Changing Contours Research Articles

Leftist Dynamics in Post-370 Kulgam of Kashmir: Contours of Change

Following the revocation of Article 370 and re-organisation of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) into a Union Territory of India in August 2019, many questions arose about how democratic processes would work under the new dispensation. Within the context of the 2020 District Development Council elections, this article critically examines the surprisingly successful performance of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the CPI(M), in the district of Kulgam, a constituency well-known for its historical ties with leftist politics. Investigating the factors contributing to the party’s success, the article identifies the strategic approach by the CPI(M) to emphasise developmental issues, thereby challenging the traditional role of religion as a tool for mobilisation. Despite the strong local presence of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the left-leaning party, as part of a multi-party alliance, succeeded in gaining substantial electoral support in the seats that they contested. This study relies on primary data collected through extensive field surveys to highlight the unique electoral dynamics witnessed within this specific region, which gain added relevance in view of future electoral contests.

Mapping and monitoring dense non-aqueous phase liquid source zone by fused surface and cross-borehole electrical resistivity tomography

Effective characterization of dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) source zones is crucial for remediating polluted sites. DNAPL often reside as residuals or pools within high-permeability lenses and above impermeable layers due to soil heterogeneity, gravity, and capillary barriers. Given the high cost of drilling, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) techniques—including surface ERT and cross-borehole ERT, are commonly used for DNAPL source zone mapping and monitoring. However, the low spatial resolution of ERT increases uncertainty in source zone investigations. This study proposes a method for improving DNAPL mapping and monitoring by fusing surface and cross-borehole ERT data. Sandbox experiments were conducted to simulate a heterogeneous DNAPL source zone, employing both ERT methods for static mapping and dynamic monitoring. Reflective light imaging (RLM) was used to visualize DNAPL migration and provide saturation data, allowing for the quantification of ERT's effectiveness in characterizing DNAPL distribution. The results indicate that individual ERT methods face significant challenges in DNAPL source zone mapping due to background interference. Surface ERT alone tends to underestimate the extent of deeper DNAPL source zones. However, fusing surface and cross-borehole ERT results in a complementary enhancement of vertical spatial resolution, thereby improving the characterization of DNAPL source zones. The fusion of static and time-lapse ERT data substantially enhances DNAPL source zone mapping and monitoring capabilities. By calculating the ratio of the ERT-monitored area to the actual area using resistivity change contours (5 %, 10 %, 15 %), it was found that fusing surface and cross-borehole ERT data improved monitoring resolution by 50.48 % compared to surface ERT alone and by 22.95 % compared to cross-borehole ERT. Principal component analysis (PCA) was effective in fusing time-lapse data, while the weighted average method (WAM) outperformed PCA for static resistivity data fusion.

The changing contours of insecurity in Katsina: A threat assessment

Threats from armed bandits and kidnappers in Northwestern Nigeria are in different forms. The landscape of security challenges has changed since 2016, with the intensive war against Islamic insurgents in Northeastern Nigeria called Boko Haram has changed the contours of security challenges in Nigeria. The manifestation of different security threats has been on the increase and the armed bandits have continued to wreak havoc on communities and highways in different parts of Nigeria. The security challenge is now a hydra-headed monster, which if one head is cut, another head will develop in Nigeria. This article has assessed the current security situation and challenges that beleaguered some States in the Northwest geopolitical zone of Nigeria with a particular interest in Katsina State. The researcher evaluated secondary data on the performance of security personnel deployed to the conflict-affected areas in Katsina, State. The assessment covered January to June 2024. However, the data are classified information hence the identity of the personnel and persons who divulged the information cannot be revealed in line with the principles of anonymity in research ethics. The findings found that some of the armed groups in parts of Katsina State are kidnapping people to remove some vital organs from their bodies and sell them to those who traffic human organs. Based on the assessment, the affected Local Government Areas in Katsina State are categorized into four (4) based on the severity and magnitude of kidnapping, cattle rustling and ransacking of villages. Drawing from the findings, the researcher has developed policies and strategies to address the changing contours of security challenges in the affected areas and Nigeria. As a tradition in threat assessment, the researcher has provided policy recommendations to achieve or implement the policies and strategies. The activities of the armed bandits and organ traffickers portend a grave danger now and in the future as many people would be involved in the business of human organs due to their lucrative nature. The government should develop strategies that will enable the rural communities not to be vulnerable to attacks from armed bandits. Armed groups who kill and kidnap residents at will for ransom and organ trafficking if not tamed will recruit new foot soldiers hence aggravating the situation. Addressing security threats can be achieved by deploying enough security personnel at the border between the Niger Republic and Nigeria. Security personnel should deploy electronic scanners and long-range cameras to monitor and arrest the influx of foreign and domestic dealers in human organs and weapons for appropriate punishment.

Living with the Aadhaar: India’s Changing Contours of Identity and Governance

Living with the <i>Aadhaar</i>: India’s Changing Contours of Identity and Governance

Book review: K. B. Saxena (Ed.), Poverty and Deprivation: Changing Contours

K. B. Saxena (Ed.), Poverty and Deprivation: Changing Contours (Sage, 2023), 335 pp., ₹1,495, ISBN: 978-93-9137-076-3 (Hardcover).

‘Regionalism’ and its contestations: changing political discourse in contemporary Assam

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to understand the socio-political dimension of the political changes in Assam vis-a-vis “regionalism” and its contestations. The Changing contours of regionalism in Assam reflect its distinct character marked by the simultaneous articulation of regional, sub-regional and national identity in a complex socio-ethnic and historical context. The recent political trajectory of Assam bears testimony to the dual challenges facing the forces of regionalism; the presence of sub-regional ethnic identity articulation and the appropriation of regional space and issues by the national parties. Further, the shifting allegiance of ethnic identity-based parties to the national parties is critical to understand the dynamics of regionalism in Assam. Socio-political developments subsequent to the rise of BJP post-2014 provide an interesting landscape to comprehend the complexities inherent in understanding regionalism in contemporary Assam. On a contextual note, the paper also locates the question of regionalism in the ongoing debates of NRC and CAA.

Does foreign currency borrowing make firms vulnerable? Experience of emerging India

The Asian Financial Crisis during the late 1990 s revealed the fault lines of foreign currency loans of corporates. It starkly demonstrated that a combination of semi-pegged exchange rates and unregulated foreign currency borrowing could expose corporates and, subsequently, the entire economy to heightened vulnerability. To mitigate these risks, implementing certain capital account restrictions emerged as a potential remedy. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates the changing contours of vulnerability arising from the rising foreign currency leverage of 818 non-financial corporates in India during 2004–2022. In particular, this paper examines the impact of exchange rate shocks and changes in certain key macroeconomic policy variables on the financial vulnerabilities of these firms. Our findings unequivocally indicate that during exchange rate depreciation, unhedged exposures significantly amplified the vulnerability of Indian firms. While our study centres on India, the overarching conclusions and insights derived from our analysis possess broader ramifications for emerging economies grappling with capital account restrictions. The policy implications of our research underscore the need to proactively strengthen the macroprudential toolkit to address the risks associated with foreign currency borrowing and ensure more robust risk management practices to prevent the buildup of systemic vulnerabilities.

Contours of Change: British Colonial Impact on the Clothing of Elite Bengali Women (1864 - 1947)

Contours of Change: British Colonial Impact on the Clothing of Elite Bengali Women (1864 - 1947)

Instrumentalizing Arabism: Morocco and the Inter-Arab System

ABSTRACT The changing contours of Morocco’s involvement in the inter-Arab system over nearly a century was largely instrumental. It was driven by both “realist” concerns and domestic political issues related to fundamental matters of regime legitimacy and societal cohesion, i.e. the very nature of Moroccan national identity. With the decline of Arabism’s political salience, and a monarch who preferred to keep a low profile in Arab affairs, Morocco’s relations with Arab Mashriq countries became increasingly devoid of traditional markers of Arab solidarity and brotherhood. Domestically, the emergence of the Amazigh factor led to Morocco’s collective identity becoming a renewed subject of contention.

Changing Contours of America’s South Asia Strategy

The US’ South Asia strategy is changing in response to shifts in geopolitics. The withdrawal from Afghanistan and the growing challenge of China have occasioned changes in the US’ approach towards the region. Besides, the Indo-Pacific has also emerged as a new framework for US’ engagement with South Asia. Three changes are clearly discernible: first, the US has reduced its focus on counter-terrorism, second, it is building strategic partnerships with like-minded countries for limiting China’s influence in South Asia and, finally, it has been gradually expanding ties with smaller South Asian Island States like Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The changing contours of the US’ South Asia strategy are here to stay.

From “Special” to “Military”

Now that Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine has entered its third year, we can conclude that, like any major war of the past several centuries, it has confounded many predictions, theories, and assumptions. Its initiators, participants, and observers, on both sides, have been faced with that which they did not expect or plan for. Two years of fighting have revealed the contours of revolutionary changes in military theory and practice, possibly predetermining the character of war for the entire 21st century.

Effects of Institutional and Organizational Factors on the Changing Contours of Industrial Relations in Central and Eastern Europe

Since the early 1990s, the industrial relations systems in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe have been undergoing complex transformation processes. As the business environment has radically altered from a centrally planned system to an open competitive one, trade unions in the region have struggled to carve out a role in the new order. We draw upon organizational survey level evidence gathered from 1604 HR managers to examine trade union recognition, trade union coverage, as well as the perceived ongoing influence of the trade union movement in Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Our analysis points to the legitimacy challenges faced by the labour union movement in the dramatically altered political and economic situation that emerged in the region as a result of the attenuation of socialism and the advent of a new market order. It also lends further support to the growing body of evidence on the lack of preparedness of the union movement for the new dispensation that emerged following the collapse of communism in the region.

The city in film: Reading Dhobi Ghat and Island City as cinematic representations of Mumbai

Urban spaces harbour the capacity to embody varied social relations that constantly interact to form lived experiences. As the society has gradually transformed from a collection of rural settlements to a largely metropolitan space, urban fiction as a literary genre set in city landscapes has become increasingly popular. In a century dominated by new media technologies, the changing contours of contemporary societies became widely visible in the images and interpretations available through cinema. Cinema as one of the predominant modes of cultural expressions has played a performative role in encapsulating the changing lifestyles, attitudes and landscapes. The city as a mosaic of complexity, diversity and contradictions has consequently become an inseparable part of the world’s largest film industry – Bollywood. The Indian megacity of Mumbai has thus become a site of ‘glocal’ interconnections and polyphonic voices. Not only has the city contributed to the production and dissemination of films, but its increased influence has also allowed it to feature as a ‘character’ in many films. This article seeks to evaluate select cinematic narratives to foreground the living realities of the megacity of Mumbai. While examining the representation of Mumbai in two films released post-2010 – Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries) and Island City, the article intends to interpret the implicit and explicit meanings in the cinematic language of these films. It seeks to argue that cinematic representations of Mumbai help to characterize ways of perceiving the city as a complex, multi-layered urban text. Rather than visualizing the city as an empty space that simply holds the narrative together, the article aims to show how cities in films become characters themselves, engulfing those of flesh and bone.

Building rural community resilience: The case of gem extraction in flood-affected areas of Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan gem mining and extractive industry communities experience enormous amounts of devastation from mass flooding events. Despite the pressing importance of understanding Gem Mining Community Resilience (GMCR) vis-à-vis community flood disaster management, the topic remains under researched. In order to address this gap in the extant literature, this study investigates the resilience of Sri Lankan gem mining communities’ social support network legacies (mitigation and adaptation) in response to a 2017 mass flooding event. Survey data were collected from 167 flood-affected gem mining households (GMHs) in fifteen local administrative units (GNDs) located in two Sri Lankan divisional secretariat divisions (DSDs). Social Network Analysis (SNA) is deployed to investigate the changing contours of social support network centralities before, during, and after the flooding event. Results suggest that the social support network legacies of the surveyed communities evolved over different flood-inundation phases in different geographical settings, thus improving GMCR. Flood inundation depth impacted network activities as well. Multi-actor social support networks working in concert with social capital legacies have shaped the processes of resource mobilization and flood victim livelihood revivification. These mitigation and adaptation practices, along with a GMCR framework developed in the study, may impart lessons for local and national policy, as well as for gem mining communities in other developing countries.

Global Shift, Seventh Edition: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy by Peter Dicken

<i>Global Shift, Seventh Edition: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy</i> by Peter Dicken

Changing Contours of Growth and Employment in the Indian Labour Market: A Sectoral Decomposition Approach

This study analyses the changing contours of employment and economic growth in the Indian labour market over four decades (1983–2019-20) using the NSSO-EUS & PLFS datasets. Here, the Shapley Decomposition methodology (as developed by World Bank) has been used to decompose the per capita income growth into changes in employment, changes in output per worker, and the population change components at the aggregate level and by sectors for the Indian labour market. The study unfolds a pattern of inter-sectoral variations in growth in income and employment since pre and post-reform periods. The estimate shows that the major contributor to the value-added is output per worker and inter-sectoral shifts. Further, despite the output growth in the industrial and service sector, it didn't reflect in absorbing the labour force entering the job market. The aggregate employment and income growth pattern entails proper policy intervention in the Indian labour market.

The Research Utility of the National Violent Death Reporting System for Understanding Homicide Trends

Homicide trend research has relied heavily on the same two data systems for decades. The current article highlights the research utility of a newer database—the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS)—for examining the contours of homicide change. First, we describe the history, design, and availability of the NVDRS, and review past homicide and longitudinal studies using these data. Second, we discuss two features of the data system that researchers should consider when conducting homicide trend analyses: (a) data availability and representativeness and (b) data completeness. Third, we demonstrate a strong degree of correspondence between NVDRS homicide victimization trends and trends from other data systems. Fourth, we illustrate the ways in which the NVDRS can enrich our understanding of homicide trends by examining how homicide characteristics changed during the two recent homicide spikes from 2014 to 2016 and 2019 to 2020.

Dynamic discharging performance of a latent heat thermal energy storage system based on a PID controller

A PID controller is introduced into a latent heat thermal energy storage unit to compose a coupling system in order to control the discharging performance. Outlet temperature of the working fluid can be precisely regulated by means of its inlet velocity variation based on the PID controller. The theoretical model is built through combining heat transfer of the latent heat thermal energy storage unit with the PID controller. Experimental results are used to validate the proposed theoretical model. PID control analysis indicates that its parameters have obvious effects on performance of the coupling system. Kp of −0.02 m/(s·K), Ki of −0.15 m/(s2·K) and Kd of −0.001 m/K are further optimized according to dynamic response of the transient outlet water temperature. System parameter analysis exhibits that higher target temperature produces larger heat discharging rate, which then reduces the outlet water flow rate accordingly. The discharging rate and total discharging energy of the latent heat thermal energy storage unit decrease with augment of the target outlet temperature. Increase of PCM melting point, thermal conductivity and latent heat is favorable of elevating the working fluid velocity. The discharging rate is improved by the PCM melting point, thermal conductivity and latent heat. The latent heat thermal energy storage units can separately obtain maximum discharging rates of 257.691, 294.437 and 257.603 W at 200 min for PCM melting point of 327.15 K, PCM thermal conductivity of 0.8 W/(m·K) and PCM latent heat of 250 J/g. It is apparent that PCM melting point, thermal conductivity and latent heat are conducive to enhancing the total discharging energy. The largest discharging energy at 200 min is respectively determined as 1280.409, 1060.105 and 974.153 kJ. Temperature and phase change contours can also be substantially affected by the system parameters. In conclusion, the built coupling system is beneficial to efficiently regulate and control discharging performance of latent heat thermal energy storage units.

Employment Discrimination against Indigenous People with Tribal Marks in Nigeria: The Painful Face of Stigma

Drawing from in-depth qualitative interviews (N = 32), this article examines the impact of indigenous tribal marks on employment chances in southwest Nigeria. It employs indigenous standpoint theory to frame the argument around what constitutes stigma and in what context. The results of our thematic analysis indicate that tribally marked job applicants and employees face significant social rejection, stigmatization and discrimination, and can suffer from severe mental illnesses and even suicidal ideation. We explain how these tribally marked individuals navigate the changing contours of tradition and modernity in Nigeria. Tribal marks, although once largely perceived as signals of beauty and high social status, are now increasingly viewed as a significant liability in the labour market. This article makes a unique and original contribution to the study of stigma and employment discrimination by eschewing the prevailing Western ethnocentrism in the extant research and instead placing the indigenous standpoint at centre stage.

Book review: Suraj Bhan Bhardwaj, State and Peasant Society in Medieval North India: Essays on Changing Contours of Mewat, Thirteenth to Eighteenth Century

Suraj Bhan Bhardwaj, State and Peasant Society in Medieval North India: Essays on Changing Contours of Mewat, Thirteenth to Eighteenth Century (Delhi: Primus Books, 2019), 220 pp., ₹995, ISBN: 9789386552235 (Hardback).