Browsing by Subject "India"
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Item Aerosol properties over the Indo-Gangetic Plain: A mesoscale perspective from the TIGERZ experiment(AGU, 2011-09-20) Giles, David M.; Holben, Brent N.; Tripathi, Sachchida N.; Eck, Thomas; Newcomb, W. Wayne; Slutsker, Ilya; Dickerson, Russell R.; Thompson, Anne M.; Mattoo, Shana; Wang, Sheng-Hsiang; Singh, Remesh P.; Sinyuk, Aliaksandr; Schafer, Joel S.High aerosol loading over the northern Indian subcontinent can result in poor air quality leading to human health consequences and climate perturbations. The international 2008 TIGERZ experiment intensive operational period (IOP) was conducted in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) around the industrial city of Kanpur (26.51°N, 80.23°E), India, during the premonsoon (April–June). Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) Sun photometers performed frequent measurements of aerosol properties at temporary sites distributed within an area covering ?50 km2 around Kanpur to characterize pollution and dust in a region where complex aerosol mixtures and semi-bright surface effects complicate satellite retrieval algorithms. TIGERZ IOP Sun photometers quantified aerosol optical depth (AOD) increases up to ?0.10 within and downwind of the city, with urban emissions accounting for ?10–20% of the IGP aerosol loading on deployment days. TIGERZ IOP area-averaged volume size distribution and single scattering albedo retrievals indicated spatially homogeneous, uniformly sized, spectrally absorbing pollution and dust particles. Aerosol absorption and size relationships were used to categorize black carbon and dust as dominant absorbers and to identify a third category in which both black carbon and dust dominate absorption. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) AOD retrievals with the lowest quality assurance (QA ? 0) flags were biased high with respect to TIGERZ IOP area-averaged measurements. MODIS AOD retrievals with QA ? 0 had moderate correlation (R2 = 0.52–0.69) with the Kanpur AERONET site, whereas retrievals with QA > 0 were limited in number. Mesoscale-distributed Sun photometers quantified temporal and spatial variability of aerosol properties, and these results were used to validate satellite retrievals.Item Female Sex Workers’ Use of Mobile Phones in India: Lessons in Effective Engagement(University of Jyväskylä, 2019) Panchanadeswaran, Subadra; Unnithan, Ardra Manasi; Chacko, Shubha; Brazda, Michael; Wilson, Natalie Brooks; Kuruppu, SantushiDespite the widespread impact of mobile phone technology, research on female sex workers’ (FSWs) access and use of this technology is sparse. This study aimed to document FSWs’ subjective perceptions of the benefits of mobile phone technology as well as examine the potential for its use by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Employing a phenomenological study built on in-depth qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with 67 FSWs and 18 staff and leaders from local NGOs in Mumbai and various locations of the Karnataka State in India between January and May 2015. Findings revealed complex trajectories for FSWs regarding accessing, learning about, and using mobile phone technology. FSW participants highlighted enhanced social connectedness with clients and their communities while NGO personnel underscored the newer ways of engagement with FSWs with mobile phone technology. Study findings point to both opportunities and challenges posed by FSWs’ extensive use of mobile phone technology.Item Innovation in India: A review of past research and future directions(Springer, 2015) Nair, Anil; Guldiken, Orhun; Fainshmidt, Stav; Pezeshkan, AmirThe rapid economic growth that India enjoyed following the start of its economic reforms in 1991 has led to a growing scholarly interest in Indian organizations and management practices. In this paper, we bring together extant yet dispersed research on one important and salient element of Indian economic growth: innovation. We organize and review the substantive innovation research in India based on its scope and focus, and find that it has yielded unique insights about India’s innovation systems and processes at both the institutional and firm levels. Three interesting trends emerge from this review of the literature. First, a growing body of research has started identifying innovation phenomena unique to India, such as “frugal innovation” and the related notion of “jugaad.” Second, a discernible arc in Indian innovation research can be observed, that is, a shift from a focus on the role of the state to the role of MNEs and Indian businesses in innovation. Finally, unlike much innovation research elsewhere, there appears to be significant interest in innovation that serves the need of the poor. We conclude with directions for future research on innovation within the Indian context.Item Investigating the Navigational Habits of People who are Blind in India(ACM, 2021-10-17) Anirudh Nagraj; Ravi Kuber; Foad Hamidi; Raghavendra S.G. PrasadAssistive navigational technologies offer considerable promise to people who are blind. However, uptake of these technologies has traditionally been lower in low and middle income countries (LMICs), where levels of investment and maintenance in infrastructure differ from upper middle (UMICs) and high income countries (HICs). In this paper, we describe a qualitative study undertaken with 14 people who identify as legally-blind in an LMIC (India) to understand their experiences and strategies used when navigating within a metropolitan area. We highlight a set of scenarios impacting people who are blind within the context studied. These include crossing busy highways, navigating in the rainy season, collaborating with others to navigate at night, and using older public transportation. Our work brings attention to areas where the latest successful and well-publicized innovations in blind navigation may fall short when used in an Indian metropolitan area. We suggest that designers should be cognizant of the role that infrastructure (particularly its shortcomings) and environmental factors may play when navigating in LMICs such as India, with a view to designing assistive navigational technologies to better match the needs of users within these contexts.Item Multi-level Risk and Protective Factors Associated with Domestic Violence Against Child Brides in Bihar, India: An Exploratory Study(2022-01-01) Arora, Ishita Sunita; Murphy, Christopher M Nnawulezi, Nkiru; Psychology; PsychologyResearch indicates that child marriage and domestic violence (DV) against child brides are widely prevalent in India, more so in some states than others. Prior studies documented the risk factors associated with DV experience of adult women (18-49 years) in Bihar; however, studies have not yet identified the multi-level risk and protective factors for DV specific to child brides' social ecology. This investigation uses the conceptual lens of intersectional feminist theory and empowerment theory within the social-ecological model of violence against women as an organizing framework to explore risk and protective factors for DV against child brides examining variables at the social, community, household and relationship, and individual levels of analysis. Cross-sectional survey data on 3,182 child brides that participated in the Understanding the Lives of Adolescents and Young Adults (UDAYA) project conducted by the Population Council were analyzed. Fifteen potential risk factors and ten potential protective factors were examined as predictors of child brides' lifetime experience of DV. Risk factors that were uniquely associated with child brides' DV experience after controlling for other levels are – (a) dowry harassment and inequitable gender role attitudes at the social norm level, (b) lower caste at the community and systems level, (c) low SES, exposure to parental violence, interspousal communication on contraceptives and family planning, and reproductive coercion at household and marital relationship level, and (d) younger age at cohabitation at the individual level. In addition, higher maternal education, lower perceived self-efficacy, and higher social connections were protective against DV risk. The findings support intersectional feminist and empowerment theories of violence against women by demonstrating that many factors outside of child brides' control, such as caste, inequitable gender norms, exposure to parental violence, and reproductive coercion are associated with DV. Additionally, male backlash theory may help explain why higher interspousal communication and lower self-efficacy could be risk and protective factors for DV, respectively. The findings further demonstrate the need to develop gender-responsive DV prevention and intervention efforts to challenge the existing patriarchal socio-cultural norms to increase gender equity and reduce women's experience of forced early marriage and DV in Bihar and other states of India.Item Nritta Indian Dance(2012) Nanan, Gabriel; Pointer, Amy; Gold, Ed; Patschke, David; University of Baltimore. School of Communications Design; University of Baltimore. Master of Fine Arts in Integrated DesignNritta Indian Dance is an engaging platform where Indian dancers can connect with each other, promote themselves, and network with one another throughout the United States. Nritta aims to share the art form of Indian dance with a wide audience and serves as a foundation for people who are new to Indian dance, allowing them learn more about it. Nritta also provides young Indian Americans to connect with their culture through exploring Indian Dance in America.Item The Role of Democracy in Economic Development: A Case Study of South Korea and India(2023-04-28) Stubits, Jakob; Kim, Sang; Safner, Ryan; Joshi, Janak; Parson, James; George B. Delaplaine Jr. School of Business; Hood College Departmental HonorsIndia and South Korea both began their paths to development at around the same time using the same strategy (import substitution). Today, the GDP per capita in South Korea is over sixteen times that of India’s. So how did one achieve such higher growth than the other? While South Korea was under authoritarian rule for the forming years of its development, it became successful because of the economic freedom it provided and its more liberal trade policies. India, despite its democratically elected government, created high barriers to entry for new competitors which stifled their innovation and growth. However, when India began to liberalize their trade policies in the 1980s, their economic growth rate improved. While there are many explanations, this paper will focus on the role of democracy in terms of legitimacy and economic freedom as the driving force of change. This idea is supplemented by the trade strategies used and economic theory to explain the growth.Item Taking care, bringing Life: A post-structuralist feminist analysis of maternal discourses of mothers and dais in India(2017-02-03) Agarwal, VinitaMy poststructuralist feminist reading of the antenatal and birthing practices of women (N=25) living in a basti in India makes visible how the meanings of maternal experiences constituted as our ways open discursive spaces for the mothers and dais as procreators to: challenge (i.e., question the authority of), co-opt (i.e., conditionally adopt), and judge (i.e., employ sanctioned criteria to regulate) competing knowledge production forms. In critiquing maternal knowledge as feminist discourse, the women’s strategies contribute theoretically to an integrative construction of care by reclaiming displaced knowledge discourses and diversity in meaning production. Pragmatically, consciousness-raising collectives comprising the mothers and dais can co-create narratives of our ways of maternal experiences articulated in public discourse to sustain equitability of knowledge traditions in migrant urban Third World contexts.Item Unruly Animals: multispecies politics and the governing of wildlife state space(2017-01-01) Margulies, Jared Daniel; Ellis, Erle C; Lansing, David; Geography and Environmental Systems; Geography and Environmental SystemsMy dissertations asks, why is tolerance for living with large wildlife in decline in South India? In addressing this question, I approach conservation as a process of territorialization, a practice mirrored in the spatial representation of geographic knowledge in scientific research. I first present the results of two case studies investigating the social dimensions of human-wildlife relations in one of the most critical conservation landscapes in South Asia. Second, while local case study research remains the gold standard for investigating complex causal mechanisms in human-environment interactions, there is increasing interest across a diverse suite of social-environmental research for ?scaling-up? case study research for global-scale knowledge generation. My dissertations therefore also considers the possibilities and persistent difficulties in doing so through a meta-study approach. In reflecting on my own case study research, I also suggest ways in which individual case studies of the political ecology of conservation can direct future research questions on human-wildlife relations within other geographic contexts. The first case study of my dissertations considers the role of conservation as ideology in the functioning of the state in violent environments. I reflect on a series of events in which a state forest department in South India attempted to recast violent conflicts between themselves and local communities over access to natural resources and a protected area as a debate over human-wildlife conflicts. I show how Louis Althusser'stheory of the ideological state apparatuses helps articulate the functioning of conservation as ideology within the state apparatus. Building on my engagement with conservation as ideology, my next case study analyzes conservation discourses of tolerance by communities to living with large carnivores alongside Bandipur National Park in India. The results show that declining tolerances of farmers experiencing damage and destruction of cattle by carnivores represents the cumulative impacts of a transformation of regional economy of South India, the local livestock economy, and more aggressive protected area management strategies. I discuss the implications of these findings for other locations in the global tropics where livestock rearing practices may conflict with protected area management goals. While Chapters 2 and 3 present individual case studies of the politics of human-wildlife relations in South India, Chapter 4 presents a meta-study of case studies to demonstrate the persistent geographic challenges researchers face in scaling up local and regional-scale case studies, such as those presented here, in global synthesis research. Here I assess the degree to which the quality of geographic description in 437 published land change case studies limits their effective reuse in spatially explicit global and regional syntheses. The quality of case geography reporting showed no statistically significant improvement over the past 50 years. And yet, by following a few simple and readily implemented guidelines, case geographic context reporting could be radically improved, enabling more effective case-study reuse in regional to global synthesis research, thereby yielding substantial benefits to both case study and synthesis researchers.