Indian Village Research Articles

Fostering Rice-Based Model Villages in India: Accomplishment & Impediments

ICAR-National Rice Research Institute (NRRI), Cuttack, India had taken up two tiny villages namely Gurujanga & Guali in Odisha state for developing as model villages and dissemination of improved rice production technologies. Adoption of few land mark rice varieties developed by ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack resulted huge yield advantage over varieties grown earlier. Non-farm income and labour force participation rate were key factors together with other improved traits for adoption of varieties and technologies.

Do social capital and networks facilitate community participation?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to find theoretical and practical linkages between social capital, network and community participation. The study examines the role of popular social capital and its forms in shaping community participation under the influence of socioeconomic status of individuals.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses household survey data (N = 135) from select north Indian villages to assess the role of social capital and individuals’ networks (measured through their network size) in participation. The participation is measured in terms of attendance and vocal participation.FindingsThe study finds significant evidence that the networks do not play a uniform role in collective participation. The elitist form of social capital exists in the community which can leverage the networks to their benefit, whereas many people, despite large network size, cannot actively participate. Social capital and networks are not entirely conducive for collective participation and favours a few in the community. Additionally, networks do facilitate information flow but do not help in achieving active engagement. Hence, the peer effect is not truly reflected in vocal participation all the time, especially in local governance context.Research limitations/implicationsThe conclusion of the study is based on small sample size from seven villages. Nonetheless, in light of the supporting literature available, it provides useful insights and triggers important questions that need microscopic analysis under the macroscopic umbrella of social capital.Practical implicationsOn policy fronts, takeaway from this paper can be used for policy and law formulation for lower strata of the society such as labour law formulation and labour behavioural practices in community participation.Social implicationsThe research findings can be utilized for the emerging applications of social networks in understanding local governance and community engagement in developing societies.Originality/valueThis research has used a novel field experiment conducted by one of the authors himself. The empirical assessment of social capital and networks in local governance can be replicated elsewhere to study participation in other societies as well. In terms of policy, the research underscores the need of using social capital notion while assessing the community engagement in local governance.

A Tale of Two Villages: Development and Household Change in India

AbstractDespite decades of sweeping socioeconomic and cultural transformations, extended households remain widespread in many regions of the world. The mechanisms explaining this persistence are not well‐established. The research reported on here investigates these mechanisms in India, where the prevalence of stem and joint households ranks among the highest in the world. Combining demographic and ethnographic data, this study compares processes of household change in two villages in India's Deccan Plateau. Results highlight key pathways by which development can contribute to both the decline and persistence of joint households. In the first village, joint households have become virtually extinct in recent years. Analyses suggest that frequent labor migrations, depopulation, and slow economic growth largely explain this decline. In the second village, there was a recent increase in the prevalence of joint households. The expansion of irrigation created economic opportunities in farming and other industries. Many young men now jointly invest in land with their father and brother(s) instead of purchasing separate houses. This suggests that agricultural improvements and the revitalization of the village economy have stimulated the formation of joint households. In both villages, ethnographic data reveal the ambivalent preferences and practical considerations underpinning residential decisions.

Precision mapping child undernutrition for nearly 600,000 inhabited census villages in India

There are emerging opportunities to assess health indicators at truly small areas with increasing availability of data geocoded to micro geographic units and advanced modeling techniques. The utility of such fine-grained data can be fully leveraged if linked to local governance units that are accountable for implementation of programs and interventions. We used data from the 2011 Indian Census for village-level demographic and amenities features and the 2016 Indian Demographic and Health Survey in a bias-corrected semisupervised regression framework to predict child anthropometric failures for all villages in India. Of the total geographic variation in predicted child anthropometric failure estimates, 54.2 to 72.3% were attributed to the village level followed by 20.6 to 39.5% to the state level. The mean predicted stunting was 37.9% (SD: 10.1%; IQR: 31.2 to 44.7%), and substantial variation was found across villages ranging from less than 5% for 691 villages to over 70% in 453 villages. Estimates at the village level can potentially shift the paradigm of policy discussion in India by enabling more informed prioritization and precise targeting. The proposed methodology can be adapted and applied to diverse population health indicators, and in other contexts, to reveal spatial heterogeneity at a finer geographic scale and identify local areas with the greatest needs and with direct implications for actions to take place.

Dog's own country

I was 4 years old when I had my first trauma linked to dogs. I was living in one of the several small clay tile-roofed houses in that south Indian village. Whenever I was outdoors to play, a black and brown dog that a neighbour petted but did not own would get keen lifting his earlobes up. More worryingly, the dog would often spring onto people passing by. One day as I went out looking for my mother who was out to collect water, the dog suddenly chased me. I ran for life often looking behind my back with fear whether he would bite me, only to end up banging my head on a wall while the dog walked away without planting its grisly teeth in my body.

Death Rituals and Change Among Hindu Nadars in a South Indian Village

This article examines changes in the death rituals performed among Hindu Nadars in a South Indian village. It emphasises the importance of understanding ritual changes within their specific micro-level local contextual framework, including changing social structures at household and village level. This empirical evidence showcases how changing rituals connected to death reflect various adaptations through imitation, substitution and alteration of specific ritual elements and performants. It also identifies emerging class distinctions among Nadars and their connection with changes in rituals associated with death. This analysis of the changes depicts how Nadars use ritual actions in pragmatic ways, symbolically expressing and realising their aspirations for status enhancement through such ritual performances.

Post Colonialism And Political Resistance In Lagaan: Once Upon A Time In India

Using the movie Lagaan as a case in point, the paper examines the post-colonial and political resistance in the 19th century. Lagaan is a Bollywood movie released in 2001 and is directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. The fictional story is set in a village in India and it explores the struggles faced by the citizens to earn their rights. Taking in account of the movie, the paper analyses the socio-political scenario of the country.

“No One is Poor in Himachal”: Cultivating Stateless Agency in an Indian Village Assembly

This article examines the bedrock of rural governance in India—the village assembly, or gram sabha—and the deliberative process whereby citizens are designated as “below the poverty line” (BPL). I examine one gram sabha in Himachal Pradesh wherein BPL status was eradicated altogether, leaving hundreds of people ineligible for a vast array of state aid programs. I argue that this outcome relied on an interactional achievement whereby state actors (bureaucrats and elected representatives) rendered village residents into a collectivized agent while erasing their own role and responsibility from the proceedings. These semiotic processes of collectivization and erasure underlie what I call “stateless agency.” I trace three linguistic resources that cultivate stateless agency: (i) causative verbs that distribute agency across multiple grammatically encoded participant roles; (ii) code switches from the local language, Kangri, into a register of English‐infused Hindi that invokes what I call the “bureaucratic voice”; and (iii) metapragmatic statements that explicitly attribute agency to other speaker(s). This investigation builds on studies of grammar and political agency (Duranti 1990; 1994) and bureaucratic agency (Hull 2003; 2012) by demonstrating how linguistic resources mediate the paradoxical erasure of state actors from bureaucratic and democratic practice, with often drastic consequences for rural livelihoods.

Marketplace Literacy as a Pathway to a Better World: Evidence from Field Experiments in Low-Access Subsistence Marketplaces

Multinational companies increasingly focus on subsistence marketplaces, given their enormous market potential. Nevertheless, their potential is untapped because subsistence consumers face extreme constraints. The authors contend that subsistence consumers need marketplace literacy to participate effectively and beneficially in marketplaces. Marketplace literacy entails the knowledge and skills that enable them to participate in a marketplace as both consumers and entrepreneurs. This is crucial for subsistence consumers, as they often must function in both roles to survive. Previous research, however, has not empirically examined the influence of marketplace literacy on well-being or marketing outcomes related to well-being. To address this gap, the authors implemented three large-scale field experiments with approximately 1,000 people in 34 remote villages in India and Tanzania. They find that marketplace literacy causes an increase in psychological well-being and consumer outcomes related to well-being (e.g., consumer confidence, decision-making ability), especially for subsistence consumers with lower marketplace access, and it causes an increase in entrepreneurial outcomes related to well-being (e.g., starting a microenterprise) for those with higher marketplace access. Overall, this research generates practical implications for the use of marketplace literacy as a pathway to a better world.

The World of Anaconda: the myth of the snake-canoe and its relationship with the stilt villages from eastern amazon

Amazonian ethnography relies on a world created by an anaconda, an ancestral creator. The story that myths tell is that the Amazon River is the metaphor of an anaconda; a large, meandering reptile. While the Anaconda sails along the great river, it populates the riverbanks, creating the Indian villages along its margins. This is why the anaconda is a snake-canoe. Amazonian societies are classified by archeology as belonging to the Polychrome Tradition of the Amazon (TPA). This research suggests that stilt villagers in eastern Amazonia, where shamanism played a role in communicating with animals, also shared this myth. The anaconda embodied in ceramic archaeological sites is as a memory of this complex indigenous narrative as it develops across time.

Time Allocation between Paid and Unpaid Work among Men and Women: An Empirical Study of Indian Villages

The paper examines the time allocation between paid work (wage earning or self-employed work generally termed as employment work) and unpaid (domestic chores/care work generally termed as non-employment work) along with wage rates, imputed earnings, and occupational structure among men and women and according to different social groups to establish the extent to which the rural labour market is discriminated by sex and social group. The major objective of the paper is to show the differential in wage income between men and women in farm and non-farm activities. The paper also shows the division of time between employment and non-employment activities by men and women. The paper uses high-frequency data and applies econometric techniques to know the factors behind time allocation among different activities across gender. The study finds that males spend more hours on employment work and work at a higher wage rate than females. As a result, a vast monetary income gap between men and women is observed, even though women worked more hours if employment and non-employment activities are jointly taken into consideration. Time spent on employment work and non-employment (mainly domestic chores) has been found to vary significantly due to social identity, household wealth, land, income, education, and skill. The segregation of labour market by sex was evident in this study, with men shifting to non-farm occupations with greater monetary returns and continued dependence on women’s farm activities. Enhancing the ownership of land and other assets, encouraging women’s participation particularly among minorities, and improving health are some of the policy recommendations directed from this study to enhance participation in employment work and shifting towards higher wage income employment.

Smartphone-Enabled Paper-Based Hemoglobin Sensor for Extreme Point-of-Care Diagnostics.

We report a simple, affordable (∼0.02 US $/test), rapid (within 5 min), and quantitative paper-based sensor integrated with smartphone application for on-spot detection of hemoglobin (Hgb) concentration using approximately 10 μL of finger-pricked blood. Quantitative analytical colorimetry is achieved via an Android-based application (Sens-Hb), integrating key operational steps of image acquisition, real-time analysis, and result dissemination. Further, feedback from the machine learning algorithm for adaptation of calibration data offers consistent dynamic improvement for precise predictions of the test results. Our study reveals a successful deployment of the extreme point-of-care test in rural settings where no infrastructural facilities for diagnostics are available. The Hgb test device is validated both in the controlled laboratory environment (n = 200) and on the field experiments (n = 142) executed in four different Indian villages. Validation results are well correlated with the pathological gold standard results (r = 0.9583) with high sensitivity and specificity for the healthy (n = 136) (>11 g/dL) (specificity: 97.2%), mildly anemic (n = 55) (<11 g/dL) (sensitivity: 87.5%, specificity: 100%), and severely anemic (n = 9) (<7 g/dL) (sensitivity: 100%, specificity: 100%) samples. Results from field trials reveal that only below 5% cases of the results are interpreted erroneously by classifying mildly anemic patients as healthy ones. On-field deployment has unveiled the test kit to be extremely user friendly that can be handled by minimally trained frontline workers for catering the needs of the underserved communities.

Composición de tierras en el pueblo de indios de San Mateo, alcaldía mayor de Maravatío - Zitácuaro, siglos XVII y XVIII

El artículo trata el proceso de composición de tierras en la época novohispana con énfasis en el período de 1692 a 1720, y cómo esta forma de regularizar la propiedad rural tuvo impactos geográficos, políticos y territoriales en los pueblos de indios o de naturales. El caso resulta relevante pues con este acto jurídico, algunas de las comunidades agrarias de la actualidad demostraron la posesión quieta y pacífica de la tierra, desde tiempo inmemorial. Para ello se estudia el caso de la república de indios mazahuas de San Mateo, del Partido de Zitácuaro, Jurisdicción de Maravatío, en el centro de la Nueva España, con base en la revisión y análisis del título de composición de tierras, así como en la reconstrucción cartográfica de la vista de ojos.

Everything on Tower (EoT) – Enabling Broadband Access in Rural Areas Through License-Exempt Spectrum – Making the Business of Rural Broadband Happen

This paper mainly aims to throw the light on telecom technologies of today and tomorrow. It briefly discusses, how technologies are now starting to be available to connect every village and also it details challenges faced by the technologies in rural areas. With these in mind, a total innovative business model is required to deliver Internet services to rural areas. In order to meet this need, a Danish technology start-up called BLUETOWN took the initiative to significantly enhance the quality of life of rural people in India in various villages of Eastern India by setting up a network of public Wi-Fi hotspots in various villages of India. The challenges from a technology point of view were many. The systems that provided the solution needed to be cost-effective, low maintenance and affordable to the rural masses [1].

A measure of centrality in cyclic diffusion processes: Walk-betweenness.

Unlike many traditional measures of centrality based on paths that do not allow any repeated nodes or lines, we propose a new measure of centrality based on walks, walk-betweenness, that allows any number of repeated nodes or lines. To illustrate the value of walk-betweenness, we examine the transmission of syphilis in Chicago area and the diffusion of microfinance in 43 rural Indian villages. Walk-betweenness allows us to identify hidden bridging communities in Chicago that were essential in the transmission dynamics. We also find that village leaders with high walk-betweenness are more likely to accelerate the rate of microfinance take-up among their followers, outperforming other traditional centrality measures in regression analyses.

Mapping development and welfare schemes with SDGs in a village in India, ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad-500059, India, Pp.24.

The paper examined the various development and social welfare schemes implemented in a village in India and mapping them to the Sustanable Development Goals (SDGs) to see whether these schemes are helping in achieve the SDG goals. This paper examines the actual benefits accrued to the households in a village and how they have utilized the schemes. The paper assessed share of households benefited and the extent of benefit from each scheme and also at the aggregate level. The research is conducted in Emped village of Telangana state of India by collecting information from all 287 households to get a holistic picture in year 2017. Although more than 50 schemes were implemented in the village, about 29 were active. The study examines 29 schemes from which, at least one household got benefited. The average aggregate benefit from all government schemes is about Rupees 58,095 per household. Some schemes benefit large farmers and pro-rich, while others were pro-poor. Majority of the households benefited from schemes like the Public Distribution System (PDS), direct benefit transfer based on agricultural land, MGNREGA, loan waiver, seed and fertilizer subsidy, mid-day-meal scheme but only a modest amount. But very few are benefited from the double-bed room housing scheme, the Chief Minister Relief Fund in huge sums. Schemes addressed to women like the KCR Kits (assistance to pregnant women) and Shadi Mubarak(marriage assistance) were effective. Overall, these schemes help to achieve different targets of the SDGs but need more focus on identification of target beneficiary, reduction of leakages and inordinate delays in implementation. Overall, there is inverted U shape relationship exists between household income and total benefits received, while a positive relationship exists between landholding and benefits from the government schemes. Most of the assistance recived from agricultural development schemes are spent on intended purpose, whereas welfare schemes were spent on consumption purpose.

Expertise, legitimacy and subjectivity: Three techniques for a will to govern low carbon energy projects in India

This paper advances the understanding of the politics of governing energy for development projects by non-state actors. Building on Tania Murray Li’s work on trusteeship, and drawing on governmentality studies, along with ethnographic insights from two low carbon energy projects, this paper illuminates two less examined aspects of politics of energy projects. First, the designs of these projects embed particular imagined subjects, and specific techniques, to afford governance. In particular, trustees use techniques of expertise, techniques of legitimacy, and techniques of subjectivity. Second, trusteeship is a contingent phenomenon as a clear line between trustees and subjects is often missing. Many actors, simultaneously trustees and subjects, also carry socio-cultural subjectivities of class, caste and gender, which complicates the conduct of conduct. Some trustees look for benefiting people, some for profits, some to make a political career and, yet others, to support their social groups. By engaging with trusteeship, the paper flags that the governance techniques do not always benefit the ‘beneficiaries’ and are often counterproductive. The article emerges from nine-month ethnographic research done in 2012–13 in five villages in India using participant observations, interviews and group discussion, in addition to analysis of project websites and documentary materials.

Mitochondrial DNA analysis of the putative skeletal remains of Sieur de Marle: Genetic support for anthropological assessment of biogeographic ancestry

In 1932, seven burials were discovered on a Texas plantation that was originally the site of a 17th-century Caddo Indian village. Of the seven excavated graves, one set of remains (an adult male) was notably buried in a manner inconsistent with traditional Caddoan burial practices and has long been purported to be the remains of Sieur de Marle (a member of the French explorer La Salle’s last expedition). Diary accounts of La Salle’s expedition scribe report that Sieur de Marle died along a river near an Indian village during a trek to Canada to find help for colonists left behind at the ill-fated Fort St. Louis. Additionally, two lead projectiles recovered from the grave were ballistically analyzed and determined to be consistent with ammunition used in 17th-century weaponry. In the 1980s, anthropologists requested access to the remains for study, but the skull was missing. Cranial measurements recorded in 1940 and 1962 (by two independent anthropologists) were used to investigate the ancestry of this individual; and the Giles-Elliot (G-E) discriminant function was calculated to be 18.1, within the Anglo-European range. Dietary isotope testing on non-cranial skeletal elements determined that this unknown male’s diet was rich in animal/marine protein sources, which differs appreciably from Caddo Indian populations of that time period. In order to genetically assess this individual’s biogeographic ancestry and to provide further support that this individual is of European descent, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing was performed using the Applied Biosystems™ Precision ID mtDNA Whole Genome Panel. mtDNA sequencing of multiple sections from two different long bones yielded compiled results consistent with either Haplogroup H or R, both predominantly European mtDNA haplogroups. Further anthropological calculations were conducted using cranial measurements, FORDISC™ software, and discriminant function analysis. Two-way, four-way, and multigroup discriminant function analyses further classify this set of unidentified remains as being White (European) in origin, with posterior probabilities of 0.999, 0.881 and 0.986, respectively. Combined with historical records of Sieur de Marle’s death, as well as overlays of historical and contemporary maps which demonstrate that the plantation site aligns with Joutel’s diary accounts of de Marle’s burial, these collective results support that these remains are of a European male and may possibly belong to this prominent member of La Salle’s expedition team.

Financial Access and Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship and Employment: Evidence from Rural India

Can expansion of bank branch network reduce gender-gap in economic activity at the village level? To explore this issue, we construct a novel village-level panel data where we observe the financial access of each unbanked village in India defined as its distance to the nearest village/town with bank branch (banked-center) from 1951-2019; and village-level enterprise data of four economic census rounds of 1990, 1998, 2005 and 2013. To account for endogeneity in placement of bank branches, we use a difference-in-difference methodology. We find that the presence of a bank branch within 5km of an un-banked village between 2005 and 2013 (Treatment Group) mitigated the gender gap in entrepreneurship, and employment. The increase in number of female enterprises and in the size of female employment occurs fully driven by non-agricultural sector, whereas a shift is observed in male entrepreneurship from agricultural to non-agricultural sector. We also find evidence that this transition may be a consequence of credit uptake by enterprises from non-institutional sources as proximity to a banked-center improves. Our results are robust to unobservable village and year effects, and presence of alternative village-level infrastructure.

Rural Development:An Experience of Case Studies in an Indian Village

Rural Development:An Experience of Case Studies in an Indian Village