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	Differential User Charges at First Referral Units in West Bengal ... read more...
	Mapping the Public Private Mix in Women’s Health Care ... read more...
	Gender and Migration: Negotiating Rights  A Women’s Movement Perspective ... read more...
	The Adverse Child Sex Ration in North-West India ... read more...
	Survey of Homebased Workers ... read more...
	Higher Education, Gender and Discrimination ... read more...
	Globalisation and Women's Work: Dissaggregate analysis of NSSO data ... read more...
	The Social and Political Economy of care in India ... read more...
	Conditions and Needs of Women Workers in Delhi ... read more...
	Multiple Vulnerabilities and Marginal Identities: Exploring Violence in the everyday lives of Women with Disabilities in the City ... read more...
	Construction and Recreation of Violence in the Legal System: Gaps between Claims and Entitlements ... read more...
	Gender and Governance in Conflict Zones ... read more...
	Gender and Democratic Governance ... read more...
	Women in Indian Engineering: An Analysis of Graduate Degree Level Education in Kerala and Rajasthan ... read more...
	Gender, Status and Migration of Malayali Nurses ... read more...
	Study on Women Migrants of Tamil Origin in France ... read more...
	Needs Assessment for Creches and Childcare Services ... read more...
	Banaras Weavers at the Crossroads ... read more...
	Undoing Our Future: A Report on the Status of the Young Child in India ... read more...
	Women, Equality and the Republic: Landmarks in the Indian Story ... read more...
	From Oppression to Assertion: Women and Panchayats in India ... read more...
	Indigenous Midwives and their Skills in Contributing to the Wellbeing of Birthing Women and Newborns (The JEEVA Project) ... read more...
	Heterodoxy and the idea of women as independent entities: A case study of Kannada literature in the early medieval period ... read more...

Differential User Charges at First Referral Units in West Bengal
Researcher: Bijoya Roy

In recent years, subsidised public services have done little to arrest the economic fall out due to the increasing cost of health care. Overall there is a chronic paucity of information on how the user fee is structured in different states for OPD, inpatient services and diagnostic services across the different levels of public sector health care. In the process of evaluating how the user fee impacts on the utilisation of preventive and curative services there has been little effort to study the structure of user charges, on what services they have been levied and whether, across different revisions, service charges have become more regressive or progressive for users. West Bengal is one of the states where the share of out of pocket expenditure on out patient care is among the highest in the country. With changes in the mode of service delivery mechanisms within the public sector in West Bengal, differential user fees have come to exist for services directly provided by the public sector hospitals and those provided under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) framework.

This study plans is to come out with a paper which would explore the structure of user fees for diagnostic services delivered through PPP in rural hospitals of West Bengal and delineate the differences in user fees for the set of services delivered by public sector health care institutions and PPP. We also try to assess the impact of this measure on the access to services within the public sector by a set of diverse providers and the scope for universalisation of services with the interplay of reforms in the delivery and financing mechanisms of services.

Mapping the Public Private Mix in Women’s Health Care
Researcher: Bijoya Roy

Privatisation and expansion of the private sector in health care is becoming a common place. What is interesting is that the private sector’s collaboration with the public sector is creating newer sites of market expansion and moulding services to the needs of low income areas. Noticeable changes are contracting out and public private partnerships (PPP) of health care services. The changing health care provisioning situates women and men differentially in terms of needs, access, and utilization of services. The objective of the study is to identify the issues (coverage, type of service providers, nature of service provided, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, sustainability and equity) of these new service delivery processes in the context of women’s health care in India. The study is based on the mapping of PPP services spanning the different health areas affecting women’s life. It also encompasses secondary literature review of studies and papers looking at PPPs in these areas in India. Based on this work three papers were presented.

Gender and Migration: Negotiating Rights  A Women’s Movement Perspective
Researchers: Researchers: Indu Agnihotri and Indrani Mazumdar, with Neetha N

Extensive field work by the central research team has been a singular feature of this project sponsored by the IDRC, and has generated a rich resource of extensive notes, and observations, based on discussions with a wide array of women as well as other local informants, apart from the structured questionnaire based survey conducted in different parts of the country. 

Collation of field surveys, checking of questionnaires, preliminary analysis of the primary survey data have been among the main tasks undertaken this year. Data entry from the project’s primary survey questionnaires has reached an advanced stage. The survey has covered 38 village sites in 17 states, generating over 15,000 village census questionnaires and over 3,000 detailed household and individual migrant questionnaires drawn as stratified samples from the households covered by the village censuses. Further, over 2000 more household and individual questionnaires have been filled from surveys of women workers in sectors where they are known to be prominent and in significant numbers. These include 1,000 from 7 large cities and 500 from small and medium towns.  

In the year 2010-11, work for the Gender and Migration project also specifically included monitoring, training and retraining personnel involved in field surveys across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh and Tamilnadu. 

Further, initial exploratory findings based on data from the primary surveys in West Bengal and Orissa were presented in the form of three paper/presentations, one at the Annual Conference of Labour Economists at Dharwad, December2010, one at an IDRC-ISS Inception Workshop on Gender, Migration and Social Justice in January 2011 at Den Haag, Netherlands, and one as a seminar presentation at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU in March 2011. At the 13th National Conference of the Indian Association of Women’s Studies, Wardha, held in January 2011, project team members initiated and conducted a panel on migration under the sub-theme Women, Labour and Questions of Marginalisation, to bring out findings of studies conducted under The Gender and Migration Project. In addition to this a paper based on case studies of long distance , cross regional brides in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, conducted as part the Project, was presented in the sub-theme on New Markets and Inter-locking Inequalities, Labour, education, Health and Marriage.

The major objectives set out for the Project included exploration of the motivations, compulsions, and women’s experiences of internal migration; analysis of the direction of changes effected in their personal and work lives; and identification of the new possibilities and tensions generated by migration processes including its impact on family relations, economic structures, and a broad range of citizenship rights. The aim was to bring into focus the forms of labour migration by women; highlighting the characteristics of the select sectors where women migrant workers are concentrated and the issues and policies that affect them as workers, as women and as citizens. At the same time the need was felt to identify the gaps in data, reasons for the same and re-interpret existing data from a women’s movement perspective. Through this we hoped to concretely identify issues where policy intervention was required to safeguard the rights of women migrants; evaluate and suggest policy measures specifically directed at migrants and facilitate purposeful dialogue with government agencies and lawmakers towards bringing migrants within the ambit of “inclusive growth�.

The primary focus has been on labour migration rather than demographic movements. Households with labour migrants have been the primary targets. This marks both an overlap as well as a departure from official macro surveys, which are also based on households, though individual experiences and characteristics, particularly in the realm of labour relations do not figure in these.

This year, detailed study and analysis of the secondary data on employment and migration released by the NSS in June-July 2010 has been a major exercise. This  added new information, even as it posed new questions for the project team. In general, macro-data on migration is unable to give us any picture of modes and forms of labour migration by women because of definitional limitations, such as a mono-causal  approach to migration and an orientation towards recording either permanent or single shifts of residence at the cost of both short term and more circulatory forms of migration. Developing a more nuanced typology of migration and a focus on associated differentiation in conditions of employment and rights regimes has of course been a major question in the primary surveys of the Gender and Migration project.

However, analysis of the most recent NSS data for the gender and migration project has highlighted an emerging paradox of a highly increased rate of female migration combining with a falling rate of female work participation. Further, there has been an inexplicable jump in the rates of marriage migration, which require further analysis and exploration. Detailed examination of unit level data of the NSS by the project team has additionally focused on the methodological weakness of using undifferentiated standard employment data to understand trends in women’s employment, an analysis which is being further detailed and taken forward for the project report.

Preliminary analysis of the project’s survey data (West Bengal and Orissa), appears to confirm the hypothesis regarding the preponderance of temporary and circular migration among households with labour migrants. It also shows the relative concentration of women in a narrower band of occupations/employment through the process of migration, relative to their earlier occupations/employment, as well as in comparison with the significant diversification in occupations among male migrants.

As earlier reported, the process of consultations held at the regional level, had evoked a huge response, upon which we have been able to build further in the course of our survey work this year. The consultations enabled the project team to draw upon a wide ranging resource of available  local knowledge and  expertise as well as state officials, members of state level and national level women’s Commissions,  the  head of the Commission for Denotified Tribes;  members of the Statistical Commission; members of the erstwhile National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector; women’s organizations and trade union activists; leading academics working on related themes, as well as those involved in networks working with migrant groups.

The Adverse Child Sex Ration in North-West India
Researcher: Mary E. John


The collaborative study on the adverse child sex ratio has entered its final phase, concentrating on matters of dissemination of the study.  During 2009-10 the Report in English was the subject of a special panel discussion hosted in Jawaharhal Nehru University.  It has since been translated into both Hindi and Punjabi and is being widely disseminated in both hard copy and electronic copy form.

Work on a separate book has already been initiated which aims to go into greater depth than the report in order to provide a site wise analysis of the research undertaken, as well as providing a fuller background context for the study.

The team of researchers includes Ravinder Kaur, Rajni Palriwala and Saraswati Raju, and the final phase of support comes from the IDRC. 

Higher Education, Gender and Discrimination
Researcher: Mary E. John

This proposed study on the relationships between higher education, gender and discrimination has entered its planning phase as a comparative study between India and China.  The study aims to intervene in the current scenario of rapid changes within education, which are multi-dimensional.  On the one hand, historic shifts are being inaugurated in the relationship of the state to higher education, in terms of seeking to transform its overall structure and administration, and sources of funding, including private and foreign funding.  On the other hand, some attention is being paid to questions of social exclusion, especially in the light of plans of expansion of seats under OBC reservation.  Significantly absent in much of this current concern are questions of gender.  The proposed study therefore sets itself the task of addressing this major gap, recognising that the role of women in higher education needs to find a new mode of articulation, given the enormous growth in the proportion of women who now study beyond high school.  This calls for a more complex focus that goes beyond questions of access, to see how women’s participation in higher education is being shaped by the interlocking markets of labour, education and marriage. It also requires paying close attention to the interlocking forces of class, region, caste and community.  While the focus of the study will be on selected sites and institutions in India, it seeks to bring in a comparative focus from China.  As part of planning such a comparative focus, Prof. Dongchao Min from the Centre of Gender and Cultural Studies, Shanghai University, visited the Centre in November 2009.  Her visit and the planning of the study have been supported by the International Institute of Education and the Ford Foundation.

Globalisation and Women's Work:Dissagregate analysis of NSSO data
Researcher: Neetha Narayana Pillai

This study analyses the employment pattern of women in the context of structural changes in the economy, using various rounds of NSS data.  Work related to the analysis of the 64th round was carried out during the period with the release of the employment data in July 2010.

The most striking revelation of the 64^th round survey data is the fall in female work participation rates between 2004-05 and 2007-08. The fall has been sharper in rural areas, though urban areas also registered a considerable decline. The 61^st round of data showed a ‘revival� in employment, driven by an increase in ‘self employment�. However, further disaggregate analysis has revealed that this has been primarily driven by a sharp rise in women’s unpaid labour in self employment. In contrast to this, 2007-08 data shows a decline in self employment. When only the distribution of paid/income earning workers in rural areas is considered, casual labour emerges as the most significant category of work. There is therefore an inverse relationship between unpaid work and casual labour in rural areas, the former declining when the latter rises and vice versa.  In urban areas, when unpaid work is removed, regular salaried workers are the most significant category of paid work. These broader changes in the structure of female employment and the fact that employment for women can be better analysed by focussing on paid employment, necessitates the calculation of female paid work participation rates (FPWPR). FPWPR in 2007-08 was just 15 per cent as against the general WPR of 25 per cent.    For both men and women, sharper differences were found between paid worker participation rates and the general WPR in rural areas in comparison to urban areas.

The Social and Political Economy of care in India
Researcher: Neetha Narayana Pillai
 

The study, conducted at the initiative of the UNRISD Programme on Gender and Development, is completed. This is a joint study with Prof. Rajni Palriwala of Delhi University.

The study demonstrates how the multi-dimensional nature of care giving and its quantitative or qualitative time/labour demands are not recognized.  The findings suggest a stratified familialism in care practices due to the differences in time available to family members for care.  The institutional context mediated by the political economy of livelihoods stratifies families along a continuum.  At the one end are those who have the possibility to retain familial carers at home and supplement them with market and other institutional carers and at the other end of the spectrum are those who are neither able to retain family members at home nor fill the care gap through formal institutions. 

Among poor and labouring households, where mothers are engaged in paid work, in or away from home, and where other kin are not likely to be present, care is abbreviated.  In contrast to this, an enhancement in familial time and quality of care is possible at higher income levels and is also demanded by the changing ideas of childcare among the elite and middle classes.  The poor migrant, the urban labouring poor, and households where all members need to earn are often the ones supplementing familial care in elite households, with a deficit in their own.   Crèches and pre-schools or institutional arrangements such as maternity leave to enable unpaid familial care are neither cheap nor simple to organise, especially where the economy is largely informal and carers are workers in individual households and thereby made invisible.  At the same time, the range of care possibilities available to the elite and upper middle classes and local care chains enable women of these strata apparently to break out of gendered moulds. 

The mapping of care practices in India delineates a labour/care regime in which care is socially and economically devalued with little shift in state policy on care, despite collective agitation.  There is a muted and partial recognition of the imperatives of care needs and an imputation of ‘moral� value to care giving.  The study argues that despite differences between various states and the central governments in social policy, all tend to assume familial, gendered, and informal systems of care.  Care has entered public discourse and government policy inadvertently around issues of child welfare and ‘human resource development�.  The continuing official denial of the time and skill requirements of care acts in conjunction with the non-recognition of women’s multi-layered work to add to women’s burden.  The encouragement of the informal sector enables women’s presence as unpaid familial carers and strengthens assumptions regarding the availability of such care.  The continued assumption is that care and the carer do not, need not, and cannot become a public responsibility and concern. 

The draft report submitted to UNRISD in the form of five chapters is available on their website. Chapters from the study are being reworked for separate publication, and the possibility of a book is also being explored.

Conditions and Needs of Women Workers in Delhi
Researchers: Neetha Narayana Pillai and Indrani Mazumdar

The study which was carried out at the initiative of the Delhi Commission for Women has been completed. The major objectives of the study were to: 1. Undertake an in depth analysis of the various factors that contribute to women workers� specific vulnerabilities and to discriminatory and exploitative practices (including sexual exploitation) in five important segments of the female workforce. 2. Identify the specific and practical needs for enhancing protection of women workers in these segments, particularly in the private sector. 3. Review and explore the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of available mechanisms and practices currently used for redressal in relation to sexual harassment in the workplace. 4. Prepare a series of guidelines towards evolving more effective mechanisms for social protection and redressal of grievances of women workers. The report of the study has been submitted to the Delhi Commission for Women. At the request of the Commission a formal presentation of the findings and recommendations of the study was made before its members.

The chapter wise break-up of the report is as follows:

1.     Women Workers of Delhi: Overview

2.     Of Women Workers in  the Factories of Delhi

3.     At the Cusp of a Boom: Private Sector Office/Service Workers in Delhi

4.     Trapped between the Public and the Private: Domestic Workers in Delhi

5.     Conditions in the Education Sector: Teachers and Students

6.     Reviewing Regulatory Frameworks, Laws Institutions

7.     More than a Decade after Vishakha: Sexual Harassment Issues before Women Workers in Delhi

8.     Summary of Research Findings and Recommendations

Multiple vulnerabilities and Marginal identities:  exploring violence in the everyday lives of  Women with Disabilities
Researcher: Renu Addlakha

The study, based on the 18 months of fieldwork for the above project, is being written up in the form of a book length manuscript. Data analysis has been more or less completed. Tentatively titled, ‘Decentering disability in India: Violence, work and sexuality in everyday life�, the work will examine these major themes in a life course perspective drawing upon the above qualitative data set. The challenge is to see how the epistemological and ideological connotations of the concept of disability in the contemporary socio-political context of globalisation, development and human rights intersects with disabled persons� everyday experiences in the lifeword in an urban context like Delhi. In the face of a certain sanctity and moral tyranny attached to human rights discourses, one of the aims of the work is to critically assess the relevance of disability as a valid social political and experiential category of analysis. Are there other modes of understanding disability and the empowerment of marginalised groups like disabled persons that do not take recourse to the human rights and legal domains?

Social stereotypes and reactions to disability might give the mistaken impression that disabled persons are a lifelong liability on their families and society. But examining disability from the perspective of work and labour force participation throws up some startling facts that contest notions of the incapacity and non-productivity associated with disabled persons. Drawing upon a definition of work as any human activity undertaken for the fulfilment of needs and basic survival, facets of the interesting and under-researched interface between work and disability will be explored.

The social devaluation of disabled persons in whatever form is a form of violence, taken as a multi-faceted reality going beyond physical manifestations and extending to the whole range of psychological, social and cultural constructs and practices that systematically oppress people whose bodies and minds differ from the norm. The connections between disability and violence are charted through the examination of the intertwining of social structural variables, such as gender, class/caste urban-rural location and disability, on the one hand, and the lived reality of prejudice, discrimination and exclusion of concrete individual on the other.

The spectrum of sexuality intersects with pleasure at one end and violence at the other, with a whole range of meanings and connotations in between. Reproduction is the principle, but not sole, arena of sexuality. In the face of eugenics and ascriptions of a negative aesthetic value to disabled bodies, how the sexuality domain ties up with the reality of disability is another important theme of this work.

The above features delineate the broad areas of analysis. Specific chapters and sections are being conceptualised in the writing process itself.

Construction and Recreation of Violence in the Legal System: Gaps between Claims and Entitlements
Researcher: Rukmini Sen

The last year has been taken up with further research on the topic of legal reforms. A major issue here concerns the gap between the demands made by the women’s movement since the early 1980s on laws relating to violence against women and the actual shape that the law reform took.  Not only is there a huge lag from the when the demand was initially made and when the legal reform takes place, most of the substantive changes that are asked for by the women’s groups have never conceded to.  Two papers published in EPW and IJGS are a result of this research, one on changes in rape law (focussing especially on the Law Commission Reports) and the other on laws relating to domestic violence. Separate research was initiated on the myth about the misuse of section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. This research was prompted by the attempts underway to dilute the procedural aspects of 498A because of the ‘fear� of misuse, without having any evidence or statistics regarding such ‘misuse�.  The note prepared has also been used in various for a including the Joint Parliamentary Committee hearings on the issue of changing IPC 498A.

Gender and Governance in Conflict Zones
Researcher: Seema Kazi

There is relatively little comparative work done on gender and governance from a South Asian regional perspective. Such an approach is particularly useful in terms of comparing the micro-level gender realities of conflict zones within a macro-level (South Asian) political and socio-economic context. Governance (or the lack of it) is argued to be a major explanatory factor underpinning the persistence of armed conflict. This study seeks to examine the practice of governance in conflict zones from a gender perspective. The link between both remains a relatively unexamined area reinforced by the assumption that the social (read ‘private� gender relations) is far removed from the ‘public�/institutional domain of governance. Much of the violence and privation associated with armed conflict occurs in the ‘private realm� beyond the formal reach of law or governance. The failure of state institutions to provide security or justice to citizens � especially women � in conflict zones parallels the entrenchment of complex political economies of conflict that appropriate gender inequality towards their own end. The ‘public� violence of conflict zones is, in other words, deeply embedded in ‘private� social processes and the cultural realities of the population at large.  

This study plans to use the knowledge generated during field-research in Kashmir and Manipur (India), and similar research on governance in conflict zones in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively to suggest replacing the normative institution-centric concept of governance by a people-centric, gender-sensitive and human-security-centred practice of governance.  

The project proposal has been submitted to IDRC New Delhi for funding support.

Gender and Democratic Governance
Researcher: Seema Kazi

This study focuses on gender and democratic governance in the South Asian region, namely, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal and is being brought out as an Occasional Paper. Beginning with a general introduction to the region, the first section highlights the shared historical and cultural heritage of South Asia and delineates the challenges confronting individual states in the region. The second section explains the differences between Western/European and South Asian understandings of democracy and goes on to highlight the region’s gender deficit with reference to women’s rights and political participation. The concepts of democracy, governance and women’s rights are discussed and the importance of gender equality as one of the core guiding principles of democratic governance emphasised. The third section examines the demand for reserved quotas for women in local and national governance institutions in all five contexts. It delineates the historical and political context against which the demand for reserved quotas for women in governance bodies emerged and highlights the role of women’s movements towards facilitating women’s political participation. Focusing on women’s movements across South Asia, the paper discusses the important successes as well as the challenges of women’s movement activism vis-a-vis the demand for reserved quotas. In conclusion, the paper underlines the importance of bridging class inequality and effecting distributive justice if women’s demands for political equality are to be realised. 

Gender, Status and Migration of Malayali Nurses
Researcher:  Sreelekha R.Nair
 

The study on Gender, Status and Migration of Malayali Nurses has been concluded as a book length manuscript and reworked according to suggestions from reviewers. The manuscript has been readied for submission to publishers.

Women in Indian Engineering: An Analysis of Graduate Degree Level Education in Kerala and Rajasthan
Researcher:  Sreelekha R.Nair

With so little research in India on engineering as a profession or about women engineers, CWDS collaborated with the Centre de Sciences Humaines in conducting a pilot study on women in engineering in India. Fieldwork for this study was undertaken in engineering education institutions in the states of Kerala and Rajasthan. It was found that though there have never been rules preventing women from entering institutions of engineering education, engineering and the space occupied by it has been highly gendered. Gender neutral principles reinforce and perpetrate already existing gender prejudices in the classroom and the wider society. Social prejudices and individual hostility often act as stumbling blocks, though specialisations within engineering and technology are gendered to different degrees in both states. Kerala has made some progress, while Rajasthan is still struggling.  The informal glass ceiling, organisational culture and institutional traditions work to favour men, even though various actors -- parents, students themselves, teachers and employers -- might not even be aware of many of the systemic biases against women. But changes in institutional planning, cultural and social expectations, interlinkages between labour market and subject choice are emerging as indicators of new future trends.  Thus the image of engineering as an ‘all male career� is shifting.  Much of the credit goes to software engineering where women outnumber men in states like Kerala. However has engineering turned into a gender bender then? The answer is that though notions of masculinity and femininity are now contested, at least in certain quarters, cultural stereotypes remain consistently obtrusive in newer forms.

Study on Women Migrants of Tamil Origin in France
Researcher:  Sreelekha Nair

During a period of extraordinary leave at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris) during 2008, a study was initiated on women migrants of Tamil origin in France.  During 2009-10, the study was developed into two papers focussing on their economic activities and their active agency in the creation of a visible Tamil identity in France.   Work participation and other engagements in civil society are also informed by gender roles and notions of the ‘ideal� cultural practices of the original community that they left behind. These papers describe how the difference in their status within the French state has affected the economic status of women migrants from Pondicherry and Sri Lanka and their livelihood options. Such status plays the most important role in their negotiations with/in the public space, even when the separation between public and private spaces is porous. Familial spaces perceived as private, relations at the community and professional levels, as well as spaces at the interface between the community and mainstream French society are the main areas that have been explored in these papers.  Relations within the community itself are affected by the political scenario at the place of home. Global Networks of the Sri Lankan migrants also inform their identity formation and engagement with the state.

Needs Assessment for Creches and Childcare Services

Investigators:  Kumud Sharma, Vasanthi Raman

CWDS has prepared a proposal in the light of the critical place occupied by the ICDS scheme as the state’s flagship programme for the young child and mothers, with its enormous outlay of public resources.  However the outcome and impact of this major governmental programme in terms of the health and educational status of young children are far from satisfactory.  Furthermore, the paucity of crèches to serve the burgeoning informal sector is also urgently in need of attention.  With a view to assessing the need for crèches, this study proposes to examine the needs and responses to child care services in six selected states. This would be the first phase of a longer project required to capture the situation in a representative range of ecological zones and states in the country.  Through a combination of focussing on existing schemes such as the ICDS and RGCS and problems in their implementation, and secondly on communities� needs for crèches and care services, the study seeks to throw up the possibility of alternative models such as the AWC cum Creches, to respond better to the diversity of needs for different categories of occupations and in different locations. 

This is a one year study scheduled to begin in April 2011, with support received from the MWCD.

Banaras Weavers at the Crossroads
Researcher: Vasanthi Raman

A monograph on the ‘Impact of the Crisis on the Families of the Banaras Weavers� was initiated during the period of a fellowship at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla and has now been completed.

The monograph focuses specifically on the crisis of the sari weaving industry in the early decades of the 21^st century. It deals with the macro policies, starting from the New Textile Policy of 1985 and the new economic policies of 1991 and its impact on the artisanal cottage industry of Banaras, specifically on the handlooms and its destruction. It also deals with the relationship between powerlooms and handlooms in the wake of the new policies. An important part of the monograph is the evolution of Hindu-Muslim relations in the sari weaving industry, the changes in the structure of the industry leading to important alterations in the different tiers of industry and the composition of Hindus and Muslims thereof.

The different themes that the monograph deals with are as follows: The Historical Evolution of the Crisis in the Weaving Industry since the 19^th century,  The Evolution and Impact of the Current Crisis on the Weavers,  the Changes in the Nature of the Artisanal Family, the Implications of the Crisis for Women,  and The Differential Responses  to the Crisis among the different sections of the industry, e.g. survival strategies of the families in coping with the crisis like migration and the overall impact on livelihoods that have been shrinking.

The Banaras sari industry has been central to the identity of the city and the monograph argues that what has happened to the artisanal cottage industry of weaving is an integral part of a larger paradigm shift in the overall development perspective with long term implications for the city and its character.

Undoing Our Future: A Report on the Status of the Young Child in India
Researchers: Vasanthi Raman, Savitri Ray and FORCES team

The Report is meant to contribute to an alternate Report on the UNCRC.  It will be used as an advocacy document for the activists and professional working on the issues of the young child in India. As part of the process of preparing the report, a series of consultations were held in the northern, eastern, southern and northeastern parts of the country.  A summary of the consultations and the recommendations have been included in the Introduction of the Report.

The Report contains the following chapters: Introduction, Review of the Programmes and Policies of the Government of India for Children, the Predicament of the Girl Child: To be or Not to Be, Health and Nutrition of Children Under Six, Rethinking Child Care in the Changing Socio-Economic and Political Scenario, Status of Early Childhood Care and Education in India, and Public Expenditures, Budgets and Children Under Six.

The Report also contains as Annexures a status of the rights of Children in Delhi as well as a Survey of the Status of Young Children in Northeast India.

Women, Equality and the Republic: Landmarks in the Indian Story
Researchers : Vina Mazumdar, Nirmala Buch,Kumud Sharma, C.P.Sujaya,
Indu Agnihotri, Mohan Rao

This documentary project devoted to restoring the public memory and to the state, the relationships between the state and women’s issues, is in its final stages.  Apart from the five volumes already with the MWCD, other volumes are also ready.  These include xxxx.  Three volumes are to be published by Pearson in the coming year.

From Oppression to Assertion: Women and Panchayats in India 
Researcher: Nirmala Buch

The prior study undertaken on women and panchayats has been updated with new fieldwork, with the support of CWDS, for publication as a book.  The study explores the experiences of the critical mass of rural women who entered the Panchayats  after reservations for women were implemented. Largely composed of illiterate or just literate, younger, first time political entrants, these women encountered widespread scepticism regarding their interest, awareness, ability and performance. Based on fieldwork in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the study was supported by the Ministry of Rural Development, and involved three partner institutions � Mahila Chetna Manch, Bhopal, Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur in Rajasthan and the Gandhian Institute, Varanasi in U P. The study sites were revisited during 2009 to revalidate earlier observations, including a small follow up study of women elected in the Panchayat elections  of 2000 and 2005 in the districts where the earlier study was undertaken.

With interviews of 1200 Panchayat representatives and community members in nine districts across these states, the book documents awareness, motivation, perceptions, and participation levels of the elected women, in varying contexts which are all substantially inegalitarian, feudal, and patriarchal. The book notes the empowering impact on women’s sense of self, the attitudes and perceptions of their family members and the responses of other social institutions. It explodes the myths of women’s disinterest in politics, of the entry of only well to do women, or the kin of influential politicians who are proxies for male relatives. Revisiting the field in 2009 has confirmed the continuation of these trends as also the widespread inability to accept their performance.

Indigenous Midwives and their Skills in Contributing to the Wellbeing of Birthing Women and Newborns (The JEEVA Project)

Principal Investigator: Dr. Mira Sadgopal

Team of researchers: Mira Sadgopal, Imrana Qadeer, Janet Chawla, Lindsay Barnes, Leila Caleb Varkey and Anuradha Singh. Bijoya Roy from CWDS is also part of this project. 

The Jeeva Project is a research initiative of the "Jeeva Collective", a wide-spread network of persons concerned with strengthening dais and the indigenous midwifery system in India and to see them relate appropriately with the formal health services. The main study is a 3-year multi-centric research project focusing on dais in four remote locations in India (Bokaro district - Jharkhand, Bellary district - Karnataka, Nandurbar district - Maharashtra and Kangra district - Himachal Pradesh) of about 10,000 population each. 

Detailed project proposals for funding the study were prepared with a view to obtaining support from both the state and corporate social responsibility sources.  The department of AYUSH of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare sanctioned project support for two years; while support from the ICICI Foundation of Inclusive Growth is being worked out and is in the final stages for a period of three years. 

During the year 2010-11, research tools for the main study along with the other researchers were developed. Several meetings between CWDS and the Jeeva team have been held to finalise the scope and terms of the project.  Terms of Reference for a Committee dealing with research ethics has been conceptualized and is in the process of being framed.

Electoral Governance and Democratic Citizenship: A Study on Election Commission of India
Researcher: Anupama Roy

Contemporary Debates on Citizenship in India
Researcher: Anupama Roy

Work on a manuscript based broadly on Contemporary Debates on Citizenship in India is continuing simultaneously.  Papers emerging from this work have been presented in seminars/conferences. These include Between Encompassment and Closure: The ‘Migrant� and the Citizen in India: The legal-constitutional language of citizenship in India shows that citizenship oscillates ambivalently between encompassment and closure. This paper maps the amendments that have taken place in the citizenship laws in India, sieving out in particular the category of the ‘migrant�, to identify moments of encompassment and closure and demonstrate the shifts in the ideological basis and institutional practices of citizenship in India.

‘Contradictory Cohabitation or Politics of Foreclusion: The IMDT Act and the Ambivalence of Citizenship� (co-authored). Through an examination of the Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunals Act 1983, this paper examines how the lesson of otherness is continually reproduced and re-inscribed in the practices of citizenship, through legal measures and judicial pronouncement.

Survey of Homebased Workers
Researcher: Indrani Mazumdar
 

The collaborative study with the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) on Conditions of Homebased Workers in India conducted with the support of ILO was completed in 2007. The CITU survey covered 3,300 homebased workers across 10 states. Probably the largest ever survey of homebased workers in the country, what was unique was the coverage of 4 metropolitan cities, 41 towns and 43 villages, though it was based on organizational outreach rather than any statistical sampling method.

The detailed analysis of the data generated by the survey was analysed under the following sections: 1.Gender Characteristics, 2. Industries and Sectors, 3. Incomes, hours of work and wage rates, 4. Employment Relations, 5. Markets, 6. Education and Training mechanisms, 7. Social and economic status of homebased workers, 8. Social Security, 9. Organisation, 10. Experience of Tsunami. 

Highlights of survey findings

82.5 per cent of the workers were women. 86 per cent were piece rated wage workers, i.e., home workers according to the definitions of the ILO Convention.

48 per cent of the workers gave deficit incomes as their reason for doing homebased work, another15 per cent referred to job loss or unemployment (their own or husband’s). Only 8 per cent quoted tradition or hereditary occupation, while 5 per cent quoted social and family restrictions on working. Surprisingly, only 3 per cent stated that they were working at home because they could combine work with childcare and domestic responsibilities. In many cases it would be a complex of reasons including the lack of availability or access to better quality employment, but what stood out in the tenor of the replies of the majority of workers is the harshness of the pressure of poverty.

Textiles and related products (34 per cent), food processing (14 per cent), and beedi (11 per cent) were the largest industry segments. Particularly striking was the fact that among women, the proportions of textile workers were less than for males. The average monthly earnings from homebased work was found to be as low as Rs.538/-. 

Much of the literature on homebased work has been focused on the export connection. However, this survey revealed that only 5 per cent of the workers were working for export markets. Beedi and agarbatti were the most completely integrated into a national supply and marketing network. Food processing also appears to be moving towards wider markets. Piece rates paid to beedi workers were exactly the same in Bengal and Delhi, indicating integration into a unified national market.  On the other hand, some of the traditional occupations � bamboo/palm leaf products, pottery, etc. were almost solely within localised circuits. Handloom production for local markets was however shown to be virtually extinct. Somewhat surprisingly, even religious products such as sacred ashes were destined for other places. 

Heterodoxy and the idea of Women as independentEntities: A Case Study of Kannada Literature in the early Medieval Period
Researcher:  Parimala V. Rao

The study attempts to contextualize the representation of women in early Kannada literature in relation to sources from inscriptions.  The period envisaged is from 850-1250 AD, and has received grant support from the ICHR.  During 2008-9 several archival visits were made in May and December 2008 and the analysis of key Kannada texts has begun.  However, since the researcher has taken up a new position, a request has been made to put the project on hold for one year due to teaching commitments.