2835 research outputs found
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Natural Resource, Conflict and People’s Movement: A Strategy for Resolution
No full textThe issue of people’s movements demanding their fair share, rights, and entitlements over natural resources necessitates a strategic strategy to managing these resources and addressing the socio-political conflicts surrounding them. It is essential to move beyond the dominant discourse that views such conflicts solely through the lens of political and security threats and instead examine their socio-political and economic dimensions. Furthermore, a critical engagement is required to understand how successive governments and non-state actors manipulate and misappropriate these movements. Based on extensive field research in the Kalahandi and undivided Koraput districts of Odisha, this policy document identifies the key issues driving these movements as they assert their claims over natural resources. In doing so, it presents its findings and offers policy recommendations to manage natural resources and address the associated conflicts effectively
Foregrounding Equity in Climate Action
No full textIndia’s developmental challenges are significant and need to be overcome urgently, especially in the era of climate change. The impacts of climate change, both ongoing and the potential impacts in the future, have been compounded further by climate inaction by developed countries. This brief outlines a potential strategy for India to ensure climate justice and equity in global climate action. Based on data, this brief argues that India must strongly lobby for cumulative emissions and the total global carbon budget to be the basis for determining the adequacy and ambition of climate action. A fair share of the carbon space is well in line with the principles of equity and climate justice enshrined in the UNFCCC and is also in keeping with the results of climate science
To be or not to be conscious: Reflections on the phenomenological complexity of the Macaque mind
No full textOne of the most difficult aspects of studying consciousness scientifically, particularly in other-than-humans, is to develop functional definitions for the phenomenon in non-verbal beings, wherein consciousness has to manifest itself in behavioural actions that can be unambiguously ascribed to being products of conscious states of the mind. Walter Veit’s novel pathological complexity thesis proposes to investigate nonhuman consciousness from an evolutionarily bottom-up perspective, casting aside our obsessive preoccupation with the complexities of human consciousness, and seeks to understand the adaptive origins of even the most minimal forms of subjective experience. In this brief response to Veit’s proposal, I offer glimpses into the phenomenologically complex minds of wild individual bonnet macaques Macaca radiata – a cercopithecine nonhuman primate endemic to peninsular India – examined through deep naturalistic observations of their cognitive decision-making processes. Such explorations, I believe, are critically important, in not only revealing the innovative responses of these cognitive beings to the pathological complexity presented by the socioecological realities of the everyday but also in uncovering the mechanisms by which these individuals may be able to ‘consciously’ synthesise their various subjective experiences to take novel decisions at different stages of their challenging life histories in the long term, as postulated by Veit
Chronicles of a Global City: Speculative Lives and Unsettled Futures in Bengaluru
No full textTracking Bengaluru’s dramatic urban transformation through the entanglements of finance, land frenzy, real estate volatility, and livelihood upheavals. Over the past two decades, Bengaluru’s exploding real estate sector and massive infrastructure investments have led to land speculation targeting working-class neighborhoods and agricultural land for development. Chronicles of a Global City turns Bengaluru inside out to examine its “world-city” transformation that stimulated rapid urbanization and unbounded growth. Moving the spotlight away from the urban elites and “new middle class,” this book explores how people caught up in the whirlwinds of change in Bengaluru—from construction laborers, street vendors, domestic workers, and platform delivery workers to small-time property brokers, petty landlords, and local politicians—experience, struggle, aspire, invent, strive, and speculate to make a livable city for themselves. Grounded in long-term ethnographic research and activist experiences, Chronicles of a Global City vividly illuminates the multifaceted entanglements of finance capital, real estate markets, livelihood struggles, and fraying ecologies in urban and peri-urban Bengaluru. Its anchoring concept, “speculative urbanism”, provides a powerful, innovative lens for understanding the risk-laden practices of leveraging land, labor, and resources for the promise of future profit
Iron Age Tamil Nadu a Harappan legacy?: AMS dates and XRF on early iron, high-tin bronze, gold and high-carbon steel
No full textThis paper explores the implications of recent AMS dating in the understanding of the Iron Age in Tamil Nadu with respect to the emergence of the metallurgy. It touches upon not only the non-ferrous copper-bronze and gold repertoire but also for ferrous metallurgy for which the dates seem to rank amongst the earliest known particularly at coastal urn burial sites. It is pointed out that such early dates for the penetration of metallurgy, could be explained if there had been a coastal impetus from the Harappan region with the adventitious or accidental emergence of iron smelting by copper smelters experimenting with more available iron ores around coastal Tamil Nadu
Improving recyclability of open thermochemical storage using SrBr2/SiO2 composite: Experimental and numerical study
No full textThermochemical energy storage (TCES) systems are a promising long-term storage solution for space heating applications due to their high energy density and low energy losses. Although identified as promising thermochemical materials, inorganic salt hydrates suffer from issues related to cycling stability, agglomeration, and deliquescence during charging and discharging. Using composites can help address these challenges by improving the material's structural stability and performance over multiple cycles. This study investigates a composite mixture of strontium bromide hexahydrate (SrBr2·6H2O) and silica gel (SiO2) in an open TCES system, experimentally and numerically. A two-dimensional numerical model for the SrBr2·6H2O/SiO2 composite mixture is developed and validated against in-house experimental data for charging and discharging processes. The effect of varying SiO2 abundance (0 %, 25 %, 50 %, 75 %, and 100 %) in the composite mixture on the charging and discharging performance of the system is studied. The study identified the 50 % SiO2 composite mixture as the optimal configuration, balancing structural stability provided by SiO2 and energy storage capacity rendered by SrBr2·6H2O. The pure SiO2 exhibits the highest energy supplied (360.29 kJ) and temperature rise, whereas the pure SrBr2·6H2O delivers the highest discharging efficiency (∼94.9 %). These findings provide valuable insights into optimised material composition for stable and sustainable energy storage. A multi-cycle simulation considering the 50 % SiO2 composite mixture prima facie demonstrates the operational stability of the open TCES over multiple cycles, warranting further experimental exploration under realistic conditions
Mpox Awareness and Vaccine Acceptability among Transgender Women and Men who have Sex with Men in India: Predictors and Implications for Outbreak Preparedness
No full textResponse to Inequalities under divergent development strategies: a study of two villages in Gujarat and Kerala
No full textNIAS Workshop on Way Forward to achieve the Goals of India’s Nuclear Energy Mission by 2047
No full textThe Union Budget 2025-26 emphasised a significant push for nuclear energy to achieve the twin goals of energy security and Net Zero by 2070. The Government of India (GOI) has initiated the Nuclear Energy Mission with a target of 100 GW nuclear power capacity by 2047 from the current level of 8,780 MW. To achieve these goals, GOI has initiated the amendment of the Atomic Energy Act and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (CLND) Act to encourage private sector investments in nuclear power projects without compromising on safety, security, and safeguards.
NIAS site selection studies indicate that only a limited number of sites in India qualify under the AERB Siting Code for conventional Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are necessary to complement conventional NPPs by providing reliable, clean, and firm energy to hard-to-abate industries, besides enabling the repurposing of Thermal Power Plant sites to meet baseload demand. GOI has therefore allocated Rs. 20,000 Crore for the design, development, and deployment of SMRs. This workshop aims to bring together policymakers, potential NPP developers, subject matter experts, and civil society to understand the way forward and identify the decisions and actions required to achieve a tenfold increase in nuclear power generation capacity by 2047
