Journal of South Asian Development

It is argued in the literature that the intensity of regulations and control in an economy is a determinant of the informal sector which however is ignored in most of its estimates. This article uses a new variant of the currency demand approach where ‘unemployment’ and ‘intensity of government control’ are used to estimate a shadow economy, alongside a the traditional tax variable. We choose Pakistan since it has a significant share of its activities in the informal sector along with the history of various political and dictatorial regimes. Further, there are examples of bureaucratic control leading to corruption in the economy. It provides an opportunity to study the nexus between regulation intensity and informal economy and present a case study for other developing countries exercising control over the economy through the large size of its public sector. The results show that the intensity of the control variable has statistically and economically significant role in increasing the shadow economy, almost equivalent to the tax coefficient. Once the yearly variation in our estimates is mapped with various political regimes, it seems that the validity of estimates is reinforced considering policy inconsistencies and prominent events of each regime.

Social networks influence technology diffusion but targeting formal leaders (institutional central nodes) may lead to distributional consequences. This paper analyzes the role of informal social networks in technology diffusion in a socially hierarchical caste-based society. Often, information flow and technology diffusion are constrained by social and economic boundaries where informal nodes such as caste play a very decisive role in everyday life. Proper targeting and dissemination of technology to the marginalized sections of society are very important for their development. We observed that only one-fourth of farmers cultivate newer varieties which include hybrids and recently released high yielding varieties. The results showed that individuals belonging to marginal groups are influential and act as informal leaders when they are the dominant caste in the village. Progressive farmers are found to fail in disseminating new varieties, and targeting influential informal leaders who belong to the dominant caste of the village appears to be a better strategy. Among non-dominant caste members, influential leaders belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) or Scheduled Tribes (STs) are more desirable targets than other caste groups. The more concentrated a network is in terms of its caste composition, the faster will be the spread of any technology.

This article explores civil society organizations’ (CSOs) views on the contemporary situation of LGBT⁺ people in Bangladesh. It is a lacuna requiring attention because of the country’s poor and deteriorating equality and human rights record. Here we analyse the level of attention to prevailing human rights violations and apply critical frame analysis to the corpus of CSOs’ submissions to the United Nations third cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR), 2013–2018. These reveal how a series of key pathologies—including, violence, intimidation and discrimination—affect the lives of LGBT⁺ people. The wider significance of this study lies in highlighting that, while not a replacement for justiciable rights, the discursive processes offered by the UPR are of key significance in seeking to advance LGBT⁺ rights in countries like Bangladesh where oppression combines with extremism and political elites’ refusal to embrace equality in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation.

The purpose of this article is to examine the multi-spatial and developmental dynamics of the cinnamon industry in Sri Lanka, the largest exporter in the world by value added. This contribution compares Karandeniya, a major traditional cultivating hub, and Matale, a region new to cinnamon cultivation, deploying a Global Production Network (GPN) framework inclusive of regional development considerations. Analyses, based on input from 23 semi-structured, in-depth interviews, examine the potential for all stakeholders to acquire equity or ‘how’ captured value influences the region ‘and’ individual actors over the course of development. Fieldwork reveals four upstream actors in the cinnamon industry, namely—farmers, peelers, collectors and exporting firms. Results indicate that the cinnamon boom led to strategic decoupling with the exporting firms in Colombo and subsequent strategic recoupling with other actors. The primary contribution of the research rests in the interpretation of resulting structural changes in each region from a bifurcated view of regional development. Based on regional economic growth, Karandeniya appears to be more successful. However, considering the extent of value distribution within the region, Matale is on a more inclusive trajectory vis-à-vis cinnamon exports. Based on these results, three implications for GPN theory and related development policy are suggested.

During the last two decades, India has witnessed several trade and industrial policy reforms. The objective of the study is to examine the relationship between dynamism of India’s two-way trade, measured through Marginal Intra-Industry Trade (MIIT) index, and labour market adjustments, reflected through absolute employment changes, in select manufacturing sectors over 2001–2015. India’s MIIT in select sectors generally display an upward trend over the sample period, while a mixed dynamics is observed on the employment front. The generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation results indicate that MIIT, increase in productivity, skilled workforce intensity, industrial concentration, incremental FDI inflows and trade openness positively influence absolute employment changes, whereas unskilled wage exerts a negative impact on the same. The analysis further concludes that high relative growth rate, skill-intensity, incremental FDI inflows and higher productivity in a sector, also characterized by higher MIIT, may lead the firms to employ more productive and competitive resources, resulting in higher absolute changes in employment. The obtained results do not support the Smooth Adjustment Hypothesis (SAH) predictions in the Indian context.

Policymakers and practitioners in the field of skill development often carry individualist and narrowly instrumental understandings of the reasons people enrol in their programmes. This article argues that people in the Global South seek to develop skills for a range of reasons, many of which are strongly influenced by their social environment and factors outside of their control. It presents the findings of a study involving surveys and semi-structured interviews with 53 trainees enrolled in agricultural skill development programmes in the state of Himachal Pradesh in the Indian Himalayas. Trainees’ responses were analysed to determine common ‘pathways’ to agricultural skill development programmes. Seven major pathways were identified: supporting one’s family; adopting commercial approaches to agriculture; managing a transition to agriculture after working in other sectors; gaining new knowledge; contributing to society; working from home; and developing a fallback option while seeking other work. These pathways were highly inflected by gender, age and caste. It is suggested that agricultural skill development practitioners will benefit from working with these pathways rather than assuming trainees carry more economistic motivations, but also from being critically aware of how the social factors that impinge on trainees’ pathways are influenced by local power structures.

Ayaz Qureshi. 2018. AIDS in Pakistan: Bureaucracy, Public Goods, and NGOs. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. 217 pp. ISBN 978-981-10-6219-3.

Ania Loomba. 2019. Revolutionary Desires: Women, Communism and Feminism in India. London and New York: Routledge. 322 pp., £29.99. ISBN 978-0-8153-8174 (paperback).

Radhika Govindrajan. 2018. Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 256 pp. (Paperback). ISBN-10: 022655998X; ISBN-13: 978-0226559988.