Search

Begin New Search Political Geography India Content Type Research Paper

11. Technical Barriers to Trade and the Performance of Indian Exporters

Author:
Pavel Chakraborthy and Rahul Singh
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
We study the effects of technical barriers to trade (TBTs) imposed by destination markets on prices, marginal costs, and markups of Indian manufacturing exporters. Using detailed firm-product-level data on prices and production from PROWESS, we first identify the underlying component of prices (i.e. marginal costs and markups), and use those as our outcomes of interest in the second stage. We find that (i) introduction of TBTs by importing countries increases marginal costs by 5% and prices by 4%, (ii) there is considerable heterogeneity based on exporters’ initial productivity, (iii) productive exporters (those belonging to the lower deciles) experienced an increase in marginal costs and decrease in markups compared to low productivity exporters, and (iv) overall effects are driven by private firms (both domestic and foreign) belonging to intermediate input industries.
Topic:
Globalization, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, and Exports
Political Geography:
India and Asia

12. Robustness and Resilience of Supply Chains During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from a Questionnaire Survey on the Supply Chain Links of Firms in ASEAN and India

Author:
Yasuyuki Todo, Keita Oikawa, Masahito Ambashi, Fukunari Kimura, and Shujiro Urata
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
Using a unique firm-level data set from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India collected from November 2020 to February 2021, this paper examines how the robustness and resilience of supply chain links – i.e. maintaining links and substituting another for a disrupted partner, respectively – were determined when firms faced economic shocks due to the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Focusing on the role of the characteristics of firms’ supply chains, we find that homophily, i.e. the tendency to form a group with similar agents, was often associated with the robustness of supply chain links, most likely because of the strength of homophilous ties. In particular, when a foreign-owned firm had a supply chain link with a firm located in the same country as its home country, the link was quite robust. We also find that the geographic diversity of customers and suppliers creates resilience of supply chains. When the demand or supply from a partner of a firm was disrupted because of COVID-19, the firm likely mitigated the damage from the disruption through substitution of partners if its supply chains were well diversified across countries. In addition, larger or younger firms tended to be resilient and robust. The robustness and resilience of supply chains are found to have led to higher performance.
Topic:
Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Pandemic, Resilience, COVID-19, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
India, Asia, and Southeast Asia

13. The Crisis After the Crisis: How Ladakh Will Shape India’s Competition with China

Author:
Arzan Tarapore
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
In May 2020, China launched several near-simultaneous incursions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, into territory hitherto controlled by India. Both sides reinforced their positions with tens of thousands of troops, engaged in a deadly skirmish, and reportedly came close to war. An agreement to disengage troops was announced in February 2021, but implementation has been halting. Regardless of how disengagement progresses, the crisis poses significant challenges for India’s long-term strategic competition with China. As a result of the Ladakh crisis, India faces a new strategic reality in which China is a clear and abiding adversary. For India, the political relationship is now defined by hostility and distrust, and the LAC will remain more heavily militarised and violence-prone. Given this new reality, India is likely to further defer military modernisation and maritime expansion into the Indian Ocean. In the face of unremitting Chinese naval expansion, India risks losing significant political and military leverage in the Indian Ocean. At the same time, China appears to have escaped significant harm. Its better-resourced military could better absorb the material costs of the mobilisation. It may have been more concerned by the prospect of an increasingly hostile India, but the disengagement agreement has limited even those modest political costs. The central policy challenge for India is balancing the heightened Chinese military threat on the northern border with the rapidly growing Chinese military presence in the Indian Ocean. It can manage this challenge by focusing on military strategies of denial rather than punishment, focusing on imposing political rather than material costs on China, and accepting more risk at the LAC in exchange for long-term leverage in the Indian Ocean region. How India responds will shape not only its strategic competition with China, but also the interests of likeminded partners including Australia, which depend on an increasingly capable and active India.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Territorial Disputes, Hegemony, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

14. Challenging Stereotypes in Early Indian Buddhism

Author:
Susan Verma Mishra
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
The papers covered diverse topics and presented new perspectives and ideologies in the study of Buddhism in India, and included themes related to epigraphy, archaeology, iconography and the use of computer analytics in current Buddhist studies.
Topic:
Religion, History, Buddhism, Archaeology, and Iconography
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

15. The Future of Work: An India Perspective

Author:
A. Didar Singh
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
The ‘Future of Work’ is a hot topic today. Everybody has a view on it. It is happening and is a reality that society must learn to face. The seven billion people on this planet will have seven billion reactions to the future. We cannot understand or plan for these. We can, however, learn from them. We can at best try and capture the essence of the big picture, to appreciate the global agenda and outline the major forces at play. Employment is probably the single biggest issue across the world. This is because it is not so easily available and is getting more difficult. All governments promise to provide jobs, but the fear is that this may not come about. The fear is because of the march of technology. Technological changes have indeed threatened to disrupt jobs for the last 200 years and each time the doomsayers have been proven wrong. New jobs have replaced old ones and world economy has only prospered, especially in the last 70 years of globalisation. Unfortunately, this time the fear may be wellfounded, especially for the unskilled.
Topic:
Globalization, Science and Technology, Employment, Economy, and Work Culture
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

16. Challenges of States' Re-organisation: Case of Bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh Any Lessons to be Learnt?

Author:
Sheela Bhide
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
Many political analysts are of the view that the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh is one of the most controversial bifurcations of a State in recent history. After all, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh were bifurcated in the year 2000. There were problems in those States also, but none of the acrimony and bitterness that was seen in Andhra Pradesh. What really went wrong in Andhra Pradesh? Could it have been done differently? Are there any lessons that can be learnt? This paper has been prepared by a civil servant who was directly involved in the process of bifurcation as the Chairperson of the Expert Committee for recommending the bifurcation of the State Public Sector Units. In the process, the Expert Committee members were exposed to aspects of the bifurcation of State Government assets and liabilities as well. The issues have been divided into three categories: political, legislative and administrative.
Topic:
Government, Politics, Legislation, and Nation-State
Political Geography:
India

17. Value-Based Education

Author:
Kishore Singh
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
There is widespread concern today with the ‘values crisis’. Moral and ethical values are sinking, and materialistic pursuits generated by the neo liberal economy are thriving. Mushrooming of privatisation in education, giving rise to the phenomenon of ‘edu-business’ in India, fosters this trend. This makes a mockery of India’s great traditions in education, her spiritual heritage and civilisational values in which gyaan or vidhya is not a commodity—a vyapaar and in which education has no lucrative purpose. Moreover, ‘edu-business’ is also an affront to the ideals embodied in our constitution. We seem to have lost all respect for our philosophical foundations and civilisational values where knowledge is free, and the head is held high. Use of digital devices also adds to the values crisis, as evidenced by fake degrees awarded by Internet-based learning, as well as the potentially harmful effects of various sites on the minds of children and adults. Many countries around the world are recognising the need and importance of overcoming the values crisis by promoting human values as a primary vocation of education. India, with its rich spiritual heritage and philosophical traditions, should be at the forefront in such initiatives. It is all the more imperative for India to play a pioneering role in value-based education since the thrust of India’s spiritual quest had been ‘universalist’, which makes it the heritage of the whole of humanity. Transformation of the education system in that spirit calls for radical measures. The challenging task is to evolve a new architecture for education in India, in which core human values derived from India’s philosophical legacy and spiritual heritage, as well as from ideals and principles enshrined in India’s constitution, permeate the entire education system. Value-based education is invaluable in mitigating and overcoming many woes that afflict our society.
Topic:
Education, Ethics, Neoliberalism, and Values
Political Geography:
India

18. Freedom & Sons Ltd.: The Enterprise of Free Speech in a Market of Control

Author:
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
As the title of this lecture suggests, it is about dissent, the right to dissent, the freedom to differ, to be able to say ‘I disagree; in fact I oppose…’. And to do so without fear. But no right comes without some difficulty. And sure enough, as I began working on this text, my late brother Professor Ramchandra Gandhi, Ramu as he was widely known, appeared in a hallucinated vision, to express dissent, strong disagreement, over the title of this lecture. He said to me in his inimitable mix of Hindi, Tamil and English: ‘Maine tumhare Mushirul Hasan lecture ka title “Freedom & Sons Ltd.” dekha hai… aur uska matlab samajh rahaa huun… lekin... Freedom & Sons Ltd… Sons…illai …illai….konchum politically incorrect…and not konchum, in fact romba incorrect, romba gender insensitive…. It may have passed muster some twenty or thirty years ago but not today…and certainly not in the IIC where Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s spirit is alive, where Durgabai Deshmukh peers over her husband’s shoulders to see that all is done right….The title obscures …in fact it nullifies the roles of India’s daughters…from Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and Begum Hazrat Mahal of Avadh to Madame Cama and Annie Besant, Kasturba Gandhi who died, don’t forget, in a Raj prison, and Maulana Azad’s wife Zuleikha Begum who died in Calcutta when he was in the Ahmednagar Fort Prison and would not seek parole…. And then, no less than any of these…the women who stood for freedom not from the white man’s domination but from that of our own male-controlled society, like Mirabai, who broke out of the court and palace to public spaces singing of Krishna, the great emancipator, and M. S. Subbulakshmi, who broke out of the Carnatic kutcheri’s strict repertory to sing Mirabai’s songs of Krishna…’.
Topic:
Freedom of Expression, Civil Rights, Freedom, Dissent, and Free Speech
Political Geography:
India

19. Friends, Heroes, Scientists, Women

Author:
Gagandeep Kang
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
Where are we today with regard to the role of women in science, technology, engineering, medicine (among other fields), women in leadership roles, and what are the challenges that lie ahead of us? In that context, it is very interesting to address both biology and sociology, and the reason we need to address the former is that explanations for why societies manifest in certain ways, or not, often hinge on our recourse to biology in various ways. As far as biology goes, humans are the consequence of hundreds of million years of evolution, from unicellular organisms to multiple kinds of multicellular organisms. There are a great number of animals with behaviour and nervous systems, and functions and physiology, which have many similarities with humans. Many animals run, many walk, many taste and smell in ways we do, and so on. Some animals fly, we do not. That brings us to sociology, and how our societies grew. Humans are distinct from other animals, in that, over evolutionary time, we chanced upon ways by which we could throw objects, and therefore make tools and engineer nature. We could speak and therefore communicate with each other and develop language.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Science and Technology, Women, Medicine, and Evolution
Political Geography:
India

20. The Most Indian of the Major French Poets: Charles Leconte De Lisle

Author:
Come Carpentier de Gourdon
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
Indian civilisation has, time and again, influenced French literary and artistic life in various ways, more particularly from the mid-17th century, when the travel accounts of Francois Bernier and Jean-Baptiste Tavernier achieved great popularity in an intellectual class exposed to the fine goods imported by the French East India Company (la compagnie des Indes), or bought by traders. These included Golkonda diamonds, carved ivory, muslin, indigo, cashmere shawls, printed cotton fabrics known as ‘Indiennes’ or ‘madras’ , ‘Coromandel’ screens and miniatures of the Mughal school. The first poems, fables, novels, comedies and operas on Indian themes appeared in Europe in the years that followed.
Topic:
Culture and Literature
Political Geography:
India and France