Francis Kuriakose | Erasmus University Rotterdam (original) (raw)
Papers by Francis Kuriakose
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2024
The online labour market is much less understood than traditional labour markets in terms of dema... more The online labour market is much less understood than traditional labour markets in terms of demand and supply of labour. In this context, this study explores how service occupations are distributed according to their employment share in online labour markets. Using decomposition analysis of the data from the online labour index database, we argue that the average employment share of service occupations displays job polarisation along the same lines as that of their onsite counterparts. Two implications follow from this finding. First, online gig work involving middle-skill occupations such as clerical, administrative, production and operation tasks grow at a slower pace than high- and low-skill service occupations. While clerical and administrative jobs are likely to be outsourced to geographies with cheap labour, production and operation tasks get automated. Second, high-skill online gigs such as technical and professional jobs display an unprecedented degree of informalisation. Both these implications change our perspectives about skill building and education because of the erosion of wage premiums associated with college education.
Urban Planning , 2024
This article examines how digital platforms focused on citizen engagement affect urban transforma... more This article examines how digital platforms focused on citizen engagement affect urban transformation based on multiple case studies from Bengaluru, India. The research question is: What type of initiatives and designs of digital citizen platforms enable co-production? Co-production is defined as the use of assets and resources between the public sector and citizens to produce better outcomes and improve the efficiency of urban services. The study uses qualitative and quantitative approaches. Evaluative metrics of citizen engagement in digital platforms are done at two levels: platform metrics and initiative metrics. Each platform is evaluated under several variables that indicate the type of ownership, period of operation, aims and types of initiatives, and impact and levels of engagement. Then, the digital platforms are mapped for the extent of digital co-production that matches the type of digital interaction with a form of citizen-government relationship. The findings indicate that the orientation of digital co-production, where it exists, seems to be around the dimensions of co-testing and co-evaluation rather than co-design and co-financing. Furthermore, the digital platforms under study primarily view citizens as users rather than collaborators, limiting the scope of digital co-production. The involvement of urban local governments and private partners in a single platform strengthens the degree of citizen engagement, including the scope for co-production. Finally, there is a strong offline counterpart to citizen engagement through digital platforms where true co-production exists.
International Journal of Trade and Global Markets, 2024
The objective of this study is to analyse the correlation between initial conditions and cross-co... more The objective of this study is to analyse the correlation between initial conditions and cross-country macroeconomic impact of Covid-19 on OECD economies. The study uses group-wise multivariate linear regression modelling to examine the link between macroeconomic variables of interest and the duration of the pandemic, severity of its impact, and annual investment growth rate. The main result from the study shows that variables related to debt such as domestic credit to private sector, private sector debt and debt-to-GDP ratio had significant relationship with the duration and severity of the crisis as well as the investment growth rate during Covid-19. The original contribution of the study is in bringing out the correlation between initial conditions and first order effects of the pandemic on the economy. The policy implications of the results indicate short, medium and long-term measures required to mitigate the systematic risk posed by the pandemic.
International Journal of Educational Management, 2023
Purpose - The objective of the research is to evaluate the experiential branding practices of a h... more Purpose - The objective of the research is to evaluate the experiential branding practices of a higher education institution (HEI) in India against student perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach - Using a mixed-method approach for data collection, a range of relevant attributes of the experiential brand identity of the HEI was constructed. A quantitative technique called conjoint analysis was then used to understand the student-evaluated brand experience from the average relative importance of attributes and average part-worth utilities.
Findings - The study concluded that among the brand attributes of the HEI, course delivery had the highest relative importance among students, whereas price had the maximum elasticity.
Originality - The study is novel and innovative in the Indian context where relatively little attention has been paid to the assessment of experiential brand identity in higher education. The research takes the first step in deconstructing the experiential brand architecture into relevant attributes and assessing their impact on student preferences.
Practical implications - This study demonstrates how a differentiated brand identity of an HEI can be built using student perceptions. HEIs can use this model to strategize brand expansion by forming meaningful external partnerships to fulfill this objective.
The covid-19 pandemic turned into a question of access to safety and security for millions worldw... more The covid-19 pandemic turned into a question of access to safety and security for millions worldwide. This study examines how the narratives of pandemic citizenship unfolded for India's internal migrant workers who lost their livelihood and housing during the lockdown and were forced to return to their native villages. Using the framework of Legacy Russell's glitch politics, this paper illustrates two instances of glitchy encounters that relayed migrant worker stories during the first national lockdown between March and June 2020. The first instance was the long walk home that became a collective act of refusal to be rendered invisible in the pandemic narratives. The second example was citizen journalism that used mainstream media as amplifiers of migrant worker voices. The main argument of the study is that glitches enabled seemingly marginal narratives to momentarily overcome structural inequalities and become powerful chroniclers of the pandemic.
This study aims to understand the underlying structures and processes that make innovation ecosys... more This study aims to understand the underlying structures and processes that make innovation ecosystems and classify them using a typological approach. A nested typology approach is used to classify innovation ecosystems based on two underlying dimensions, technology and organization. It brings out four types of innovation ecosystems namely focal, modular, shared and integrated based on the structures and processes of their technology and organization. This paper advances the understanding of innovation ecosystems beyond the structural approach to an integrated model that connects structures and processes of institutions, formal and informal channels of technology diffusion, and individual and collective efforts at innovation.
Citizenship Studies, 2023
This article examines how technopolitical response to covid-19 resulted in differentiated urban c... more This article examines how technopolitical response to covid-19 resulted in differentiated urban citizenship regimes in India’s smart cities. Using Isin and Ruppert’s framework, we argue that India’s digital citizens enacted their subjectivities in response to acts of calling, closing and opening in the cyberspace. Acts of calling encouraged citizens to participate and engage with the state online, systematically excluding those who did not have access to digital infrastructures. Acts of closing were implemented through the technologies of the surveillance state diminishing rights of freedom and privacy. In response, digital citizens enacted their political subjectivities through acts of opening by means of online campaigns, petitions and citizen journalism. Although the risk of technocracy remains real, we argue that the interplay of calling, closing and opening digital acts enabled the enactment of digital citizenship in India by raising the old questions of social citizenship rights and new forms of data and digital rights.
Mega events, urban transformations and social citizenship (Routledge), 2022
This chapter examines the impact of mega-events on social citizenship using the lens of critical ... more This chapter examines the impact of mega-events on social citizenship using the lens of critical urbanism. Mega-events are situated within neoliberal regimes of citizenship that are consumerist and entrepreneurial. These regimes exclude communities based on their purchasing power, and robs them of their political subjectivities and social citizenship. The excluded citizens have confronted the legacy of mega-events with questions of social impact through aggregate spending, value-added employment creation, social housing, use of public infrastructure and social services, and power of cultural self-determination. This chapter explores the possibilities of urban regeneration open to active social citizenship through mega-events. The main conclusion is that active social citizenship has to leverage mega-events by means of participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation, research and knowledge production, community mobilization, and demand for direct urban policy, in order to facilitate urban development.
Indian Journal of Corporate Governance , 2022
This paper proposes a composite indicator model called CSR index to measure corporate social resp... more This paper proposes a composite indicator model called CSR index to measure corporate social responsibility practices of Indian companies. The CSR index is made up of 39 indicators comprising three dimensions namely CSR implementation, stakeholder management and sustainability. Data is collected from annual reports and business responsibility reports for top 100 companies ranked according to market capitalization. The final CSR ranking is robust with respect to input factors, data selection and data transformation. Regression modelling of select dimension scores of CSR index with exogenous variables like internal complaint resolution, turnover and profit shows positive correlation. The CSR index helps managers to channelize a given company’s efforts into targeted programmes through resource allocation and monitoring, whilst comparing its relative performance within and across dimensions and industries.
South Atlantic Quarterly , 2021
Platform capitalism has enabled digital platforms to bring producers, consumers, and workers in a... more Platform capitalism has enabled digital platforms to bring producers, consumers, and workers in a multisided marketplace with the purpose of collecting data. The resulting commodification of materiality and sociality in the digital sphere and the proprietary control of data open opportunities for value creation and realization, quite distinct from the value propositions of industrial manufacturing. As the relationship between value generation and human labor becomes tenuous or invisible, management strategies to appropriate value extends beyond labor control to direct appropriation. This article explores how labor responds to such devices of control and appropriation by digital platforms. Using the typological approach, the study argues that labor resistance emerges as a direct response to the management strategies of platforms in the form of granular resistance, data activism, trade unions and workers’ organization, and collective ownership.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2020
The question of LGBT rights was first examined as part of gender and sexuality studies in the 198... more The question of LGBT rights was first examined as part of gender and sexuality studies in the 1980s, predominantly in the United States. This was a result of the LGBT movement that had articulated the demand for equal rights and freedom of sexual and gender minorities a decade before. Since then, the examination of LGBT rights has traversed multiple theoretical and methodological approaches and breached many disciplinary frontiers. Initially, gay and lesbian studies (GLS) emerged as an approach to understand the notion of LGBT identity using historical evidence. GLS emphasized the objectives of the LGBT movement in articulating its identity as an issue of minority rights within the ambit of litigation and case law. However, the definition of LGBT identity as a homogeneous and fixed category, and the conceptualization of equality rights as the ultimate project of emancipation, was critiqued on grounds of its normative and assimilationist tendencies. Queer theory emerged in the 1990s as a counter-discourse to GLS, using the individual-centric postmodern technique of deconstruction as the method of analysis. This approach opened up scope for multiple identities within the LGBT community to articulate their positionality, and reclaim the possibilities of sexual liberation that GLS had previously obscured.
Russian Institute for Advanced Studies (RIAS), 2020
This article examines how COVID-19 impacts migrant workers and what can be done for their equitab... more This article examines how COVID-19 impacts migrant workers and what can be done for their equitable transition after the pandemic is subdued. The immediate policy response to the pandemic was closing of national borders that resulted in a state of emergency on a global scale. The need for continuous and safe passage of goods, services, and workers was acknowledged by laws and policies that were an 'exception' to the rule, and deemed 'essential'. This approach resulted in five distinct types of impact on the migrant worker in the spheres of employment, health, movement, social protection, and opportunities. This study uses the framework of 'just' transition from sustainability discourse to imagine a labor-centered long-term policy for the migrant worker.
Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2020
Automation impacts wage levels at the micro-level, and the structure of employment at the macro-l... more Automation impacts wage levels at the micro-level, and the structure of employment at the macro-level. Job polarisation is defined as the automation of ‘middle-skill’ jobs that require routine cognitive and manual applications while high and low-skill occupations are preserved. This paper examines the nature of job polarisation in India during the period 1983-2012 when Indian manufacturing sector was being automated. The research uses disaggregated data from National Sample Survey Office and examines the impact of supply-side factors such as nature of employment and presence of educated labour force. The study has three observations. First, the increased demand for high-skilled workers in the formal manufacturing sector is due to skill-bias of technology and conforms to theoretical expectation. Second, the transition of agricultural labourers to low-skill manufacturing sectors such as construction and textiles signals distress in traditional manufacturing sector to provide employment to these groups. Third, the over-supply of secondary and tertiary educated labour force has resulted in the squeezing out of middle-skilled workers from middle-skill jobs to relatively low-skill manufacturing and service occupations. This explains the persistence of routine occupations even after automation. The study concludes that in the Indian manufacturing sector, increased demand for high and low-skill jobs has co-existed with the middle-skill jobs due to supply-side factors.
Economic & Political Weekly, 2020
The legalist approach taken so far with respect to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender mov... more The legalist approach taken so far with respect to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement has marginalised more radical possibilities of resistance by rendering diverse identities and intersectionality invisible. In this context, the historical examination of the LGBT movement in comparison with the civil rights movement and local case studies gives the trajectories of "lost" possibilities a new context and significance. These possibilities are explored here.
This paper examines how microfinance institutions impact human development indicators using the c... more This paper examines how microfinance institutions impact human development indicators using the case of Kerala in southern India. The study uses an institutional approach to understand microfinance institutions with the help of three variables-core activities, total loan portfolio and approach to microfinance. The impact of microfinance institutions on four human development variables namely education, health, income and participation are analyzed. The main conclusion of the study is that microfinance institutions that follow an integrated approach impact human development more than those that follow a minimalist approach. Furthermore, this impact of microfinance institution is due to production functions that generate income and protective function that defends against vulnerability. Therefore, an integrated approach to microfinance has income generating and risk mitigating effects that translate into better human development indicators.
IDEAS/RePEc Working paper, 2019
The article traces the origin of behavioural development economics and brings out the characteris... more The article traces the origin of behavioural development economics and brings out the characteristics of this framework in public policy.
CGHR Cambridge Working Paper , 2018
Ethical approach to human rights conceives and evaluates law through the underlying value concern... more Ethical approach to human rights conceives and evaluates law through the underlying value concerns. This paper examines human rights after the introduction of big data using an ethical approach to rights. First, the central value concerns such as equity, equality, sustainability and security are derived from the history of digital technological revolution. Then, the properties and characteristics of big data are analyzed to understand emerging value concerns such as accountability, transparency, tracability, explainability and disprovability. Using these value points, this paper argues that big data calls for two types of evaluations regarding human rights. The first is the reassessment of existing human rights in the digital sphere predominantly through right to equality and right to work. The second is the conceptualization of new digital rights such as right to privacy and right against propensity-based discrimination. The paper concludes that as we increasingly share the world with intelligence systems, these new values expand and modify the existing human rights paradigm.
Higher Education for the Future, 2018
University as an institution has shown structural and functional uniformity across historical per... more University as an institution has shown structural and functional uniformity across historical periods and cultures, despite distinct evolution in response to local needs. Historically, social norms, political stability and economic concerns, were the variables that determined objectives of higher education. Today, normative concerns about higher education are exclusively guided by economic rationale. The transformative potential of higher education in cultivating responsive and responsible individuals are ignored. In this context, this paper examines the possibilities that a professor has, as a transformative agent in a university. The author models a professor in four principal roles-as a scholar and public intellectual, and as a reducer of rent seeking and information asymmetry. The normative concerns that build this model have been drawn from historical roles of teachers in universities and experimental models in early education. While the professor as a scholar and public intellectual are traditional roles that need to be revisited in the modern context, reducing rent seeking and information asymmetry are phenomena of a market society that should be countered. By performing these roles, a professor not only creates and disseminates knowledge, but also encourages students to make decisions that are socially productive as well as individually gratifying.
The anti-colonial movement in French India has invoked much less scholarly interest than that of ... more The anti-colonial movement in French India has invoked much less scholarly interest than that of British India. In French India, anti-colonial resistance came out through the trade union movement of handloom and textile workers under the leadership of V. Subbiah. Later, the trade union movement coalesced with students, women and peasants’ movements to form a political party which contested in the municipal elections with specific political demands. The focus of this paper is to bring out how trade unionism under V. Subbiah generated workers’ movement and led to political resistance in French India between 1928 and 1946. The primary source of reference is the memoir of Subbiah, media reportage and colonial laws and documents in French India.
Journal of Governance & Public Policy, 2018
Planning boards are autonomous institutions constituted at the sub-national level (called states)... more Planning boards are autonomous institutions constituted at the sub-national level (called states) in India to aid and advise the government on preparing five year plans, annual plans and undertaking expert-based studies to examine the feasibility of plan projects at the local level. In addition to this, some planning boards are also entrusted with monitoring and evaluation of plan projects. Planning boards have an important part to play in formulating and implementing development plans. However, there is no uniform structure or functional mandate of planning boards in India. As a result, the actual mandate and performance of state planning boards are largely influenced by local contexts, government’s priorities and the perception of bureaucrats about planning boards. This paper comparatively examines the ideas of structure and function of planning boards in the southern states of India through the perspective of bureaucrats about their functional mandate. The theoretical framework used is Lowe’s theory of instrumental inference of planning institutions. Elite interview method is used to compare variables of performance. The paper argues that planning boards with well-defined functional mandate, autonomy from state government, presence of experts and involvement of local governments perform better than the others in development planning. Two distinct trajectories of development are evolving in the institutional context of planning boards - type I that resembles think tank mode of development and type II that looks for reforms within the traditional structures.
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2024
The online labour market is much less understood than traditional labour markets in terms of dema... more The online labour market is much less understood than traditional labour markets in terms of demand and supply of labour. In this context, this study explores how service occupations are distributed according to their employment share in online labour markets. Using decomposition analysis of the data from the online labour index database, we argue that the average employment share of service occupations displays job polarisation along the same lines as that of their onsite counterparts. Two implications follow from this finding. First, online gig work involving middle-skill occupations such as clerical, administrative, production and operation tasks grow at a slower pace than high- and low-skill service occupations. While clerical and administrative jobs are likely to be outsourced to geographies with cheap labour, production and operation tasks get automated. Second, high-skill online gigs such as technical and professional jobs display an unprecedented degree of informalisation. Both these implications change our perspectives about skill building and education because of the erosion of wage premiums associated with college education.
Urban Planning , 2024
This article examines how digital platforms focused on citizen engagement affect urban transforma... more This article examines how digital platforms focused on citizen engagement affect urban transformation based on multiple case studies from Bengaluru, India. The research question is: What type of initiatives and designs of digital citizen platforms enable co-production? Co-production is defined as the use of assets and resources between the public sector and citizens to produce better outcomes and improve the efficiency of urban services. The study uses qualitative and quantitative approaches. Evaluative metrics of citizen engagement in digital platforms are done at two levels: platform metrics and initiative metrics. Each platform is evaluated under several variables that indicate the type of ownership, period of operation, aims and types of initiatives, and impact and levels of engagement. Then, the digital platforms are mapped for the extent of digital co-production that matches the type of digital interaction with a form of citizen-government relationship. The findings indicate that the orientation of digital co-production, where it exists, seems to be around the dimensions of co-testing and co-evaluation rather than co-design and co-financing. Furthermore, the digital platforms under study primarily view citizens as users rather than collaborators, limiting the scope of digital co-production. The involvement of urban local governments and private partners in a single platform strengthens the degree of citizen engagement, including the scope for co-production. Finally, there is a strong offline counterpart to citizen engagement through digital platforms where true co-production exists.
International Journal of Trade and Global Markets, 2024
The objective of this study is to analyse the correlation between initial conditions and cross-co... more The objective of this study is to analyse the correlation between initial conditions and cross-country macroeconomic impact of Covid-19 on OECD economies. The study uses group-wise multivariate linear regression modelling to examine the link between macroeconomic variables of interest and the duration of the pandemic, severity of its impact, and annual investment growth rate. The main result from the study shows that variables related to debt such as domestic credit to private sector, private sector debt and debt-to-GDP ratio had significant relationship with the duration and severity of the crisis as well as the investment growth rate during Covid-19. The original contribution of the study is in bringing out the correlation between initial conditions and first order effects of the pandemic on the economy. The policy implications of the results indicate short, medium and long-term measures required to mitigate the systematic risk posed by the pandemic.
International Journal of Educational Management, 2023
Purpose - The objective of the research is to evaluate the experiential branding practices of a h... more Purpose - The objective of the research is to evaluate the experiential branding practices of a higher education institution (HEI) in India against student perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach - Using a mixed-method approach for data collection, a range of relevant attributes of the experiential brand identity of the HEI was constructed. A quantitative technique called conjoint analysis was then used to understand the student-evaluated brand experience from the average relative importance of attributes and average part-worth utilities.
Findings - The study concluded that among the brand attributes of the HEI, course delivery had the highest relative importance among students, whereas price had the maximum elasticity.
Originality - The study is novel and innovative in the Indian context where relatively little attention has been paid to the assessment of experiential brand identity in higher education. The research takes the first step in deconstructing the experiential brand architecture into relevant attributes and assessing their impact on student preferences.
Practical implications - This study demonstrates how a differentiated brand identity of an HEI can be built using student perceptions. HEIs can use this model to strategize brand expansion by forming meaningful external partnerships to fulfill this objective.
The covid-19 pandemic turned into a question of access to safety and security for millions worldw... more The covid-19 pandemic turned into a question of access to safety and security for millions worldwide. This study examines how the narratives of pandemic citizenship unfolded for India's internal migrant workers who lost their livelihood and housing during the lockdown and were forced to return to their native villages. Using the framework of Legacy Russell's glitch politics, this paper illustrates two instances of glitchy encounters that relayed migrant worker stories during the first national lockdown between March and June 2020. The first instance was the long walk home that became a collective act of refusal to be rendered invisible in the pandemic narratives. The second example was citizen journalism that used mainstream media as amplifiers of migrant worker voices. The main argument of the study is that glitches enabled seemingly marginal narratives to momentarily overcome structural inequalities and become powerful chroniclers of the pandemic.
This study aims to understand the underlying structures and processes that make innovation ecosys... more This study aims to understand the underlying structures and processes that make innovation ecosystems and classify them using a typological approach. A nested typology approach is used to classify innovation ecosystems based on two underlying dimensions, technology and organization. It brings out four types of innovation ecosystems namely focal, modular, shared and integrated based on the structures and processes of their technology and organization. This paper advances the understanding of innovation ecosystems beyond the structural approach to an integrated model that connects structures and processes of institutions, formal and informal channels of technology diffusion, and individual and collective efforts at innovation.
Citizenship Studies, 2023
This article examines how technopolitical response to covid-19 resulted in differentiated urban c... more This article examines how technopolitical response to covid-19 resulted in differentiated urban citizenship regimes in India’s smart cities. Using Isin and Ruppert’s framework, we argue that India’s digital citizens enacted their subjectivities in response to acts of calling, closing and opening in the cyberspace. Acts of calling encouraged citizens to participate and engage with the state online, systematically excluding those who did not have access to digital infrastructures. Acts of closing were implemented through the technologies of the surveillance state diminishing rights of freedom and privacy. In response, digital citizens enacted their political subjectivities through acts of opening by means of online campaigns, petitions and citizen journalism. Although the risk of technocracy remains real, we argue that the interplay of calling, closing and opening digital acts enabled the enactment of digital citizenship in India by raising the old questions of social citizenship rights and new forms of data and digital rights.
Mega events, urban transformations and social citizenship (Routledge), 2022
This chapter examines the impact of mega-events on social citizenship using the lens of critical ... more This chapter examines the impact of mega-events on social citizenship using the lens of critical urbanism. Mega-events are situated within neoliberal regimes of citizenship that are consumerist and entrepreneurial. These regimes exclude communities based on their purchasing power, and robs them of their political subjectivities and social citizenship. The excluded citizens have confronted the legacy of mega-events with questions of social impact through aggregate spending, value-added employment creation, social housing, use of public infrastructure and social services, and power of cultural self-determination. This chapter explores the possibilities of urban regeneration open to active social citizenship through mega-events. The main conclusion is that active social citizenship has to leverage mega-events by means of participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation, research and knowledge production, community mobilization, and demand for direct urban policy, in order to facilitate urban development.
Indian Journal of Corporate Governance , 2022
This paper proposes a composite indicator model called CSR index to measure corporate social resp... more This paper proposes a composite indicator model called CSR index to measure corporate social responsibility practices of Indian companies. The CSR index is made up of 39 indicators comprising three dimensions namely CSR implementation, stakeholder management and sustainability. Data is collected from annual reports and business responsibility reports for top 100 companies ranked according to market capitalization. The final CSR ranking is robust with respect to input factors, data selection and data transformation. Regression modelling of select dimension scores of CSR index with exogenous variables like internal complaint resolution, turnover and profit shows positive correlation. The CSR index helps managers to channelize a given company’s efforts into targeted programmes through resource allocation and monitoring, whilst comparing its relative performance within and across dimensions and industries.
South Atlantic Quarterly , 2021
Platform capitalism has enabled digital platforms to bring producers, consumers, and workers in a... more Platform capitalism has enabled digital platforms to bring producers, consumers, and workers in a multisided marketplace with the purpose of collecting data. The resulting commodification of materiality and sociality in the digital sphere and the proprietary control of data open opportunities for value creation and realization, quite distinct from the value propositions of industrial manufacturing. As the relationship between value generation and human labor becomes tenuous or invisible, management strategies to appropriate value extends beyond labor control to direct appropriation. This article explores how labor responds to such devices of control and appropriation by digital platforms. Using the typological approach, the study argues that labor resistance emerges as a direct response to the management strategies of platforms in the form of granular resistance, data activism, trade unions and workers’ organization, and collective ownership.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2020
The question of LGBT rights was first examined as part of gender and sexuality studies in the 198... more The question of LGBT rights was first examined as part of gender and sexuality studies in the 1980s, predominantly in the United States. This was a result of the LGBT movement that had articulated the demand for equal rights and freedom of sexual and gender minorities a decade before. Since then, the examination of LGBT rights has traversed multiple theoretical and methodological approaches and breached many disciplinary frontiers. Initially, gay and lesbian studies (GLS) emerged as an approach to understand the notion of LGBT identity using historical evidence. GLS emphasized the objectives of the LGBT movement in articulating its identity as an issue of minority rights within the ambit of litigation and case law. However, the definition of LGBT identity as a homogeneous and fixed category, and the conceptualization of equality rights as the ultimate project of emancipation, was critiqued on grounds of its normative and assimilationist tendencies. Queer theory emerged in the 1990s as a counter-discourse to GLS, using the individual-centric postmodern technique of deconstruction as the method of analysis. This approach opened up scope for multiple identities within the LGBT community to articulate their positionality, and reclaim the possibilities of sexual liberation that GLS had previously obscured.
Russian Institute for Advanced Studies (RIAS), 2020
This article examines how COVID-19 impacts migrant workers and what can be done for their equitab... more This article examines how COVID-19 impacts migrant workers and what can be done for their equitable transition after the pandemic is subdued. The immediate policy response to the pandemic was closing of national borders that resulted in a state of emergency on a global scale. The need for continuous and safe passage of goods, services, and workers was acknowledged by laws and policies that were an 'exception' to the rule, and deemed 'essential'. This approach resulted in five distinct types of impact on the migrant worker in the spheres of employment, health, movement, social protection, and opportunities. This study uses the framework of 'just' transition from sustainability discourse to imagine a labor-centered long-term policy for the migrant worker.
Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2020
Automation impacts wage levels at the micro-level, and the structure of employment at the macro-l... more Automation impacts wage levels at the micro-level, and the structure of employment at the macro-level. Job polarisation is defined as the automation of ‘middle-skill’ jobs that require routine cognitive and manual applications while high and low-skill occupations are preserved. This paper examines the nature of job polarisation in India during the period 1983-2012 when Indian manufacturing sector was being automated. The research uses disaggregated data from National Sample Survey Office and examines the impact of supply-side factors such as nature of employment and presence of educated labour force. The study has three observations. First, the increased demand for high-skilled workers in the formal manufacturing sector is due to skill-bias of technology and conforms to theoretical expectation. Second, the transition of agricultural labourers to low-skill manufacturing sectors such as construction and textiles signals distress in traditional manufacturing sector to provide employment to these groups. Third, the over-supply of secondary and tertiary educated labour force has resulted in the squeezing out of middle-skilled workers from middle-skill jobs to relatively low-skill manufacturing and service occupations. This explains the persistence of routine occupations even after automation. The study concludes that in the Indian manufacturing sector, increased demand for high and low-skill jobs has co-existed with the middle-skill jobs due to supply-side factors.
Economic & Political Weekly, 2020
The legalist approach taken so far with respect to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender mov... more The legalist approach taken so far with respect to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement has marginalised more radical possibilities of resistance by rendering diverse identities and intersectionality invisible. In this context, the historical examination of the LGBT movement in comparison with the civil rights movement and local case studies gives the trajectories of "lost" possibilities a new context and significance. These possibilities are explored here.
This paper examines how microfinance institutions impact human development indicators using the c... more This paper examines how microfinance institutions impact human development indicators using the case of Kerala in southern India. The study uses an institutional approach to understand microfinance institutions with the help of three variables-core activities, total loan portfolio and approach to microfinance. The impact of microfinance institutions on four human development variables namely education, health, income and participation are analyzed. The main conclusion of the study is that microfinance institutions that follow an integrated approach impact human development more than those that follow a minimalist approach. Furthermore, this impact of microfinance institution is due to production functions that generate income and protective function that defends against vulnerability. Therefore, an integrated approach to microfinance has income generating and risk mitigating effects that translate into better human development indicators.
IDEAS/RePEc Working paper, 2019
The article traces the origin of behavioural development economics and brings out the characteris... more The article traces the origin of behavioural development economics and brings out the characteristics of this framework in public policy.
CGHR Cambridge Working Paper , 2018
Ethical approach to human rights conceives and evaluates law through the underlying value concern... more Ethical approach to human rights conceives and evaluates law through the underlying value concerns. This paper examines human rights after the introduction of big data using an ethical approach to rights. First, the central value concerns such as equity, equality, sustainability and security are derived from the history of digital technological revolution. Then, the properties and characteristics of big data are analyzed to understand emerging value concerns such as accountability, transparency, tracability, explainability and disprovability. Using these value points, this paper argues that big data calls for two types of evaluations regarding human rights. The first is the reassessment of existing human rights in the digital sphere predominantly through right to equality and right to work. The second is the conceptualization of new digital rights such as right to privacy and right against propensity-based discrimination. The paper concludes that as we increasingly share the world with intelligence systems, these new values expand and modify the existing human rights paradigm.
Higher Education for the Future, 2018
University as an institution has shown structural and functional uniformity across historical per... more University as an institution has shown structural and functional uniformity across historical periods and cultures, despite distinct evolution in response to local needs. Historically, social norms, political stability and economic concerns, were the variables that determined objectives of higher education. Today, normative concerns about higher education are exclusively guided by economic rationale. The transformative potential of higher education in cultivating responsive and responsible individuals are ignored. In this context, this paper examines the possibilities that a professor has, as a transformative agent in a university. The author models a professor in four principal roles-as a scholar and public intellectual, and as a reducer of rent seeking and information asymmetry. The normative concerns that build this model have been drawn from historical roles of teachers in universities and experimental models in early education. While the professor as a scholar and public intellectual are traditional roles that need to be revisited in the modern context, reducing rent seeking and information asymmetry are phenomena of a market society that should be countered. By performing these roles, a professor not only creates and disseminates knowledge, but also encourages students to make decisions that are socially productive as well as individually gratifying.
The anti-colonial movement in French India has invoked much less scholarly interest than that of ... more The anti-colonial movement in French India has invoked much less scholarly interest than that of British India. In French India, anti-colonial resistance came out through the trade union movement of handloom and textile workers under the leadership of V. Subbiah. Later, the trade union movement coalesced with students, women and peasants’ movements to form a political party which contested in the municipal elections with specific political demands. The focus of this paper is to bring out how trade unionism under V. Subbiah generated workers’ movement and led to political resistance in French India between 1928 and 1946. The primary source of reference is the memoir of Subbiah, media reportage and colonial laws and documents in French India.
Journal of Governance & Public Policy, 2018
Planning boards are autonomous institutions constituted at the sub-national level (called states)... more Planning boards are autonomous institutions constituted at the sub-national level (called states) in India to aid and advise the government on preparing five year plans, annual plans and undertaking expert-based studies to examine the feasibility of plan projects at the local level. In addition to this, some planning boards are also entrusted with monitoring and evaluation of plan projects. Planning boards have an important part to play in formulating and implementing development plans. However, there is no uniform structure or functional mandate of planning boards in India. As a result, the actual mandate and performance of state planning boards are largely influenced by local contexts, government’s priorities and the perception of bureaucrats about planning boards. This paper comparatively examines the ideas of structure and function of planning boards in the southern states of India through the perspective of bureaucrats about their functional mandate. The theoretical framework used is Lowe’s theory of instrumental inference of planning institutions. Elite interview method is used to compare variables of performance. The paper argues that planning boards with well-defined functional mandate, autonomy from state government, presence of experts and involvement of local governments perform better than the others in development planning. Two distinct trajectories of development are evolving in the institutional context of planning boards - type I that resembles think tank mode of development and type II that looks for reforms within the traditional structures.
The Ursinian, Collis Institute, Cornell University, 2024
On the need for kindness in a crisis - ridden world.
India In Transition, CASI, University of Pennsylvania, 2021
In this two-part series, we discuss problems specific to digital platforms in India and the type ... more In this two-part series, we discuss problems specific to digital platforms in India and the type of regulatory framework required to ensure labor rights. In the first part, we flag three main structural problems Indian platform workers face. The second part explores the role of institutions in creating a regulatory framework for digital platforms so that an expanded set of worker rights, including data rights, are available to platform workers.
SSRN, 2021
As the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic resulted in a near-complete lockdown of the Indian ... more As the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic resulted in a near-complete lockdown of the Indian economy, digital platforms were in turmoil amidst raging protests from its workers on issues of repeated pay-cuts and scaling down of incentives when the risks of work were high. This paper examines online gig workers' protests during Covid-19 in India to understand how the nature of labour resistance is changing with the introduction of platform work and digital cultures. Using the framework of typology of labour resistance in platforms, this study analyzes various strategies and methods platform workers use against forms of labour control. Although organized collective resistance is the predominant framework by which workers' struggles in industrial capitalism is examined, the nature of platform capitalism and its methods of labour management by the use of data and algorithm necessitates the exploration of new ways of thinking about labour resistance. The absence of an identifiable work-site or fixed hours of work, fragmentation of workers, presence of educated workers in low-skill part-time jobs, and the accessibility of the internet and digital cultures mean that the cyberspace is evolving as the site of expression and contestation of worker right claims. We argue that this development has two important consequences. The first is that these digital spaces give way to the traditional type of organized forms of protests that are identifiable by institutional markers such as workers' union, collective agreement, membership, leadership and strategies. The wild cat protests and flash strikes that online gig workers participated in various Indian cities under the leadership of the Indian federation of app-based transport workers and all India gig workers' union, an unregistered umbrella organization of platform and gig workers, to collectivize their demands, coordinate with state-level labour unions, raise awareness and form strategic allies among other workers' collectives are examples of this kind of protest. At the same time, new forms of resistance are also emerging on a different scale that are distinct from organized collective resistance in three important ways. The first difference is that these new types of workers' resistance that are granular, individualistic, and 'invisible' in the public sphere respond subterraneous to the blockages and choke points of control they encounter in digital platforms as part of their work. The second difference is that unlike organized resistance, they are not spectacular displays of protest, but mundane everyday acts of resistance. Third, the strategies of resistance they utilize range from withdrawal of cooperation to various forms of resourcefulness at work that results in overcoming the restrictive control of the algorithms. Evidence from India also suggests the presence of such acts used to overcome perceived injustices in their place of work by online gig workers.
First prize winner, International research paper writing, 2021 - Shri Ram College of Commerce, Ne... more First prize winner, International research paper writing, 2021 - Shri Ram College of Commerce, New Delhi
This article raises the question of quality of school education in India by bringing out the issu... more This article raises the question of quality of school education in India by bringing out the issues of teacher training and mindless privatization in the light of National Education Policy 2019.
India in Transition, CASI, University of Pennsylvania, 2019
Transformative care policies have recently been debated at the ILO to meet SDG targets on employm... more Transformative care policies have recently been debated at the ILO to meet SDG targets on employment generation and decent work, gender equality, and poverty reduction through state-funded social security policies. South Asia, which houses a large proportion of unpaid care work burden, is a region of special interest. The article explores how investment in care economy can be routed through restructuring labor, gender mainstreaming macroeconomics and introducing transformative care policies. This approach closely ties with the investment in physical infrastructure that governments of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have begun, which has a potential to augment care infrastructure.
Economic & Political Weekly, 2019
The unique blend of silence and vibrancy characteristic of Pondicherry is slowly disappearing as ... more The unique blend of silence and vibrancy characteristic of Pondicherry is slowly disappearing as locals grapple with rapid development.
India in Transition, CASI, University of Pennsylvania, 2018
The fourth industrial revolution is upon us with systems of intelligence connecting the physical ... more The fourth industrial revolution is upon us with systems of intelligence connecting the physical world to the virtual. One of the main impacts of this technological revolution is automation of jobs which has massive and urgent macro and micro level implications. 69% of jobs in formal employment in India would be automated with additional job losses in informal employment. Automation calls for three types of policy responses-redeploying our resources to build data infrastructure, reskilling the workforce and rethinking social policy to protect labour rights.
Voices from the Field, CGHR Cambridge, 2018
Child labour has persisted through many decades despite national and international legal framewor... more Child labour has persisted through many decades despite national and international legal frameworks of prohibition world over. In South Asia, this issue has been specially compounded by concerns of poor implementation and the linkage of debt bondage and intergenerational labor. This article examines the traditional systems of bonded child labour prevalent in South Asia and anticipates the manner in which technological applications could aid in anti-child labour policy implementation. The authors suggest that automation, physical mapping and supply chain tracing that technology brings in, has the potential to reduce prevalence of child labour in South Asia.
India is the only country that legally mandates corporations to spend 2% of their profit as part ... more India is the only country that legally mandates corporations to spend 2% of their profit as part of CSR. The article examines whether CSR policy as it is implemented currently is effective in meeting its objectives. Considering the development context of India, the author proposes 'targeted CSR' as a method of focussing CSR funding in social welfare that requires prioritised attention in the country.
The Hindu: Business Line, Nov 4, 2016
Behavioral economics is an emerging discipline that combines insights from psychology and the pri... more Behavioral economics is an emerging discipline that combines insights from psychology and the principles of economics. As India plans to induct a behavioral science unit in its policy making, the article discusses the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
One of the greatest defenders of environment could be children because they are naturally more se... more One of the greatest defenders of environment could be children because they are naturally more sensitive to the relationships they build with nature and can be bravely defensive of what they love. This article explores three ideas for involving children in creating environmental consciousness. The inclusion of both natural and built-in environment in conservation is the way forward.
XIME Case Study Series , 2020
An emerging enterprise called Fledgling Inc. has been in the business of developing customized so... more An emerging enterprise called Fledgling Inc. has been in the business of developing customized software for large corporate clients in Bangalore in the last two decades. The firm has over 40 prominent corporate clients that it has assiduously cultivated with its offering of IT-enabled products, technology and services. Since 2010, the firm made steady foray into health sector, building a firm reputation for its affordable and flexible solutions. The recent growth and diversification of the firm has brought to the fore, issues of short-term capital infusion that is required to sustain its momentum of corporate expansion.
Ever since the implementation of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulation that restricted cash flow to large corporations in 2019, Fledgling Inc. has been facing short-term capital crunch because of unmitigated delays in returned bills and deliverables from its large corporate clients. The BASEL III norms require banks to increase their capital and liquidity, and reduce their leverage. As part of this regulatory framework, the RBI brought in rules on lending working capital to large firms by tightening the cash flow and reducing the buffer of surplus lending.
This regulatory environment has compelled Fledgling Inc. to examine alternatives in obtaining the requisite short-term working capital. The primary source of credit is the bank which has agreed to finance 60 per cent of the firm's short-term capital needs against property collateral. But this process has been facing delay due to documentation issues.
Fledgling Inc. is mulling over all available options including other types of credit sources. For example, there is a case to be made for peer-to-peer lending through a firm called 'Nurtura' that other small firms are increasingly relying on. Furthermore, a pilot case of a regulatory sandbox that introduces an app developed by a FinTech start-up called 'Bursary' to help small firms better manage their working capital is also operating in the health sector.
The problem of the case is to explore the best combination of credit channels to raise the remaining 40 per cent of Fledgling's capital requirement with clearly defined cost and benefits that would help tide over working capital issues in the short term of one year.
XIME Case Study Series , 2020
Atticus Realty is an emerging real estate leader specializing in affordable residential, retail a... more Atticus Realty is an emerging real estate leader specializing in affordable residential, retail and commercial properties in peri-urban parts of metropolitan cities and satellite towns in India. Founded in 1980, the company made rapid strides in its operation and expansion in the late 1990s with the IT boom surrounding the Bangalore Metropolitan Area. Subsequently, Atticus Realty has expanded around cities with technology and industrial parks in southern and western India across Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kochi and Trivandrum. The firm has also enlarged its operations to facilitate joint ventures with real estate developers in these cities. Atticus Realty prides in its core value of client centricity by providing end-to-end solutions with simple, sustainable and affordable designs. The firm has served over 10,000 clients in 39 years across the three segments.
Since 2005, Atticus has shifted its focus on company expansion for the next three decades with environment friendly and ethical business strategy that employees and clients identify as part of the firm’s DNA. As a result, the firm formed a ‘sustainability division’ in 2006 prioritizing environmental guidelines compliance in all its core activities including land acquisition, design, construction and service delivery. Additionally, in 2008, the firm developed an overt policy that donated 3 percent of its net profits to provide additional vocational training to construction workers and day care services to the children of migrant labourers. The firm also supported watershed management and plantation drive to supplement farmers’ income in the agricultural belt surrounding the construction sites. These measures succeeded in boosting investor confidence and community trust in the firm’s core values indicated by the firm winning the Real Estate Excellence Awards in India in 2011 under the sustainable leader category.
In this context, the enactment of the section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, legally mandating corporate social responsibility among firms with an annual turnover of 1,000 crore INR and more, or a net worth of 500 crore INR and more, or a net profit of five crore INR and more, to contribute 2 per cent profits towards a series of scheduled activities presented a new opportunity to Atticus Realty to realign its sustainability goals. As a result, in 2017, the company shifted the sustainability division with an expanded Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team to its strategy division. In 2019, the CSR team within the strategy division have been entrusted to come up with a five-year plan to streamline the company’s CSR policy to align with core operations and brand value.
The new CSR team is faced with a few challenges. First, the team understands that it is tasked with aligning CSR goals towards two objectives- identifying core operations where CSR activities can percolate and building brand value by working with communities. In order to identify portfolios where CSR could be potentially incorporated into core activities, the company requires an internal CSR metric that measures outcomes in timelines. A major resource for the team in this regard is the externally evaluated national CSR index that ranks firms based on their CSR performance. Second, in order to build community understanding of the company’s CSR activities, it is important to transform the current CSR operations towards a more pro-active initiative. Finding a local partner with the necessary specialization, transparency of their operations in terms of funding and activities and capacity building are challenging. Third, the constant amendments to the legislation shifting the potential areas of operation of CSR and non-penalization of the defaulter among obligors, has sensitized Atticus Realty to the fact that since the company spends above the mandatory levels, the entire spectrum of benefits from CSR can be accrued only with a focused strategy on areas of CSR investment, transparency of operations including disclosure and marketing of its CSR activities.
Therefore, the roadmap of the five-year plan for CSR involves three aspects- (i) research involving internal metric development based on external index, (ii) determining capital outlay for organization/partnership, areas of investment and capacity building, and (iii) identifying marketing strategies to disclose CSR activities and awareness among a wide spectrum of stakeholders.
Canvas8, 2022
Interview by Annie Corser, Canvas8, London
Canvas8, 2022
Interview by Natascha Nanji, Canvas8, London