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Rural-Urban Migration and Urban Livelihoods in India
No full textThis article looks at the nature and patterns of urban livelihoods in India, with a focus on low-skilled migrant workers engaged in the informal sector. It places urban livelihoods in the broader context of structural transformation and livelihood change in India and shows that even though migrant workers contribute significantly to country’s increasingly urban-centric economy, they remain ignored in policymaking. The paper analyses the reasons for this disregard and argues for the need to integrate low-skilled migrant workers in India’s urban policy to promote inclusive and sustainable development
From Attitudes to Actions: Bridging Conservation Planning Framework, Theory of Planned Behaviour and Social Values to Protect Charismatic Freshwater Fishes, the Mahseer
No full textMahseers are a group of iconic freshwater fishes native to the waterbodies of South, East, and South-East Asia, with significant ecological, socio-cultural, and livelihood value. The complexity of the socio-ecological contexts in which the mahseer conservation occurs demand an approach integrating behavioural dimensions of the individuals and groups directly or indirectly involved in it and social and cultural values they hold for these fishes with the conservation planning and implementation processes for better results. This study examined different facets of the mahseer conservation across three environmentally, geographically, and socio-culturally distinct Indian states - Karnataka, Assam, and Uttarakhand under a framework integrating Conservation Planning Framework (CPF) with the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and Social Values (SV). Across all the focal states, three key themes were constructed – ‘consensus between stakeholders,’ ‘communication and collaboration,’ and ‘values and moral responsibility.’ Our analyses revealed that while shared ecological concerns offered an opportunity for the collective conservation actions, inter-stakeholder conflicts, communication gaps, hesitation to collaborate, top-down governance, and restricted decision-making autonomy available to tribal and local communities acted as the barriers. Stakeholders from all three states demonstrated strong pro-conservation attitudes, moral responsibility, perceived capability to implement the conservation plans and culturally embedded value for mahseer, rooted in religious beliefs, tribal and local identities and recreational traditions. However, on ground analysis revealed a low ‘actual behavioural control’ amongst many stakeholders limiting translation of the positive elements present in their attitudes and values into tangible conservation outcomes. Our observations emphasise formalising community-based co-management, strengthening inter-departmental coordination, building conservation capacity, adopting socio-culturally grounded communication strategies and repositioning community fishing events as socio-ecological heritage to ensure stakeholder compliance of the existing mahseer conservation plans and improve its success. Furthermore, aligning conservation planning with behavioural drivers and social values could offer more vital insights for formulating inclusive strategies and policies for protecting mahseers and managing their habitats
A Modified Mirror Test as a Visual Guide for the Self-awareness Trait in Wild Antarctica Penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae
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Wind direction dominates the transport and deposition of fire proxies in tropical dry forest landscapes of the Western Ghats
No full textFew studies have looked at transportation and deposition of fire proxies in an active wildfire in tropical forests. We opportunistically sampled surface sediments from two wetlands a week after a wildfire in the contiguous dry tropical forests of Bandipur and Mudumalai National Parks, Western Ghats, southern India. The wetlands sampled were roughly located between the largest and the second-largest burnt areas. We looked at common fire proxies – macrocharcoal, microcharcoal, microcharcoal/pollen (C/P) ratio and the abundance and distribution of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). Macrocharcoal counts per gram of dry sample were low (mean ∼5), while the C/P ratio was ∼1. PAHs were found in both sites with significantly different compositions, one site was dominated by Low Molecular Weight (LMW) PAHs and the other by HMW PAHs. Watershed and climatology analysis were done to constrain potential rework of legacy proxies. Analysis of wind speed and direction and HYbrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model trajectories show that some of the smoke plume from the smaller burnt area passed through our sampling locations and left behind modest traces of the fire. We conclude that wind direction and wet deposition are essential factors determining the transport and deposition of fire proxies in this environment. Hence, multi-site data must be used for an accurate reconstruction of fire histories to account for false absences of peaks in fire proxies
Parametric Analysis of Silica Gel for Thermal Energy Storage in Space Heating Applications
No full textHigh energy density and minimal energy losses render thermochemical energy storage (TCES) systems a promising long-term solution for space heating applications. While inorganic salt hydrates are considered effective thermochemical materials, challenges such as cycling stability, agglomeration, and deliquescence during the charging and discharging processes limit their efficacy. Porous matrices, like silica gel (SiO2), present a viable alternative to address these issues. In this study, a two-dimensional numerical model for SiO2 is developed for an open TCES system and validated against in-house experimental data. A parametric analysis was conducted to examine the effects of varying inlet airflow rates and air temperature on the system's discharging performance. The numerical results exhibit the maximum temperature rise of ~ 33°C and peak discharging efficiency of ~49% for the lowest airflow rate of 0.00639 kg/s. Additionally, the highest discharging efficiency of 60.38% was observed at the highest inlet air temperature of 27°C. These findings offer valuable insights for optimizing material composition to enhance the stability and sustainability of energy storage systems
Global Commons and Technology: Roadmap for India (RIS Policy Brief, No.117 April 2025)
Full text linkThis policy brief examines the potential role that India could play in global commons management while outlining the power credentials that allow her to shape norms of state behaviour in those commons. Inter alia, it makes a case for India to work with the major poles in the international system to repurpose the currently dormant UN Trusteeship Council to institute an effective collective governance mechanism for global commons management
Relocation of major earthquakes in India from 1905 to 2011 using a non-linear probabilistic approach
No full textWe perform probabilistic hypocentral location inversion for 10 major earthquakes in India that occurred since the dawn of the seismological instrumental era in 1904. A non-linear inversion approach with an efficient global sampling algorithm is used to obtain an estimate of the probability density function (PDF) in 3D space for the hypocenter estimation. The objective function that is minimized is an equal-differential traveltime formulation, that quantifies the difference between the observed and synthetic traveltimes for a pair of stations. Significant improvement in hypocentral location is obtained for five earthquakes in our dataset that occurred before the installation of the WWSSN network. The improvement and standardization of the global seismometer network in the 1960s led to more accurate and consistent location estimates across multiple reporting agencies. For post-1960 events, our hypocenter estimates are consistent with those reported by other authors. In most cases our maximum likelihood location lies in the vicinity of a mapped active fault, thereby providing confidence in our solution. The improvement in location estimate is gauged by measuring traveltime residuals across all stations and the size of the error ellipsoid
FIELD DATA REPOSITORY-Baulstudy- Souri
No full textthis document is a repository of the field data that represents a qualitative study of the Baul community focusing on their own learning system and its interaction with the formal schooling syste
Endemic architectural forms of Malabar and South Canara: The role of building material in shaping megaliths and temples
Full text linkThe strip of land constituting the regions of Malabar and South Canara along the western coast of India is renowned for unique architectural forms endemic to the region, including protohistoric megaliths and medieval temples. This paper argues that this propensity for architectural endemism is primarily due to the properties of locally available building materials – mainly laterite and timber, rather than the geographical isolation imposed by the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, as traditionally believed. The megaliths in this region, mostly from the Iron Age (1000BCE-500CE), and the medieval temples (800-1700CE), exhibit adaptations of the mainstream architectural traditions to suit the physical properties of laterite. This paper examines how architectural forms originally developed for construction using hard stone were re-interpreted to accommodate the properties of laterite. By analysing examples from both megalithic and temple contexts, it highlights the role of building material in determining the architectural identity of Malabar and South Canara