Le partenariat social,une voie d'avenir pour les syndicats indiens? Illustration par le cas de la fonction publique

En Inde, depuis les réformes économiques de 1991, les syndicats ont toujours moins d'influence sur les politiques adoptées et l'issue de la négociation collective. En se fondant sur des données recueillies dans l'État du Maharashtra, auprès de délégués de deux centrales syndicales, l'auteur cherche à vérifier si le «partenariat social», au sens de coopération avec l'employeur, pourrait permettre aux syndicats d'inverser la tendance et de servir plus efficacement les intérêts des travailleurs. Si la législation protectrice du Maharashtra semble propice à la concertation, les pratiques sur le terrain, l'indifférence des autorités et une jurisprudence défavorable réduisent les possibilités de bâtir un véritable partenariat social.     

Reversing the flow: agricultural development and changing migration patterns in rural Maharashtra

"In this paper we investigate the impact of rapid change from subsistence to irrigated farming [in Maharashtra, India,] and human dynamic responses to these changes from a longitudinal perspective (1975 to 1987). The study focuses on a single village, providing an in-depth and extensive analysis of both in and out-migration, characteristics of migrants, motivations for migration, experience at destination, and links with home areas, both social and economic.... The importance of migration, not only to the study village, but also to other rural areas from which in-migrants came, is also assessed." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Is social partnership the way forward for Indian trade unions? Evidence from public services

Since the start of economic reforms in 1991, India's trade unions have found themselves increasingly excluded from the political process and marginalized in collective bargaining. Using survey and interview data from the Maharashtra affiliates of two national union federations, this article examines whether social partnership with employers is a viable option for Indian unions to regain influence and protect workers' interests, as some analysts have advocated. Its findings indicate that despite Maharashtra's supportive regulatory framework, which in theory should facilitate cooperative industrial relations, the realities of workplace employment relations – coupled with state indifference and adverse judicial interventions – weaken labour's prospects for meaningful social partnership.     

Impact Assessment of Drip Irrigation in India: The Case of Sugarcane

Against the background of the rapid decline in irrigation water potential and low water‐use efficiency in the flood (conventional) method of irrigation, drip irrigation has recently been introduced in Indian agriculture. Besides saving a substantial amount of water, it also helps to increase the productivity of crops. This study attempts to evaluate its impact on sugarcane using farm‐level data from Maharashtra. Using a discounted cash flow technique, it was found that productivity was 23% higher than that under the flood method of irrigation, with water saving of about 44% per hectare and electricity saving of about 1059 kwh/ha — in short, drip investment in sugarcane cultivation remains economically viable even without subsidy.     

‘Repertoires of Contention’ in Movements Against Hydropower Projects in India

Applying Charles Tilly's notion of ‘repertoires of contention’, this paper discusses strategies and modes of protest carried out by the movements against hydropower projects in India. It compares the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA; Save Narmada Movement) in Madhya Pradesh and the Shramik Mukthi Dal (SMD; Labour Liberation Party) led mobilisations against hydropower projects in Maharashtra. It explains the more dramatic repertoires deployed by NBA as opposed to moderate and pragmatic movement repertoires of SMD. The paper concludes that the differences in ideology, organisation and cultural–historical legacy of the two organisations, as well as their different modes of interaction with the state, are the causes behind different contentious repertoires deployed by them, which resulted in different trajectories and outcomes.     

Community media: local is focal

Given the limited nature of global media with its emphasis on‘infotainment’ driven by commerce, it has very littlerole in community development. We see the alarming and growingimpact of the global media on the socio-cultural life of differentcommunities in India. The rampaging growth of centralized distributionsystems has not only undermined local expressions but is alsoloudly proclaiming its sole legitimacy and relevance. Wheredoes that leave the diverse forms of local media that aboundin our cultural landscape? Abhivyakti Media for Development,a Nashik-based Indian development communication organization,believes that local media forms have a vital role in shapingcommunity life and its development. Abhivyakti has initiateda programme in the Maharashtra state of India that seeks toidentify those who are already using some media forms in orderto support them to participate in a loose informal network.This network mobilizes their creative energies to focus on thelocal and, in doing so, brings a host of diverse realities intopublic awareness and generates alternative nodal centres todistribute these voices and images. The programme is alreadyshaping different possibilities and allowing them to emergeas viable alternatives for community empowerment.     

An analytical framework for urban upgrading: property rights, property values and physical attributes

In the mid-1980s, the state government of Maharashtra, India, introduced a slum redevelopment strategy in its capital city, Mumbai (Bombay). In contrast to traditional housing improvement strategies that focus primarily on legalizing the land tenure of residents, slum redevelopment is a more complex strategy. It involves the demolition of existing slums and the redevelopment of new, higher density, medium-rise apartment blocks, including, entirely cross-subsidized housing for the original slum dwellers. Mumbai's experience, documented through a single case study in this paper, illustrates that contrary to the conventional focus only on private property rights, upgrading policy must be based on a differentiated view of property rights. Furthermore, policy must also consider the property values, the physical attributes of the real property (underlying asset), and the interplay among property rights, property values and physical attributes. Second, the paper demonstrates that under certain conditions, there is a constituency among slum dwellers for complex initiatives, like redevelopment. This suggests that planners should be skeptical about popular, simplistic myths regarding low-income housing preferences. However, slum redevelopment's slow pace also implies that planners need to be cautious in their enthusiasm for redevelopment.     

ICT and Rural Development: a Study of Warana Wired Village Project in India

In the present century, the advancements in information and communication technologies (ICTs) are changing the various components of human life. The changes in the ICTs have brought a positive impact in the process of public service delivery and socio-economic structure of communities. In India, e-Governance applications in the recent past have demonstrated their positive impact in minimizing the processing costs, increase transparency and support economic development by income generating ventures, increase in agricultural production, and improvements in health and education sectors, all of which promote the overall quality of life of rural people. This paper reviews the e-Governance initiative called the Warana Wired Village Project in the rural areas of Maharashtra, India. It evaluates the contribution of Warana Project in providing the transactional services for the rural people with the benefit of time and cost savings in obtaining the public services with efficiency and effectiveness and it also examines changes in agricultural productivity and improved quality of life due to the ICT services.

Health and human development at sub-state level in India

A prominent outcome of the Indian development strategy has been disparity in well being. It is reflected in differential per capita incomes, access to basic facilities and human development indicators across Indian States. In order to analyze the factors that have led to disparities across states and to reflect upon the phenomenon of convergence and divergence and two-way causation between human development and income, in this study we focus on district level (sub-state level) for three Indian States, namely, Orissa, Karnataka and Maharashtra representing respectively a poor, middle-income and high-income state. The analysis is carried out to provide specific answers to certain pertinent questions and to suggest relevant policy implications. A comparison of state level averages and human development parameters for top and bottom districts indicates a tendency to neglect the development of poorer districts in richer states. Skewed development priorities also have favored better off districts in poorer states. Regression analysis highlights the inadequacy of social sector interventions and indicates differences in sensitivity of human development across the selected states. Our results point to the need for incorporating these differences in a more substantive way in human development planning in the states. Our two-way regressions indicate that a more suitable development strategy incorporating appropriate state intervention may lead to enhanced income, through improved skills or better quality of labor force, much faster in poorer states. With some exceptions, our results also support the hypothesis of convergence for both the rich and the poor states which varies with duration and parameter. The results support the contention that over a longer period of time an ongoing process of convergence at district level might minimize inequality provided state intervention is made to counteract divergence in identified parameters of the social and economic infrastructure policies. This could be taken care of in recommending and making use of central transfers and grants to the respective states.     

The Pune Slum Census: creating a socio-economic and spatial information base on a GIS for integrated and inclusive city development

Urban planning systems rarely include the poor. Cities are growing and so is the urban population. Pune is a large city in Western Maharashtra. According to the National Census, 2001, the population of the Pune urban agglomeration is 3.5 million and it is (in some estimates) to reach nearly 6 million by 2021.¹ Out of this, the city of Pune has a 2.5 million people living in it. Forty percent and above of the population live in slums. One of the biggest shortfalls of Pune's urban planning is that it still fails to include the poor in mainstream policies. The reason is that the poor are hardly known about, in fact, even government authorities are unaware about how many poor people there are in Pune. This attitude, and the fact that Shelter Associates (SA) work is closely connected with the poor regarding basic services and housing, started the development of a slum database by SA. Finally, the Pune Municipal Corporation asked us to make a complete census of the slum dwellers in the year 2000. That gave rise to a detailed survey of Pune's slum dwellers, to become, amongst other things, the first ever spatial and socio-economic census processed and analysed on a geographical information system (GIS). The Pune Slum Census has built upon this experience and expanded the communities’ information base, and has created a methodology which the city can use to work on detailed urban planning using a GIS and with the slum database as the base. This article focuses on the Pune Slum Census in progress.     

The impact of school and college expenditures on the wages of southern and non-southern workers

Based on previous evidence of diminishing earnings returns to greater educational expenditures, the hypothesis that southern schools and colleges have greater returns than non-southern schools and colleges is tested but is not accepted. Per pupil expenditures for both school and college, however, significantly raise earnings for southern male full-time workers. The elasticity of expenditure with respect to the wage for high school graduates is 0.1212 for southerners and 0.0360 for non-southerners, and the elasticity for college expenditure is 0.0468 for southerners and 0.0260 for non-southerners. The author is grateful to Philip R. P. Coelho, W. Lee Hansen, Wayne H. Joerding, Victor J. Tremblay, and an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions and to the Mississippi Research and Development Center for support of this research.     

Family support for the elderly in Korea: continuity, change, future directions, and cross-cultural concerns.

This article discusses major issues and concerns regarding family support for parents and elderly people in industrialized and urbanized Korea. It summarizes new trends in family support for elderly members, continuing influences of the traditional value of family support (filial piety), growing needs for public services for elderly people and their families, urgent calls for the state to assume greater responsibilities for providing social security and services for the elderly, needs for cross-cultural studies of family support, and certain cultural similarities and differences to be considered. The article concludes with some suggestions for future research.     

The connection between working hours and body mass index in the U.S.: a time use analysis

Over recent decades, Americans have transitioned from working in active jobs to working in sedentary jobs, and there have been dramatic increases in hours worked for certain demographic groups. While a body of research documents that time spent working is associated with increased body mass index (BMI), this paper explores possible mechanisms for that relationship using time use data. This paper finds that, for workers in non-strenuous jobs, 10 additional hours spent working are associated with an increase in BMI of 0.424 for women and 0.197 for men, representing an increase of 2.5 and 1.4 pounds, respectively. The paper does not find a relationship between working time and BMI for workers in strenuous jobs. For workers in non-strenuous jobs, the effect of time spent working on BMI becomes smaller after accounting for time spent sleeping for both men and women and time spent in exercise and food preparation for women only; the effect becomes larger after accounting for screen time for both men and women and time spent in secondary eating and commuting for women only. Screen time is the single time use channel associated with the largest differences in the estimated effect of time spent working on BMI for both women and men employed in non-strenuous jobs. After controlling for all time use channels, the effect of hours worked on BMI decreases for women, but increases for men. These findings suggest plausible mechanisms for the association between time spent working and obesity.     

Variation in Perspective: The Employment Success of Ethnic Minority Males in the Netherlands, 1988–2002

This article investigates the job chances of ethnic minority males in the Dutch labour market. Using information from the Social Position and Use of Facilities by Immigrants (SPVA) surveys for the years 1988, 1991, 1994, 1998, and 2002, we trace the employment pattern of various ethnic minority groups and Dutch natives, and study some determining factors for the job chances in the Netherlands during this period. The analysis reveals a clear variation in the employment patterns for different ethnic minority groups. Individual characteristics, such as marital status and especially educational level, turn out to be important factors in explaining the job chances for all groups. Moreover, support is found for the effect of the regional demand for labour on the employment chances for most of the analysed ethnic groups, which implies that no support is found for the queuing theory.     

Financing of Urban Services in India: A Case for Appropriate Pricing and Cost Recovery

The paper makes an attempt to examine financing of urban services within the broader macro-economic liberalisation and decentralisation context in India. It estimates the resource gap between the present flow of funds and financial requirements for urban civic services on the basis of the existing un-met demand and projected population growth trends. While making a case for appropriate pricing and cost recovery for generating more resources for financing urban services, the paper focuses on the changing attitude towards full-cost recovery, existing practices of pricing and cost recovery of urban services, provides empirical evidence of poor cost recovery from four Indian cities and identifies key institutional, conceptual and managerial issues that need to be addressed. Finally, the paper presents the emerging directions for policy reforms and action for meeting the growing needs for urban infrastructure and services, which includes some measures for fiscal reforms to increase the flow of finances for urban infrastructure and services, strengthening the resource base of local agencies and capacity building of local agencies.     

Recommendations for International Gambling Harm-Minimisation Guidelines: Comparison with Effective Public Health Policy

Problem gambling represents a significant public health problem, however, research on effective gambling harm-minimisation measures lags behind other fields, including other addictive disorders. In recognition of the need for consistency between international jurisdictions and the importance of basing policy on empirical evidence, international conventions exist for policy on alcohol, tobacco, and illegal substances. This paper examines the evidence of best practice policies to provide recommendations for international guidelines for harm-minimisation policy for gambling, including specific consideration of the specific requirements for policies on Internet gambling. Evidence indicates that many of the public health policies implemented for addictive substances can be adapted to address gambling-related harms. Specifically, a minimum legal age of at least 18 for gambling participation, licensing of gambling venues and activities with responsible gambling and consumer protection strategies mandated, and brief interventions should be available for those at-risk for and experiencing gambling-related problems. However, there is mixed evidence on the effectiveness of limits on opening hours and gambling venue density and increased taxation to minimise harms. Given increases in trade globalisation and particularly the global nature of Internet gambling, it is recommended that jurisdictions take actions to harmonise gambling public health policies.     

Paying for Sex While Traveling As Tourists: The Experiences of Israeli Men

This qualitative study explored the experiences of 15 Israeli men who paid for sex while traveling as tourists abroad, based on in-depth, semistructured interviews with them. The findings focus on three major aspects of the participants’ experiences: the meaning of sex for them and their reasons for wanting to pay for it; the problems involved in paying for sex; and paying for sex while traveling abroad as a preferable option to paying for sex in Israel. The discussion offers sociological and psychological intersubjective explanations for the men’s preference to pay for sex as tourists overseas.     

POSITIVE PRACTICE IN FAMILY THERAPY

Positive practice, a brief integative approach to consultation with families, is described in this paper. A clear distinction is made between the stages of planning, assessment, therapy, and disengagement. Guideliness for progression from one stage to the next are provided. Frameworks for deciding who to invite to preliminary sessions and methods for planning and organizing lines of inquiry are incorporated into this approach to practice. A three-column model is used to construct formulations. The model allows therapists and clients to map information about the pattern of interaction around the presenting problem, beliefs that constrain family members from altering their roles in these problem-maintaining patterns, and factors that have predisposed family members to hold these beliefs. Positive practice offers methods for evolving new behavioral patterns and belief systems within sessions and for arranging homework tasks for clients between sessions. It also incorporates methods for dealing with resistnace, for managing therapeutic crises, for convening indivudial sessions and borader network meetings, for disengaging from the consultation process, and for recontracting for further episodes of therapy. This evolving approach to practice draws on ideas from many traditions within the family therapy field and takes account of recent research relevent to the practice of family therapy.     

Family Support for the Elderly in Korea

Abstract

This article discusses major issues and concerns regarding family support for parents and elderly people in industrialized and urbanized Korea. It summarizes new trends in family support for elderly members, continuing influences of the traditional value of family support (filial piety), growing needs for public services for elderly people and their families, urgent calls for the state to assume greater responsibilities for providing social security and services for the elderly, needs for cross-cultural studies of family support, and certain cultural similarities and differences to be considered. The article concludes with some suggestions for future research.