CfPs: National Conference on Technology, Policy and Community: Small Experiments in Sustainability;14-15 March, Hyderabad

National Conference on Technology, Policy and Community: Small Experiments in Sustainability

March 14-15, 2014, Hyderabad

Organized by Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus

Knowledge accumulated by communities over generations in the areas of agriculture, water harvesting methods and uses of water which seem to be based on notions of sustainability have been attracting increased attention. However, the communities seem to be faced with the challenges posed by state policies which are based on notions of scalability and administrative and bureaucratic control wherein the focus is on one policy for all areas as against the knowledge of small communities which is unique to specific areas.

Given a third world context such as India’s, there is an increased need to address the attempts of communities in negotiating challenges put forth by policies on environmental issues. Concerns of International agencies and advanced countries which tend to drive research agendas of the developing countries do not necessarily reflect either the problems or the processes faced by such communities. This has resulted in increased and visible tensions between community’s knowledge and resources and the dominant knowledge systems promoted by the state.

This seminar is an attempt at bringing together policymakers, researchers and practitioners not only to reframe questions but also to think of novel solutions for sustainability in the areas of agriculture, human habitats and customary law in contrast to the modern legal framework.

Panels with eminent academicians, civil society activists and policy makers would be constituted and will be held before each of the thematic sessions.

 

Call for Papers:

Proposals for paper presentations / workshops related to the theme of the conference are invited. Papers should be original and unpublished. A 300 word abstract should be submitted before March 5th 2014. Upon confirmation a full paper of not more than 3000 words in MLA format should be emailed to tpcbits2014@gmail.com before March 10th 2014. Select papers will be compiled and published in an edited volume.

 

Important Dates

Abstract Submission     05 March 2014

Abstract Acceptance     06 March 2014

Registration fee             10 March 2014

Full Paper Submission  10 March 2014

 

Note

1. For any further information about the conference, please mail to tpcbits2014@gmail.com

2. Kindly do not submit registration form until abstract has been confirmed.

3: Further Details: http://sites.bits-hyderabad.ac.in/tpc2014/index.php

CfPs: Privatisation in Education - Issues of Choice, Quality, Equity and Social Justice (with a remuneration)

Call for Papers

Privatisation in Education – Issues of Choice, Quality, Equity and Social Justice

The Privatisation in Education Research Initiative (PERI) and Young Lives are seeking to commission a number of policy oriented research papers which employ Young Lives India school survey data from graduate students and other researchers in quantitative social sciences. We are inviting students to submit proposals for papers (written in English) which could become part of their course requirements, for example as extended essays, dissertations, theses or PhD chapters. For other researchers, we are inviting proposals for research papers (written in English). It is anticipated that high quality papers will be published in a joint working paper series and potentially in peer-reviewed journals and/or in an edited book.

Remuneration

A payment of 2,500 US Dollars / £1,500 British Pounds will be made to successful applicants upon receipt of a final paper of acceptable quality.

Deadline for Submission of Proposals: Proposals will be considered and approved on a rolling basis up to 31 March 2014. Applicants should submit their proposals as soon as possible by e-mail to Indiayounglives@gmail.com For further information please visit website: www.younglives-india.org

HT Article "The surprising friendship between cricket and military technology" by Vidya Subramanian of CSSP, JNU

The surprising friendship between cricket and military technology
Vidya Subramanian,
Hindustan Times, February 16, 2014
Technology has all but taken over the way we engage with cricket (and life, one might argue). Whether it is to catch up with the score of the latest IPL league match or to analyse the batting technique of the man expected to replace Rahul Dravid as the mainstay of the test team, we have to turn to various technologies to keep us updated. That’s not all. A seemingly unrelated (to cricket) aspect of our everyday news bulletins is the mechanics of war.
But look again, and you might find that the relationship between cricket and war is closer than imagined. Cricket with all its trappings and suits, as it happens, owes much to those who make missiles and radars. Many technologies that help make cricket ‘better’, such as Hawk-eye and Hot Spot, to name just two, owe their origin to research in military technologies.
Hot Spot is one of those innovations that first made its appearance in cricket as a tool to aid commentators on television, much as several other umpiring tools, such as the slow motion replay and the stump microphone. It was first used in cricket on Channel Nine during the Ashes in 2006-07. Hot Spot uses infrared camera technology to determine which part of the batsman’s body or bat made contact with the ball. Two powerful thermal-imaging cameras are placed around the field — behind the bowler’s arm at each end. These cameras identify and calculate the amount of heat generated by the impact of the ball against another object. A negative image is then generated on a computer, on which the point of contact is highlighted as a red friction “hot spot”.
This technology was originally developed for combat by military scientists. Thermal imaging technology has its use in detecting and tracking tanks, fighter jet aircraft, and other warships in the dark or across smoke-covered battle grounds. A thermal-imaging or infrared camera detects heat in the same way that normal cameras detect light. The higher an object’s temperature, the more the infrared radiation emitted.
The thermal-imaging camera can detect this radiation and creates ‘images’. This works even in total darkness because light levels don’t affect the heat generated by a body. This makes it useful for war-time efforts in the dark or even in rescue operations in smoke-filled buildings.
The technology was adapted for use on the cricket field by the Australian company responsible for the Snickometer — BBG Sports — in collaboration with Sky Sports as a tool for commentators to make the game more exciting for viewers.
Another staple in the televised cricket field is Hawk-Eye, the system that, by recreating a bowled ball’s possible trajectory, aids in making lbw (leg before wicket) decisions more accurate. This piece of technology owes its origin to research in missile guidance systems. Up to six JAI monochrome cameras (usually placed at long-on, long-off, third man, fine leg, and two square of the wicket) operate at 120 frames per second (regular television cameras operate at 25), out of which three capture the path of the ball from each end, and the pictures from each of those cameras are fed into a central computer. The cameras capture the trajectory, flight, speed, and movement of the ball from the bowler’s hand to the point it bounces on the pitch, and then from the instant it bounces off the pitch to the moment it makes contact with the batsman’s pad or his bat. The computer then extrapolates this information to predict the path of the delivery. This is a bold step into a new realm of technological influence in sports as this is technology indulging in conjecture by predicting possibilities.
While the use of such technology has largely been applauded by experts and laymen alike, questions about accuracy have been raised not just in cricket but also in tennis. Who can forget Roger Federer finding himself at the wrong end of an obvious error by the machine during the Wimbledon finals of 2007?
A paper written by Harry Collins and Robert Evans of Cardiff University’s School of Social Science discusses the advertised margins of error by the company that provides Hawk-Eye technology, and concludes that since the advertised margin is an ‘average’ of 3.6 millimetres, it stands to reason that there are occasions when the margin of error can be greater.
The man who invented Hawk-Eye, Dr Paul Hawkins of Roke Manor Research near Southampton, UK, is a former Buckinghamshire cricketer who boasts of a PhD in artificial intelligence. The technology is derived from the military technology that was originally used in top secret missile guidance and tracking systems. The same technology has also been adapted for use in brain surgery. As more money is pumped into the game, expensive technologies (Hot Spot costs $6000 per day for the use of two cameras, which is why it was not used in the World Cup in 2011), from the bunkers of war research and from more conventional areas of study too, will quickly make their way onto the cricket fields.

(Vidya Subramanian is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/1184430.aspx

Article "How Not To Read History" by Jayanthi A Pushkaran of CSSP, JNU

How Not To Read History
By Jayanthi A Pushkaran
Countercurrents.org, 26 February 2014
Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/pushkaran260214.htm

There is nothing like a cultural controversy to stimulate the social imagination. The Doniger’s episode is a bit like most of the previous controversies on books where a ban or censorship (enforced or otherwise) comes out as knee-jerk solution. To police ideas and scholarship for appeasing certain group signals the erosion of liberal tradition in India. Now that the dust has settled over the decision of Penguin India to withdraw and pulp Wendy Doniger’s book ‘The Hindus-An alternative history’ in an out of court settlement with a Hindu group that had protested against the book, one realises that scholarly work on history is increasingly being silenced by communal bullies in the name of national pride. A new intolerance is gripping India, gradually tightening its claws around not just the body politic but the mind of the nation.
Media and intelligentsia have bemoaned this incident as an assault on free speech, dismal state of law and government’s incapacity to stop fundamentalists from threatening the publishing houses and authors. However, what we are witnessing is something far worse, an attack on free inquiry. Censorships on academic works are being sought through political, institutional, legal, private and violent means. This is not the first time books have come under attack. In 2008, Oxford University Press decided to cease publication of a scholarly essay on the Ramayana, and in 2011, Delhi University took the same essay off its syllabus after the ABVP activist called the essay blasphemous. James Laine’s book on Shivaji was banned in Maharashtra, after Shiv Sena went on a rampage. And Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses remains banned to this date. Reputed publishers succumbing to the pressures of these self-styled custodians of culture send a signal to others.
The issue raises many concerns about the fundamentals of acquiring and handling of knowledge in this country. The matter is not about the eventual victor, but about the very future of scholarship and its shrinking discursive space. The incident highlights that the barriers to free inquiry in India today is doubly threatened by intolerance and weak institutions that have failed to secure liberal values. There is something quite worrisome about this situation for it has commanded a compulsory elimination of a scholarly work. We do not have to agree with Doniger’s book but to go to the extent of erase it and not letting people to be exposed to differing points of view is authoritarian. This is absurd because it leaves no possibility for critical discernment. Evelyn Beatrice Hall once stated under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre in 1906, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. To censor ideas and academic work, because they are offensive to some, prevents the scope for even attempting genuine intellectual discourse.
Over the years, the war on books has become a feature of the larger battle over identity and sentiments. A feature of this conflict is to oppose anything that does not confirm to what is supposedly assumed as the correct view by a few. Instead of being an open-ended probe into history, the practice of scholarship is, oddly, compelled to confirm to the whims of populist groups. Scholarship needs to be free to interpret events. To limit academic expressions between political correctness and rigid intolerance is to undo the ethos of rational enquiry.
Wendy Donigers book should be read twice. Firstly, it should be read it for what she says. Departing from an inflexible and uninformed understanding of the religion, she underlines the less spoken narratives of women, Dalits and other pluralistic traditions to capture its remoteness as against the political mobilisation of Hinduism as a homogenous narrative. Secondly, one should read it to observe what we read into it. One clearly senses an explicit split between knowledge and politics here. For many years now, right wing groups, in the name of instilling patriotism have been trying to spread a communal interpretation of history through distorting textbooks and curriculum. The more dangerous trend is the attempt to use government institutions and political power to attack rational and secular history and historians to promote an obscurantist, regressive looking communal historiography.
A large number of historians in India have effectively critiqued the attempts by communal forces to paint Indian history in a narrow sectarian hue. Noted historians such as Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib have, time and again, highlighted how Hindutva version of history, in fact, ends up reiterating the work of James Mill and Lord Macaulay in its definition of Indian civilization and of monolithic communities dominating history. The Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, for example, observes in his book ‘The Argumentative Indian’ that India’s persistence heterodoxy and its tendency towards multi-religious and multi-cultural co-existence had important implications for the development of mathematics and science in India. Moral and cultural policing of knowledge curtails the possibility of pluralism which is required to interpret the myth, legend, folktales and societal memories in a country where text and oral traditions co-existed.
Religious sentiments were hurt when the practice of Sati was questioned in India. Religious sentiments could be hurt if scientific findings question the religious positions on origin of life. Does that mean one should go to the extent of banning or altering such knowledge in line with religious diktats? For knowledge to prevail in any area there needs to be a critical enquiry and scrutiny of the subject matter. This includes the scope for analysis of traditional, contentious and multiple ideas. And India needs to rise to such possibilities.

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The author is a Programme Director at the organization Delhi Greens and a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Email: jayanthi@delhigreens.org twitter: @apjayanthi

STEPS-JNU Symposium Report: "Are you an academic or an activist?"

STEPS-JNU Symposium: “Are you an academic or an activist?”
By Elisa Arond, Doctoral student, Clark University and researcher STEPS Centre Grassroots Innovation project
Posted on 19 February 2014 by Steps Admin
Source: http://steps-centre.org/2014/blog/arond/

“Are you an academic or an activist?” That was the first question I was asked over tea before the workshop on Grassroots Innovation Movements began at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. To me this question spoke to two themes. First, it raises a self-reflective question about one’s role in, or contribution to, social change. While all in attendance could probably be said to be motivated by normative goals of improving well-being the world over, especially among the most marginalized, in the workshop there were clearly also diverse visions of exactly how to foster transformational change toward that broad goal. Secondly, this question speaks more broadly to an apparent division in the relationship between knowledge production and social change.
At the workshop, Dinesh Abrol reminded us of the different transformative visions of Nehru, of Gandhi, and of different social movements shaped in each period of Indian history, including pre- and post-Independence. Some at the workshop clearly stated their identity as activists, and placed the evolution of their work into the historical-social context outlined by Dinesh and others. These ardent activists were, and continue to be, integrally involved in knowledge production – through People’s Science Movements, for example – and see activism and knowledge production as complementary or integrated pursuits.
For example, PK Ravindran, director of the Integrated Rural Technology Centre (IRTC), Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP), part of the umbrella People’s Science Movements, has been active in the movement for some fifty years! Ravindran described the PSM slogan: “science for social revolution,” beginning with a focus on science education, followed by the development of a participatory, production-oriented, development model based on human and natural resources available within the community, and optimal utilization of the environment. KSSP focuses on support to local bodies, with work in a number of areas, including: Panchayath resource mapping, watershed based plans, water management, energy conservation, and Local Development Plans.
TP Raghunath, of the Centre for Ecology and Rural Development (CERD), described initiatives of the Tamil Nadu Science Forum and Pondicherry Science Forum (PSF) over 25 or so years. He described the vision of PSF’s “science for social change” including inclusive and sustainable approaches to social change, drawing on five core values:

• The right of every citizen to the basic entitlements needed for minimum quality of civilized life
• Concept of equity – as equality of opportunity and access to resources, as end to discrimination
• Sustainability – stating that we cannot live today or choose a path of development that compromise the rights of future generations to exist
• Democracy – defined as the participation of people in decisions affecting their lives, including in governance through appropriate representative mechanisms – creation of democratic institutions of water users, women, negotiation with the state
• Opportunity for each citizen to develop her creative potential to the fullest

Adrian Smith presented the case of Lucas Aerospace, and the Movement for Socially Useful Production in the UK in the 1970s. Facing the decline of British manufacturing due to the drastic restructuring of capital, many skilled workers were threatened with losing their jobs. While various unions organized work-ins, strikes and boycotts, a group of workers at Lucas formed the Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards Combine Committee. Through extensive consultation with the broader workforce, the Committee put together an alternative corporate plan to protect jobs and convert production from largely military technology toward government investment in “socially-useful production”. They developed 150 prototypes based on the collective heuristic knowledge of workers on the shop floor, and suggested new, less-hierarchical ways of organizing the labor process.  When management and the government largely ignored the proposal, the Combine Committee went public and political, leveraging various means – from teach-ins to an educational demonstration tour, among others. Adrian pointed out that the prototyping spaces themselves – the spaces of knowledge production – were also political mobilization spaces, as much about building solidarities as building devices. So perhaps the division between knowledge production processes and social change is not so clearcut – at least in these cases from the People’s Science Movements in India and the Movement for Socially Useful Production in the UK.
G Nagarujan, of the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, spoke about the character and nature of the free software movement, which he likened to termites, doing their duty underground, while others roam above. To the termites (and hackers), the objective is “to destroy the big systems, the mighty mafias of corporations and governments.” It is a political movement, not a technical movement. It is a movement toward distributed production – whether of hardware, software, or knowledge, meant to weaken centralized institutions. Nagarujan called on academics to be more disruptive, following the model of hackers. While hackers use microblogging and usenet fora as tools for social networking, intentionally sharing ideas “as a way of slapping or spitting on the current knowledge production system,” Nagarujan suggested academics should create new kinds of journals on that model, to be similarly subversive.
Returning to the first question of role and identity, Adrian Smith described himself as an “engaged researcher”, while Dinesh Abrol labeled himself both an academic and a practitioner, and still others at the workshop represented themselves as academics open about their goals and values. So “am I an academic or an activist?” I don’t think there is such a stark distinction everywhere, or maybe at least there doesn’t have to be, as indicated by these examples above. I have been an activist in certain realms. I am currently an academic-in-training. No doubt I seek to make an academic contribution that helps activate positive change. But perhaps there is a distinction to be made between academic as researcher with individual leeway to be self-defined in terms of activist leanings, and academia as a (perhaps not homogeneous) space with particular rules, expectations about behavior, and a history.
The choice of taking an activist stance can bring risks in certain contexts. At the workshop, someone highlighted the risks of being a vocal activist in academia until one’s career is established. Nicholas Kristof, a NY Times columnist, recently called for US academics to engage beyond the university campus, pointing to a dearth of academic engagement in public policy debates in the USA, with the exception of economics and a few other disciplines. Kristof acknowledged the institutional structures and competitive professional trends that discourage many academics from engaging in more informal, popular discussion fora.
But what does it mean to be an activist within academia? Is it speaking out against the predominant trending theory? Is it attempting to influence policy and public opinion? Perhaps one facet is just taking note and calling out everyday exclusions and disparities in that hierarchical realm of knowledge production, as long as the risks from where one stands aren’t overwhelming.
One example I find inspiring in my own national context is the academic-activist-women-authored blog Tenure She Wrote who use this alternative channel of blogging to speak out about challenges faced by women in US academia (the bloggers write under pseudonyms in order to avoid jeopardizing their academic careers), and activism has included putting pressure on Nature to review how they understand and support diversity through their publications.
So just as D Raghunandan, of the Centre for Technology Development (CTD), New Delhi, remarked at the workshop: “When we talk about innovation and policy, an issue of prime importance is: innovation for what?” And similarly, we can ask: Knowledge production for what? Academia for what?  While Raghunandan pointed to the kinds of institutional structures we’ve sought to build or draw on to harness innovation to development (not always so effectively) – perhaps we should pay more attention to the hackers and termites, as Nagarujan advocated. Not just to undermine dominant ways of doing things in which we are entrenched (such as the quite peculiar system of incentives and promotion in academia), but also to unearth the creativity and alternative institutional structures or ways of doing that allow more fruitful links between knowledge producers – wherever they may be located – and the spaces where knowledge may shape, transform, sustain or stimulate meaningful change.

Source: http://steps-centre.org/2014/blog/arond/

KOICA-GDN Research Papers Award 2014

KOICA Development Research Award 2014

The KOICA Development Research Award (KOICA Award) is a competitive prize administered by GDN and funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). KOICA is the main implementing agency for Korea’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) grant programs. The prize identifies and recognizes completed research papers that engage in promising growth studies that investigate the salient features of Korea’s growth experience (Republic of Korea or South Korea) and provide an interesting analytical benchmark to analyze growth issues and prospects in developing countries. The authors of the papers must be nationals of any of the developing countries listed on the next page

The winners of the KOICA Award 2014 will be announced in mid-July 2014 and will receive monetary prizes and an opportunity to travel to Seoul, Korea in late summer 2014 to attend the prize distribution ceremony.

Theme: Relevance of Korea’s Development Experience for Developing Countries

	Prize Categories

The KOICA Development Research Award will be given out in the following prize categories:

• First Prize:  USD 8,000
• Second Prize: USD 6,000
• Third Prize: USD 4,000

In addition, there are three special prizes:

• KOICA President’s Award for the Best Submission from a researcher or team of researchers from the 26 Priority Partner Countries of KOICA: USD 4,000
• KOICA Award for the Best Submission from a Young Researcher/Team (the individual researcher must be under 30 years; in case of a team submission, at least one researcher must be under 30 years of age and all team members must be under 35 years of age): USD 3,000
• KOICA Award for the Best Submission from a Woman Researcher/Team of Women Researchers: USD 3,000.

The winners of this competition will also be provided an opportunity to travel to Seoul, Korea in late summer 2014 to attend the prize distribution ceremony.Travel and other related expenses for the winners to attend this event will be borne by GDN.

	Eligibility Criteria

• Open only to researchers who are nationals of eligible developing countries. Click here to see the full list of eligible countries:
• Nationals of eligible developing countries who are temporarily based in an ineligible country but not for more than five years as 15 April, 2014
• There is no age limit to apply for the competition. However, qualifying individual applicants, under the age of 30 years as of 15 April, 2014, will also be considered for the award for young researcher(s). Teams can also compete for this award provided that at least one team member is under 30 years of age and all team members are below 35 years of age as of 15 April 2014
• Staff members of multilateral and bilateral organizations are NOT eligible to apply
• Previous and current employees of KOICA and GDN or its RNPs are NOT eligible to apply up till 5 years from the completion of their tenure.Previous GDN Board Members, project mentors and members of evaluation teams are NOT eligible to apply
• Similar proposals or papers resulting as products from full or partial GDN funded activities cannot be submitted for this competition
• Reviewers and selection committee members for the competition are not eligible to take part in the competition

DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING PAPER: 15 April, 2014 (Indian Standard Time 6:00 PM)only via our dedicated online submissions platform.

APPLY Please refer to the Guidelines for detailed instructions on how to apply

GUIDELINES

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Please note: GDN reserves the right to modify, cancel or not award grants at any stage of the competition and grant-making.  The decision of GDN will be final.

For further queries, email us at gdnkoica@gdn.int

- See more at: http://www.gdn.int/koicawards

New article "Policy transformations and translations: lessons for sustainable water management in peri-urban Delhi, India" by Pritpal Randhawa (CSSP) & Fiona Marshall

Policy transformations and translations: lessons for sustainable water management in peri-urban Delhi, India
by Pritpal Randhawa, Fiona Marshall
Abstract. This paper explores the complex interactions that occur as formal policies are interpreted and utilised to develop water management plans in peri-urban Delhi. With an emphasis on people’s participation in decision making, the paper examines some of the disjunctures between formal assumptions about water management in peri-urban areas and practices on the ground. In doing so it attempts to reveal some of the key processes responsible for social fragmentation of services. The paper describes informal coping strategies adopted by poor and marginalised peri-urban communities with little or no access to formal provision. Within this, the role of ‘hidden’ interactions with the formal system are highlighted in the context of failures of formal participatory platforms. The paper argues that enhanced understanding of the policy process, and the alternative arrangements that emerge in response to its shortfalls, could be important contributory factors in identifying realistic intervention strategies for enhanced, more socially just, water management in peri-urban situations.
Keywords: peri-urban, water, policy process, formal and informal, sustainability, Ghaziabad
Cite as:
Randhawa P, Marshall F, 2014, "Policy transformations and translations: lessons for sustainable water management in peri-urban Delhi, India" Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 32(1), 93–107.

30th Eisaku Sato Essay Contest 2014, organized by UNU Tokyo

30th Eisaku Sato Essay Contest 2014
Organized by United Nations University, Tokyo

The theme of the 2014 contest is: ”Discuss the merits and demerits of extending long-term assistance to developing countries whose own self-help efforts are inadequate, as well as potential measures that could promote greater self-help efforts.”

Submissions are now being accepted for the 30th Eisaku Sato Essay Contest. This international contest is open to anyone who has an interest in both the United Nations University and the designated contest topic. There are no restrictions as to age, nationality or profession.
Essays may be written in either English (3,000–6,000 words) or Japanese (8,000–16,000 characters). All essays should be typed on A4-size paper and include an abstract of up to 450 words (English) or 1,200 characters (Japanese).
Submission must be original and unpublished papers, and must include reference notes and a bibliography if other authors’ works are cited.
To enter the 2014 Eisaku Sato Essay Contest. please submit four copies of your essay along with a cover sheet listing your name, affiliation, age, gender, nationality, mailing address, and (if available) telephone/fax number and e-mail address, to:

The Eisaku Sato Essay Contest Secretariat
c/o United Nations University Library
5-53-70 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku
Tokyo 150-8925, Japan

The submission deadline is 31 March 2014.
Please note that submitted essays will not be returned. Any essay that does not follow the criteria specified above will be disqualified.
A grand prize (¥500,000), a second prize (¥200,000) and several honorable mentions (¥50,000 each) will be awarded. The winners will be notified by June 2014.
Winners who are able to attend will receive their prizes at a ceremony to be held at the United Nations University in Tokyo.
The Eisaku Sato Essay Contest was inaugurated in 1980, and has been held annually since 1990. It is organized by the Eisaku Sato Memorial Foundation for Cooperation with the United Nations University, which was established by the late Eisaku Sato, former Prime Minister of Japan, with the monetary award that he received with his 1974 Nobel Peace Prize.

Further Information: http://unu.edu/news/announcements/2014-eisaku-sato-essay-contest-deadline-31-march.html

CfPs: Spaces of Technoscience Workshop; July 21-23, at National University of Singapore

Call for Papers

Spaces of Technoscience Workshop

Dates: July 21-23, 2014

Venue: National University of Singapore

The Science, Technology, and, Society cluster and the Department of Southeast Asian Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, invites interested scholars to submit abstracts for an inter-disciplinary workshop entitled “Spaces of Technoscience,” to be held in Singapore.

Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words and sent to stsworkshop2014@gmail.com. Kindly also include a short resume and mention of notable publications, along with contact information. The proposed paper should be based on original work, written for this workshop, and not published or committed elsewhere. We encourage you to identify the particular theme your paper speaks to (see below), although we are also open to considering papers on aspects of technoscience and space that are not identified in the project statement.

Unfortunately, we are not able to offer travel or other financial support, however, partial funding for local expenses for scholars based in developing countries will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

• Deadline for submitting abstracts: March 1, 2014.
• Successful candidates will be notified by March 15, 2014.
• Final Papers will be due on July 1, 2014

Project Description: The need to focus on “Spaces of Technsocience” begins from the recognition that much of contemporary technoscience can no longer be contained by analysis at the national scale. From flows of expertise and movements of bodies to the mutations of labour, value, instruments, and artifacts, technoscience is increasingly determined by transnational horizons. The inertial weight of the national scale, however, has not disappeared from our concepts, scholarship, or policy recommendations, and this tension opens up a productive point of departure for this workshop.

“Spaces of Technoscience” thereby offers STS scholars the opportunity to explore technosciences in one location or many, through networks and across different scales of theory, action, and struggle. In the process, it also offers the possibility of side-stepping intellectual aporias that have plagued STS for too long, namely, the varieties of cultural essentialisms that typify “East v. West” distinctions, familiar markers of difference that are nonetheless reliant on shallow and reified concepts of space. For convenience, we find it useful to break down the idea of “Spaces” as follows.

• New Sites: Technosciences always come from somewhere. While the scientific laboratory has long been privileged as a site for specialized knowledge production, the conceptual turn to technoscience, rather than Science or Technology, has upset the lab’s analytic and intellectual centrality. First, the boundaries around laboratories were disassembled and its material and political allies and adversaries exposed. We now appreciate that there are important differences between scientific and corporate labs, for example, but also that meaningful technoscientific knowledge can emerge from places as different as zoos and science parks. Museums, military bases, buildings, clinics, asylums, and farms have all been or become sites of technoscientific activity. Moreover, rather than single sites, we may often be called to examine networks that include a variety of nodes, from factories and power stations to mines and hospitals. Networks in turn are rarely static, or for that matter, permanent. The dynamism of technoscientific transformations requires attention to the passages, circulations, and immobilities that characterize networks, that lead to intersections between them, and that distinguish one technoscientific chain of production and dissemination from another.
• New Geographies: An entirely different set of spatial coordinates is mapped by technoscientific activity seen through the lens of geopolitics. Some of these connections go back centuries, others are ongoing negotiations between places separated by boundaries of power and wealth. The close linkages between colonial medicine and metropolitan public health institutions, or, the indispensability of tropical landscapes for the creation of biomedical knowledge and commercial value mediated through botanical gardens, are well known examples of how colonial technoscience brought far-flung locations into a common space of uneven circulation and unequal exchange. Imperial divisions of the world have given way to joinings and separations produced by national and transnational capitalisms, within and across state borders. Nowadays, not all net value flows from South to North. Complex new geographies of technoscience are shaping an unequal world along fault lines both old and new. The remarkable expansion of clinical drug trial infrastructures in poor countries and the growth of international medical tourism, are, in the own way, are examples of how structural differences in political economy maps technoscientific chains onto discrete spatial locations.
• New Bodies, New Publics: With new geographies and new sites of technoscience comes the interpellation of new publics. Some have been tacitly invoked already: “reserve armies” of potential mothers, organ donors, and clinical drug recipients joined by battalions of young and globally mobile skilled professionals, typified by IT “techno-coolies.” Some publics emerge due to their locations: villagers and fisherfolk who live near sites of radioactivity and nuclear power stations, migrant workers who are denied access to the technology parks they build, forest dwellers who find themselves blocked from access to forest produce in order to allow “wild” animals to live more easily in their “natural” habitat, urban dwellers who find themselves subject to new public health concerns due to the increased mobility of viruses that come from far away. Other publics have emerged through contestation. The feminist activists who successfully mobilized to force the end of amniocentesis devices being used to identify female fetuses and the villagers who organized themselves in a campaign that led to the national Right to Information in India are both examples of publics forged in techno-struggle. A different set of technoscientific relations are situated in and through the bodies of subjects. These may range from embodied resistances to antibiotic drugs to mass inoculation campaigns and the systematic mapping of populations to locate genomic value, “bio-capital.” Individual bodies as well as biopolitical “populations,” in other words, constitute publics interpellated by technoscience. Worries over regulation, citizenship, participation, consent, traveling diseases, and biomedical surveillance constitute the political counterpoint to proliferating spaces of technoscience, even as it is increasingly clear that conventional sites and modes of governmentality may no longer be adequate to monitor or cope with them.

Workshop Organizer: Associate Professor Itty Abraham

Further Details: http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/research/researchclusters/sts/technoscience.html

Nexus narratives - water politics in Asia, as discussed in STEPS-JNU Symposium

Nexus narratives – water politics in Asia, as discussed in STEPS-JNU Symposium
By Ian Scoones, Co-Director, STEPS Centre
Posted on 11 February 2014

The fourth panel at the STEPS-JNU Symposium focused on the highly contested narratives around how water is stored and accessed in Asia, with cases from Nepal, Laos, and Thailand. As Uttam Sinha from The Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi, commented, Asia is facing a "hydrological moment" that is redefining the politics of water and the relations between nation states in the region. New connections between epistemic and policy communities with a regional basis are being forged that suggest a fundamental rethinking of transboundary and riparian policy and politics.
It is in this context that the STEPS project team has set about interrogating and unpacking the increasingly popular idea of the resource 'nexus'. The intersection of food, water and energy has been popularised in policy discourse, as a focus for intervention in recent years. In the region and internationally the nexus discourse has been building over time to reach fever pitch. As Jeremy Allouche from the STEPS Centre observed, this is accompanied by metaphors such as the ‘perfect storm’, as well as operational frames such as the 'green economy'. This is very much associated with international donor-led efforts and increasingly framing research. As Carl Middleton from Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, pondered, is the nexus idea in fact just a rediscovery of what communities already knew? Why is it only now that such integrative ideas are becoming central to a mainstream narrative? Is this the moment that experts emerge from their silos, as they realise that sustainability questions are highly complex?
However, how ideas around the food-water-energy nexus play out is highly dependent on the national and regional political context and is deeply influenced by framing and interest politics, as the case studies showed. In the Laos Mekong case, a detailed analysis of policy documents across different institutions showed how framings of scarcity, security and nexus intersections differ. Carl showed how the Asian Development Bank highlighted economic and physical scarcity and therefore prioritised infrastructure interventions, particularly by the private sector. This contrasted with the International Water Management Institute that highlighted local production practices, and solutions were connected global and local projects, while conservation organisations such as IUCN focused on natural resource scarcity and the need for protection measures. While adopting the nexus discourse, very different perspectives on what is scarce, what needs to be secured, and what to do about it are shown.
The session asked is ‘the nexus’ a useful concept? Currently, as the cases showed vividly, the framing is very top down, often linked to external interests, and outsider-generated managerial solutions. In addition, in identifying a particular crisis at the nexus, a space for appropriation is opened up, often linked to a partial enclosure of previously shared, regional commons (a form of 'green grabbing'). Investment imperatives linked to notions of food, energy, or water 'security' drive such appropriations by the private sector, supported by national political interests. As Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, formerly Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC), Kolkata, pointed out such a politics of knowledge has dominated by investment intervention and engineering design results in formerly public goods being captured and sold, resulting in an adaptation of a popular saying: "Rivers should flow uninterrupted, but only through my tunnels".
As Dipak Gyawali, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, former Minister of Water Resources, Nepal, pointed out this has resulted in a contested regional politics between 'landlord' countries and the 'battery' countries that supply the water. As he observed: "Age old questions are coming back to haunt us. Issues of security are being recast". Whose security are we talking about? What is the most effective locus for resource governance? How do can multiple uses and users be accommodated? What institutions can respond? Is a river a source of energy for hydropower, food through fisheries or water for domestic use and agricultural irrigation? And who is responsible and accountable?
The challenge, as Dipak pointed out, is that each of the potential multiple institutions involved come with their own framings, different definitions of the problem, and particular histories and proclivities. There is, it was argued, a need for space for different providers to provide diverse options, and for negotiation between them across different groups. “The imagination of plural pathways can only become a reality if a diversity of users and their practices are involved”, as Lawrence Surendra, University of Mysore, observed. “Plural pathways and clumsy solutions” are needed, the panel contributors argued. Only a diversity of responses – “many ten percent solutions” – can, Dipak argued, can create pathways to sustainability more effectively and securely.

Source: http://steps-centre.org/2014/blog/stepsjnu_securitisation/
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23190361@N08/sets/72157640812155224/

STEPS-JNU Symposium: Every case is its own study? Every movement has its own goals?

STEPS-JNU Symposium: Every case is its own study? Every movement has its own goals?
By Adrian Smith, Researcher, STEPS Centre / SPRU
Posted on 11 February 2014
Learning with and across diverse grassroots innovation movements

Here in Delhi, first at the Grassroots Innovation Movements Workshop, and then at the STEPS-JNU Symposium, participants were interested in the commitments and positions taken in STEPS Centre research projects. Our project on Grassroots Innovation Movements in Historical and Comparative Perspectives is investigating six grassroots innovation movements whose diverse histories arise in very different geographies, and whose activities, participants and sectors are similarly varied:
- Honey Bee Network in India  - Peoples Science Movement in India  - Social Technology Network / Technologies for Social Inclusion in South America  - Appropriate Technology Movement in South America  - Movement for Socially Useful Production in the UK  - Grassroots Digital Fabrication in Europe.
Not only does this raise questions about research methodology, but also what the project expects to achieve practically in engaging with these movements. At root, this is a question of motivations for the research: why study such a collection of disparate movements? I tried providing my own, personal answers to this question when introducing both the workshop and the session on grassroots innovation at the symposium.
My answer had three aspects to it: each engaging with different communities. The first relates to activists and practitioners. The second relates to the research community. And the third aspect relates to the world of policy-making.
At any time, in many places around the world, if we look carefully enough we can find networks of activists and communities generating bottom up solutions to the challenges, opportunities and aspirations for development as they view it. Ingenious grassroots activity produces a variety of innovations, and which activists, engineers, scientists, and others (including investors and entrepreneurs) sometimes try to develop further and help scale-up and spread in some form. This activity can involve improvisation as well as knowledge, and both of which can be elusive for formalisation and dissemination. Conversely, activists concerned for the problems of often marginal or disadvantaged communities, and overlooked by many innovation institutions, try to bring science, engineering, and project development into dialogue with the grassroots, and to develop solutions in which communities are empowered to shape the design and execution of projects that make use of appropriate innovations (even if they did not originate within the particular grassroots setting).
What we see repeatedly over time is participants in these varied grassroots innovation initiatives looking to those involved in similar activities elsewhere. Networks are formed, experiences shared, reflections are made, and discourses and practices emerge around how to help deepen and spread this mix of grassroots innovation activity and grassroots activism making use of innovations. We call these developments grassroots innovation movements.
The first aspect to our research motivation is to engage with these movement processes, and to try and contribute to the dialogues involved by making connections with other movements elsewhere. Even where movements appear to have little in common at face value, such as the Honey Bee Network in India today and the movement for socially useful production in the UK in the 1970s, bringing them together and contrasting them can still have its uses. Looking carefully at a contrasting case can help activists step outside their day to day activity, and in thinking about grassroots innovation experiences in very different times and places, reflection can help reveal, recast, and rethink the processes they are engaged in, and which daily pressures may obscure. Just as foreign travel can enrich how we think about our home countries, so we hope dialogue between contrasting grassroots movements will enrich the reflections of activists in each. Contact such as these may even help processes of international solidarity. As we’ll see below, policy for inclusive innovation has an international dimension, and so it might make sense for movements to engage internationally too.
The second aspect to our research motivation relates to how we study these movements, and how we engage others in our analysis. There exists already considerable research into grassroots movements. However, much of this research attends to either protest movements, movements for rights, or movements for cultural identification. Studies of grassroots movements that innovate, and that are doing alternative development, are fewer. Some exist, such as the work of David Hess. But few have looked across a diversity of grassroots innovation movements in the way we are trying in our project. Elsewhere, we have also argued how the field of innovation studies gives insufficient attention to the particularities of grassroots innovation. Innovation studies have tended to focus on systems of innovation based around firms, markets and research institutes, and if they turn to questions of alternative innovation, then they tend to apply the same conceptual apparatus developed for market-oriented settings. So a second motivation for the project is to contribute an empirically-grounded, theoretically-informed understanding of grassroots movements involved in innovative solutions for alternative developments.
The third and final motivation for our project is to engage with renewed policy interest in grassroots innovation. The activities of grassroots innovation movements are attracting attention in the context of elite policy interest in inclusive innovation. The OECD and other international bodies are interested in inclusive innovation. They are conducting studies and developing programmes. A common feature for the discussions is the search for models of inclusive innovation, and how to scale-up the use of these models. Understandably, these discussions often draw on conventional innovation terms and concepts familiar to these organisations. So, for example, grassroots innovation is seen in terms of the development of innovative devices, which can be developed into products through processes for cultivating entrepreneurship and marketing. These approaches do make sense to some in grassroots innovation movements. But they do not make sense for all participants. Terms like inclusion, scaling-up, and even innovation itself, need to be interrogated in the context of grassroots attempts to democratise innovations for alternative modes of production and consumption.
There is much more to grassroots innovation than an overlooked reservoir of appropriable ideas and devices, open for selection, inclusion, and commercialisation. Grassroots innovation movements are also about mobilisation around different visions for development and alternative ways of innovating. In the process of developing solutions for alternative development problem frames, grassroots innovation movements generate new subjectivities, discourses, agendas, and visions for innovation in development, and not just devices, capabilities, and infrastructure. Some grassroots innovators become protagonists in a different kind of development. Some even present alternative innovation as a tool to resist being included, or subsumed as they might term it, into conventional innovation agendas. This is a position that asserts a right to innovation in a way that poses discomfiting challenges to the fundamental notions held by elite innovation institutions. It is a position that speaks to knowledge politics and relations of political and economic power. It is a position we were reminded about in the discussions in our workshop and Symposium in Delhi. It is important to pressure policy-makers also to recognise this more radical and transformational aspect in grassroots innovation movement.

Source: http://steps-centre.org/2014/blog/stepsjnu_grassroots_smith/

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23190361@N08/sets/72157640812155224/

The Hindu article "Paralysis in science policies" by V. V. Krishna

Paralysis in science policies
V. V. Krishna
The Hindu, February 7, 2014
Neglect of research in higher education has led to very low research intensity. Ninety per cent of our universities end up as teaching institutes where research is given a low priority for lack of funds

In the last few years, the government has announced a number of policies in science and technology which include bills on patents, specialised innovation universities and regulatory measures. These are supposed to power India’s growth engine via science and technology and, at the same time, enable the country to keep pace with the comity of nations. Unfortunately, the Manmohan Singh government’s policy paralysis is not just confined to the social and economic sectors, but also manifests itself quite prominently across various segments of science and technology institutions including research in universities. The failure of the government in this area stems from poor governance mechanisms, as from low priority accorded to science and technology in the overall budget.

Falling behind R&D
Ever since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power, Dr. Singh has promised to increase the gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD). He committed two per cent of GDP and reiterated it every year since 2007 at the annual session of the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA). In the last nine years, Indian GERD to GDP either stagnated at 0.9 per cent or even relatively declined adjusted to inflation; 58 per cent of GERD is consumed by the strategic sectors (atomic energy, defence and space research) and about 29 per cent is met by the private sector. So, what is left for civilian R&D, spanning a dozen or so science agencies, is rather pathetic. Look at what is happening in Asia! The Chinese GERD witnessed a dramatic increase from one per cent to 1.84 per cent of GDP in the last decade. In 2012, Japan spent 3.26 per cent, South Korea 3.74 per cent, and Singapore 2.8 per cent. After a decade, the government announced a new Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2013 or STIP 2013. The scientific community and the nation were left disappointed as the government had failed to fulfil its earlier commitment. There has been no commitment to increase public R&D. The government will only match the private R&D investment to bring it to the level of two per cent of GDP. When is this going to happen?

Realistic goals?
The new policy envisages “positioning India among the top five global scientific powers by 2020,” increasing the number of full-time research and development personnel by two-thirds within five years, and increasing publications from the current 3.5 per cent of global share to around seven per cent by 2020. Not only this, the policy aims at increasing the publication record in the world’s top one per cent of journals fourfold. India has already fallen behind China and emerging economies on these indicators. For instance, India produced three times the science output of China in the 1990s with a comparable GERD. Today, China has overtaken India by more than three times. It is the same in the case of patents. Why have we fallen behind so much? This is not unrelated to massive R&D investments by China in the last decade. The continuing policy paralysis in science and technology is visible across various segments of S&T. Even after the Fukushima disaster, Dr. Singh has been relentlessly batting for new nuclear plants costing several billions of dollars in the coming decade. The newly inaugurated plant complex at Gorakhpur, Haryana, is estimated at Rs.23,502 crore. According to research studies, just 25 per cent of the future nuclear budget for renewable energy sources (wind, solar, biomass etc) will generate almost double the energy planned in a more sustainable manner. Ninety per cent of water in India is consumed by agriculture, yet we have no inclusive energy-water policy. The list runs across several sub-sectors. Let us look at two of them.
R&D in higher education has been the prime victim of policy paralysis. There are over 600 universities and 30,000 colleges with a GERD of around 18. Though universities contributed 52 per cent of the total national research publication output in the last decade, they were allocated a dismal 4.1 per cent of GERD. In fact, this has been the case for six decades since independence. Universities in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 25 countries accounted for 20 per cent and Japanese universities accounted for around 15 per cent of GERD in the last decade. Even Chinese universities increased their share of GERD from five per cent in the 1990s to 12 per cent currently. The neglect of research in higher education has led to very low research intensity; 90 per cent of our universities end up as teaching institutes where research is given a low priority for lack of funds. Policy measures to increase research intensity in universities and nurture them to attain world-class standards in China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan were a part of their respective national innovation strategies since the 1990s. Such policies enabled two to six universities in these countries to be listed in the World’s Top 100 University Rankings in recent years. India could not register even one. Just four to five universities figure in the list of 400 or 500. STIP 2013 is silent on strengthening research in higher education. Ninety per cent of the National Knowledge Commission’s recommendations remain unimplemented as much as the proposal to create 14 innovation universities. Until the higher education sector is given its due importance in the national innovation system and allocated at least 10 per cent of GERD, it will continue to remain sub-critical at the national level and we will fall behind our Asian neighbours.

Innovation
After the President of India declared 2010–2020 the “Decade of Innovation,” STIP 2013 proposed new schemes such as the “Risky Idea Fund” and “Small Idea Small Money.” The government launched the India Inclusive Innovation Fund (IIIF) under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, with the government chipping in with just two per cent of the budget. But private partners have hardly evinced any enthusiasm to invest in this scheme. Is the government serious? The policy paralysis in science and technology innovation can be seen from the dismal amount of money allocated to a dozen innovation schemes under the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Out of the total budget of Rs.2,998 crore given to the DSIR in 2011, only Rs.155 crore went to innovation schemes. And, of the Rs.2,349 crore given to the DST in 2012, only Rs.57 crore went to innovation schemes.
With 90 per cent of Indian labour in the informal sector and faced with dwindling fortunes of rural agricultural activity, millions will migrate from the rural to urban areas in the coming decade. The UPA government launched a number of schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme; Bharat Nirman; Indira Awaas Yojna; Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission; Health Mission, among others. Besides problems underlying their governance and implementation, which are well known, they lack an institutional framework to infuse employment potential with skills, training and grass-root innovation. There is hardly any serious policy perspective or thinking to create institutional avenues for vocational training to infuse skills to labour in the informal sector. There are about 7,500 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) with the overall intake capacity of 75,000. With the growing demand for technicians and an expanding informal sector, one can imagine the task ahead. Long-term solutions to problems here are so complex and are becoming even more interconnected. We have so far failed to evolve any strategy to connect with these schemes at the “bottom of the pyramid.” IIIF is a good scheme if it gets off the ground with a full budget. In any case, such schemes managed by corporate fund managers are relevant more at the “middle of the pyramid” and not the “bottom.” We urgently need to build and strengthen intermediary institutions to forge linkages between formal and informal institutional structures. It is time the government wakes up to addressing the impending S&T policy paralysis before it is too late.

(V.V. Krishna is professor in science policy, Centre for Studies in Science Policy, School of Social Sciences, JNU, Delhi.)

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/paralysis-in-science-policies/article5661263.ece

Commonwealth Summer School 2014: Global Food Security: Can We Feed a Growing World? 17-24 August 2014; Malaysia

Commonwealth Summer School 2014: The Fourth ACU Commonwealth Summer School
Theme:: Global Food Security: Can We Feed a Growing World?
Sunday 17 - Sunday 24 August 2014
University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Semenyih, Malaysia

The Commonwealth Summer School was instigated by the ACU in 2011. It aims to provide a forum to bring together high quality students from every corner of the Commonwealth to discuss interdisciplinary issues of global importance.
A key element of the School is its desire to mix local/regional students with those who may have never  had the opportunity to leave their own regions.
The inaugural School was held at the University of Buea, Cameroon, in July 2011 followed by the 2012 School hosted by the University of Botswana and in 2013, the ACU hosted the School in United Kingdom to coincide with the our Centenary.

About Theme
The world’s population is predicted to hit 9 billion by 2050, and the UN estimates that food production will have to increase by 70% to meet the growth in demand. Issues pertaining to feeding the world’s ever expanding population will be at the heart of the 4th annual ACU Commonwealth Summer School’s programme, designed to take a multidisciplinary look at one of the major issues of our time.
Top speakers and facilitators will help to frame the key issues and challenges allowing participants to learn, interact and work across countries, regions and disciplines to build international research connections.
Participants will journey through various aspects of food production, looking closely at distribution, environmental management, migration, biotechnology, farm management, supply chains, nutrition and health policy in the process.
Delegates will have the opportunity to observe the reality of food management, experience first-hand the food and supply chain, and immerse themselves in the challenges of food production. Through a series of workshops, group work and field-based learning, we will look at how food gets from farm to fork.

Who can attend?
Applicants should be engaged in a course of study at an ACU member university; but applications may be made by applicants from non-member Commonwealth universities. At the time of application, he/she must either be studying for a postgraduate degree (full- or part- time) or in the final year of an undergraduate degree, with the expectation of moving to postgraduate study on completion.
Priority will be given to students from member institutions who have not had the opportunity to travel outside their home region. Bursaries available.

Application Form: https://www.acu.ac.uk/news-events/events/commonwealth-summer-school-2014/application/
PLEASE NOTE: Applications should be received by 11 April 2014. Applications received after the closing date will not be considered. Successful applicants will be notified by end May 2014.

Further Details: https://www.acu.ac.uk/news-events/events/commonwealth-summer-school-2014/

SEMINAR Magazine #654: Theme: State of Science: a symposium on the relationship between science, knowledge and democracy

SEMINAR #654

February 2014

State of Science: a symposium on the relationship between science, knowledge and democracy

 

• The Problem/ posed by Dhruv Raina, Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
• Science, Nationalism and the State/ Benjamin Zachariah, Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, University of Heidlherg
• The Public Life of Expertise/ Shiju Sam Varughese, Centre for Studies in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar
• Science, State and the Public/ Biswanath Dash, Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
• The Realm of Commodified Technoscience/ Sambit Mallick, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati
• Knowledge and Practice/ Milind Sohoni, Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
• Technology for Rural Industrialization/ D. Raghunandan, Centre for Technology and Development, Delhi and Dehradun
• Revisiting Science's Social Contract/ C. Shambu Prasad, Professor, Rural Management and Development, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
• Shifting Patterns of Research Funding/ Saumen Chattopadhyay, Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
• Beyond Supply Driven Science/ Rajeswari S. Raina, National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies, Delhi
• Books Reviewed by Om Prasad and A.R. Vasavi
• Further Reading :: A select and relevant bibliography compiled by Shiju Sam Varughese, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinager

http://www.india-seminar.com/semframe.html

 

Also available at your nearest magazine stalls.