The Increasing Power of the European Parliament: Negotiating the EU-India Free Trade Agreement

Since the Lisbon Treaty increased the legal role of the European Parliament (EP) in EU trade policy, there has been a debate about the extent to which these legal competencies have translated into actual influence over the content and outcome of EU trade negotiations. Using the case study of the on-going trade negotiations between the EU and India, this article argues that the impact of the EP has indeed been significant. Through two-level game analysis, which extends its domestic focus to include the EP as a domestic constituent, it demonstrates how the EP has affected the EU win-set in ways that have both hindered and facilitated agreement at the international level between the EU and India. It also shows how the EP has affected the negotiating dynamics and how the EU negotiators have had their preferences somewhat compromised by the EP in their attempt at reaching an agreement with India.

Compositional data analysis of Holocene sediments from the West Bengal Sundarbans, India: Geochemical proxies for grain-size variability in a delta environment

This paper is part of a special issue of Applied Geochemistry focusing on reliable applications of compositional multivariate statistical methods. This study outlines the application of compositional data analysis (CoDa) to calibration of geochemical data and multivariate statistical modelling of geochemistry and grain-size data from a set of Holocene sedimentary cores from the Ganges-Brahmaputra (G-B) delta. Over the last two decades, understanding near-continuous records of sedimentary sequences has required the use of core-scanning X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry, for both terrestrial and marine sedimentary sequences. Initial XRF data are generally unusable in ‘raw-format’, requiring data processing in order to remove instrument bias, as well as informed sequence interpretation. The applicability of these conventional calibration equations to core-scanning XRF data are further limited by the constraints posed by unknown measurement geometry and specimen homogeneity, as well as matrix effects. Log-ratio based calibration schemes have been developed and applied to clastic sedimentary sequences focusing mainly on energy dispersive-XRF (ED-XRF) core-scanning. This study has applied high resolution core-scanning XRF to Holocene sedimentary sequences from the tidal-dominated Indian Sundarbans, (Ganges-Brahmaputra delta plain). The Log-Ratio Calibration Equation (LRCE) was applied to a sub-set of core-scan and conventional ED-XRF data to quantify elemental composition. This provides a robust calibration scheme using reduced major axis regression of log-ratio transformed geochemical data. Through partial least squares (PLS) modelling of geochemical and grain-size data, it is possible to derive robust proxy information for the Sundarbans depositional environment. The application of these techniques to Holocene sedimentary data offers an improved methodological framework for unravelling Holocene sedimentation patterns.

Law Relating to Admission in Minority Educational Institutions in India

This Study pertains to the law relating to admission in minority educational institutions in India. This is an area which needs certainty. Every year, admissions to various institutions are challenged. The future of umpteen number of students are at stake. Only when clarity with regard to the nature of the rights and conditions to be fulfilled to get the rights are made, conflicts can be prevented. Awareness in this area has to be developed. Considering the peculiar nature of rights provided under Article 30 to the minorities, there is an argument that Article 30 is absolute in nature and restrictions on this right can be only in the interests of the minorities. But there is also a counter argument that minority rights are not absolute and that all rights are absolute only to the extent of their logical extreme. Thus reasonable restrictions can be placed over Article 30. The Legal framework is not comprehensive and conflicting judicial responses add to the dilemma. Legal frame work has pitfalls which creates confusions. Though there are decisions by the highest court of the land regarding admission rights, various parts of the decisions are quoted in isolation by interested parties to assert their sides. Many States try to frame legislations regulating admissions inspired by the judicial pronouncements, which are later declared as violative of minority rights and held unconstitutional. This state of affairs has prompted me to select this area as the subject for study. Study is an analysis for a better regime of law relating to admissions in minority educational institutions in India balancing the interests of various stakeholders viz. minority and non minority educational institutions, both professional and elementary, students, parents and the State.

The politics of negotiation and implementation: a reciprocal water access agreement in the Himalayan foothills, India

In this paper, we examine the on-the-ground realities of upstream-downstream negotiations and transactions over ecosystem services. We explore the engagement, negotiation, implementation, and postimplementation phases of a “reciprocal water access” (RWA) agreement between village communities and municipal water users at Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India. We aim to highlight how external actors drove the payments for ecosystem services agenda through a series of facilitation and research engagements, which were pivotal to the RWA’s adoption, and how the agreement fared once external agents withdrew. In the postimplementation period, the RWA agreement continues to be upheld by upstream communities amidst evolving, competing land-use changes and claims. The introduction of cash payments for environmental services for forest-water relationships has given rise to multifaceted difficulties for the upstream hamlets, which has impeded the functionality of their forest management committee. Upstream communities’ formal rights and abilities to control and manage their resources are dynamic and need strengthening and assurance; these developments result in fluctuating transaction and opportunity costs not originally envisaged by the RWA agreement. The paper demonstrates the importance of an explicit understanding of the local politics of negotiation and implementation to determine the effectiveness of compensation-based mechanisms for the supply of ecosystem services.

Prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among dentists from Mumbai, India

The world health organization defines musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) as “a disorder of muscles, tendons, peripheral vascular system not directly resulting from an acute or instantaneous event.1 Work related MSDs are one of the most important occupational hazards.1 Among many other occupations, dentistry is a highly demanding profession that requires good visual acuity, hearing, depth perception, psychomotor skills, manual dexterity, and ability to maintain occupational postures over long periods.

Understanding stakeholder participation in post-disaster recovery (case study: Nagapattinam, India)

Stakeholder participation is widely acknowledged as a critical component of post-disaster recovery because it helps create a shared understanding of local hazard risk and vulnerability, improves recovery and mitigation decision efficacy, and builds social capital and local resilience to future disasters. But approaches commonly used to facilitate participation and empower local communities depend on lengthy consensus-building processes which is not conducive to time-constrained post-disaster recovery. Moreover, these approaches are often criticized for being overly technocratic and ignoring existing community power and trust structures. Therefore, there is a need for more nuanced, analytical and applied research on stakeholder participation in planning for post-disaster recovery. This research examines participatory behavior of three stakeholder groups (government agencies, non-local non-government organizations, local community-based organizations) in three coastal village communities of Nagapattinam (India) that were recovering from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The study found eight different forms of participation and non-participation in the case study communities, ranging from 'transformative' participation to 'marginalized' non-participation. These forms of participation and non-participatory behavior emanated from the negotiation of four factors, namely stakeholder power, legitimacy, trust, and urgency for action. The study also found that the time constraints and changing conditions of recovery pose particular challenges for how these factors operated on the ground and over the course of recovery. Finally, the study uses these insights to suggest four strategies for recovery managers to use in the short- and long-term to facilitate more effective stakeholder participation in post-disaster recovery.

The legitimation of risk and Bt cotton: a case study of Bantala village in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, India

This article explores Ulrich Beck’s theorisation of risk society through focusing on the way in which the risk of Bt cotton is legitimated by six cultivators in Bantala, a village in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, in India. The fieldwork for this study was conducted between June 2010 and March 2011, a duration chosen to coincide with a cotton season. The study explores the experience of the cultivators using the ‘categories of legitimation’ defined by Van Leeuwen. These are authorisation, moral evaluation, rationalisation and mythopoesis. As well as permitting an exploration of the legitimation of Bt cotton by cultivators themselves within the high-risk context of the Indian agrarian crisis, the categories also serve as an analytical framework with which to structure a discourse analysis of participant perspectives. The study examines the complex trade-off, which Renn argues the legitimation of ambiguous risk, such as that associated with Bt technology, entails. The research explores the way in which legitimation of the technology is informed by wider normative conceptualisations of development. This highlights that, in a context where indebtedness is strongly linked to farmer suicides, the potential of Bt cotton for poverty alleviation is traded against the uncertainty associated with the technology’s risks, which include its purported links to animal deaths. The study highlights the way in which the wider legitimation of a neoliberal approach to development in Andhra Pradesh serves to reinforce the choice of Bt cotton, and results in a depoliticisation of risk in Bantala. The research indicates, however, that this trade-off is subject to change over time, as economic benefits wane and risks accumulate. It also highlights the need for caution in relation to the proposed extension of Bt technology to food crops, such as Bt brinjal (aubergine).