March 2020, the central government declared a nationwide lockdown to deal with the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which caused the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in India. The lockdown, implemented without the necessary social and economic support by the state, represented a harsh ‘tradeoff’ in favour of public health. The country’s already sluggish economy took a massive hit due to the global pandemic and the near complete closure of international and domestic trade of goods and commodities. However, when the government began its unlocking efforts, it relied on incentivising highly environmentally damaging extractive projects to stimulate the economy. This article analyses the environmental and mining sector reforms and the key legal amendments proposed by the government as part of its post-COVID-19 economic recovery plans. The process, timing and content of these legal changes show that the government used the COVID-19 lockdown as an opportunity to push through undemocratic legal changes that would result in more long term environmental and social costs to society. By Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon
A roadmap into an uncertain future Published: 20 August 2020 The current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has led thousands of youth, mostly migrant workers from the Northeast region, to return home facing uncertainties regarding their future in terms of jobs and careers, and their livelihood. Hence, there is a need to engage with them and explore some strategic paths to address this issue and find some directions. For this article, information from 20 returnees from the eight states of the region has been gathered through digital communication. The returnees include those who were working in hotel industry, restaurants, food courts, retails, malls and business processing outsourcing (BPO) firms. This article looks at the challenges faced by these returnees and comes up with some concrete observations and recommendations regarding their possible livelihood activities for the government, including the state governments of the respective Northeast states, for the general public and for non-governmental organisations. By Alana Golmei
"It became my mission to locate women's voices" Published: 25 August 2017 Interview Urvashi Butalia is one of India’s foremost feminists. On the occasion of her receiving Germany’s Goethe Medal on August 28, 2017 in Weimar, we have talked to her about her work as a publisher, feminism, writing and politics in India. By Dr. Axel Harneit-Sievers