South Asian Survey

Although development experts acknowledge several development potentials of remittances, a clear understanding of the impacts of remittances and democracy on human capital accumulation regarding gender at the global level is still missing. In this research, we analyse the influences of remittances and democracy on human capital accumulation in terms of educational success, specifically primary, secondary and tertiary education, and average years of schooling with a gender focus at the global level through instrumental variables (IV) regression model. Our model using data from various valid international sources finds that (1) remittances have a significant positive impact on secondary and tertiary education and average years of schooling; (2) these have a higher significant effect on females’ education compared to their male counterparts; and (3) these are more instrumental for education in higher democratic developing countries rather than countries having no- or low-level of democracy. Next to remittances, the results find that (4) democracy has a significant positive influence on primary education and average schooling years; and (5) this is helpful for the educational advancement of both males and females but more effective for women compared to men. Based on our results, we suggest that remittances to developing countries and democratic practices in these countries can support investing and leveraging females’ education, which is a key mechanism for empowering women around the globe.

The B-school scenario in India is vast; with institutions in thousands, and hundreds of thousands in annual intake. Despite availability of ranking metrics, these portray only a partial picture of the top institutes alone, leaving the majority of Indian B-schools unmapped. The competitive arena for institutes is asymmetric, creating a problem with existing indexes as they do not aid aspirants or major stakeholders to make accurate estimates of institutional performance. Using secondary data from a statutory body (AICTE), the paper studies how this asymmetry is played out in aspects of graduate outcome performance- namely outturn and placement, as well as institutional financial performances within the context of a single state. Publicly available information from media and other intelligence reports have been further leveraged to augment facts. The study clusters institutes based on graduate outturn and placements into a vulnerability-risk grid, allowing accurate assessments of how B-schools are performing across a selected time-period. Financial risk assessment also helps in identifying the problem hotspots which require direct intervention. The paper is unique in its contribution to classifying risks among management institutes using a method which is scalable and adaptable. It identifies key imperatives to establish academic parity, by clustering deficit aspects based on the level of the b-schools performance.

Recent research on democratisation has highlighted the importance of religious actors in shaping political development. Scholars argue that the nature of state–religion relations could impact political activism of these actors. Comparing two of the largest Muslim countries in Asia, Indonesia and Pakistan, the objective of this article is to understand their post-authoritarian divergent political trajectories through an examination of their state–religion relations. Based on the comparative analysis of the institutional relationship and political theology, the article concludes that Indonesia and Pakistan differ in their respective patterns of state–religion relations, whereas the ‘respect-all’ model of Indonesia’s state–religion relations, characterised by mutual respect and accommodation between political authorities and religious institutions, helps consolidate its democracy by constructing institutional independence, its moderate political theology also embraces democratic values and pluralism. In contrast, Pakistan’s integrated state–religion relations, the absence of a ‘respect-all’ model, and its commitment to traditional political theology aimed at establishing an Islamic state pose challenges to its democratisation efforts. Drawing implications for peacebuilding and security, Indonesia’s state–religion relations could offer a potential model for Muslim democracy in South Asia and beyond.

Fast-growing non-slum poor settlements in South Asia have received scant attention in scientific research in which the focus has been on slum or informal settlements. Bibliometric analysis reveals that almost all aspects of slum life have been scientifically studied. As a result, a considerable amount of academic literature is available on slum issues. However, a large and ever-increasing number of people now live in non-slum poor settlements throughout the South Asia. Access to slum areas for newcomers in the cities is restricted as slums are already overwhelmed. This article argues that despite the growing influx of population in South Asian cities, academic research outside of a defined boundary of slums is insufficient. Governance and other theoretical approaches to study slums did not consider the non-slum areas as those approaches are influenced heavily by tenure security and confined geography. Based on the findings from bibliometric analyses, the study recommends that a broader theoretical framework is required to extend the study boundary to explore the geography of inequality and issues of both the slum and non-slum poor settlements in South Asian cities.

This article seeks to focus on the changing nature of India’s parliamentary opposition in the 1970s. The article argues that, unlike the previous decades, the Opposition in India was resilient, even if not organised in the face of the authoritarian tendencies of Indira Gandhi pre- and during the Emergency. The analytical framework helps to understand the reasons for the growing opposition’s resilience. The manifestation of this resilience can be traced to the programmes and actions of the opposition parties undertaken in the 1970s inside and outside the parliament as the crisis of democratic governance deepened, as explained in this article. This article attempts to make sense of parliamentary opposition in the 1970s, unlike any other existing study that either focused on the Congress, party system, or emergency per se. This article brings the spotlight on the Opposition as a category that lacks constitutional safeguards, thereby missing the ‘equality of conditions’ in a democratic framework. An emphasis is given to analytically understanding the political processes that played a significant role in the government–opposition relationship. The study has been conducted with the help of primary archival materials, newspaper reportings, memoirs, commentaries and governmental records such as parliamentary debates, along with existing academic works (though scarcely) on the making and functioning of the Opposition in India. The analytical approach in studying this particular moment in the political history of India helps us to understand the primacy, effectiveness, limitations and failures of democratic governance from the Opposition’s standpoint.