Archives: Journal Articles

It is axiomatic that the climate impacts documented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are likely to undermine the realisation of a range of protected human rights. Yet it is only in the recent past that an explicit human rights approach has been brought to bear on the climate change problem. Scholars and human rights bodies have begun to advocate a human rights-centred approach to climate change—an approach which would place the individual at the centre of inquiry, and draw attention to the impact that climate change could have on human rights protection. This article focuses on the human rights claims raised in the climate negotiations, the implications these claims may have and the interests they may serve. The article argues that human rights approaches, taken in their entirety, have the potential to bring much needed attention to individual welfare as well as to provide ethical moorings in inter-governmental climate negotiations currently characterised by self-interested deal-seeking. Human rights approaches provide benchmarks against which states’ actions can be evaluated and they offer the possibility of holding authorities to account. Human rights approaches may also offer additional criteria for the interpretation of applicable principles and obligations that states have to each other, to their own citizens, and to the citizens of other states in relation to climate change. This article seeks to provide initial insights into the ways in which human-rights-based interpretations of applicable principles and obligations may serve to influence some of the current debates in the climate negotiations.

Health care providers without any formal medical training provide more than 70% of all primary care in rural India. This study combines unique data from standardized patients (“mystery clients”) with random assignment to a training program conducted by The Liver Foundation in West Bengal to assess whether training can improve their quality of care. The paper is jointly authored with Abhijit V. Banerjee at MIT, Abhijit Chowdhury at SSKM hospitals in Kolkata and Reshmaan Hussam at Yale University.

Groundwater is now the main source of water for all major water uses in India and needs to be given greater policy attention. The fact that it is a politically sensitive topic because any reform will affect some powerful constituencies cannot be an excuse anymore for lack of action. Inaction only increases existing inequalities in access to groundwater by progressively reinforcing the power of bigger landowners at the expense of other water users. This article examines the basic principles governing access to and use of groundwater inherited from the past to the Model Bill for the Conservation, Protection and Regulation of Groundwater, 2011, which provides a basis for rethinking groundwater regulation.

Any understanding of global warming must consider the relative contribution to the problem by the richer countries and the rich, over the poorer countries and the poor who are the most affected due to the problem. The legal regime adopted to solve the issue should place the poor and human rights in the centre stage of a new entitlement-based strategy to address the issue. This framework would then involve the development of technology reducing greenhouse emissions in the richer countries and the transfer of the same to the poorer ones.

Any understanding of global warming must consider the relative contribution to the problem by the richer countries and the rich, over the poorer countries and the poor who are the most affected due to the problem. The legal regime adopted to solve the issue should place the poor and human rights in the centre stage of a new entitlement-based strategy to address the issue. This framework would then involve the development of technology reducing greenhouse emissions in the richer countries and the transfer of the same to the poorer ones.

Read the edited excerpts of the CPR Election Adda on ‘An Uncertain Future – 2019 Elections and the road ahead for the Congress Party’ featuring Rahul Verma, Zoya Hasan and Yamini Aiyar.

This paper argues that Weber ought to be read as a comparative ethicist who brings his German intellectual inheritance, especially Schopenauer and Nietzsche, to a dialogue with ethical traditions in India and China. It shows that Weber not only had a supple understanding of the tensions within Hindu ethics, his own account of value often closely corresponds to Hindu axiology and was enriched by an encounter with it.

This paper argues that Weber ought to be read as a comparative ethicist who brings his German intellectual inheritance, especially Schopenauer and Nietzsche, to a dialogue with ethical traditions in India and China. It shows that Weber not only had a supple understanding of the tensions within Hindu ethics, his own account of value often closely corresponds to Hindu axiology and was enriched by an encounter with it.

This work examines the heating and cooling of an urban rooftop using radiative and meteorological measurements plus numerical simulations for the months June through September. Longwave atmospheric radiation accounts for 63.6% of the radiant energy absorbed by the roof, compared to a solar contribution of 36.4%. Changes in incident solar and longwave irradiance in response to varying cloudiness have opposite signs. As a result, the mean radiative heating on clear days differs by only 3.35% from that on cloudy days with precipitation. In response to radiative forcing, the roof reaches a temperature that provides the thermal emission, sensible heat transport to the atmosphere and heat conduction into the interior required to balance the heating. These three processes offset 79.4%, 18.4% and 2.2%, respectively, of the average heating for dry days. After precipitation, evaporation provides a 24 h average cooling of 36.4 W m−2. Evaporative cooling comes primarily at the expense of sensible heat transport and is accompanied by smaller surface-to-air temperature contrasts than exist during dry periods. Comparison of measurements and simulations for wet days shows that evaporative cooling leads to a 24 h average drop in surface temperature of 1.2–1.3 K, with larger instantaneous reductions during daylight.

Low cost and low quality electricity for agriculture contributes to erosion of electricity distribution systems and encourages wasteful consumption, even as farmers are increasingly deprived of adequate and good quality power. While past efforts to solve this problem have focused on technocratic approaches, this paper attempts to articulate a political interpretation of the electricity-groundwater conundrum. The paper argues that farmers are quite rational in their current decision-making given the problematic context within which they make choices. It outlines a more explicitly political approach to the problem, based on state level bargains between stakeholders and a multifaceted approach to implementing bargains.