Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

The present study investigated the use of Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS) by Indian teachers in their classroom vocabulary instruction. It also examined the influence of gender and experience-related differences on their use of VLS in the classroom vocabulary instruction. The paper reports the results of data collected to identify the VLS used by them in their vocabulary instruction. T-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted to analyse and interpret the data. The results indicate that the teachers employ VLS, such as: guessing from the context to find the meanings of new words, group work to learn new words, and using new words in sentences to store them in memory. They also show that the teachers do not prefer VLS, such as: flashcards, L1 similarity used to find the meanings of new words, and the keyword method. Further, they reveal an experience-related difference in the teachers’ vocabulary instruction.

Employing Factor Augmented Vector Autoregression (FAVAR) model where factors are obtained using the principal component analysis (PCA) and the parameters of the model are estimated using Vector Autoregression framework, we analyse how changes in monetary policy variables impact inflation, output, money supply, and the financial sector in India. Our results for the period 2001:04 to 2016:03 show that the benchmark FAVAR model showed more reliable results than baseline VAR model. Benchmark FAVAR model shows the existence of weak 'liquidity puzzle' in India. The impulse responses from the FAVAR approach reveal that monetary policy is more efficient in explaining the variations in inflation rather than stimulating output indicating its effectiveness in attaining the objective of price stability.

A bold redefinition of historical inquiry based on the “cropscape”—the people, creatures, technologies, ideas, and places that surround a crop. Human efforts to move crops from one place to another have been a key driving force in history. Crops have been on the move for millennia, from wildlands into fields, from wetlands to dry zones, from one imperial colony to another. This book is a bold but approachable attempt to redefine historical inquiry based on the “cropscape”: the assemblage of people, places, creatures, technologies, and other elements that form around a crop. The cropscape is a method of reconnecting the global with the local, the longue durée with microhistory, and people, plants, and places with abstract concepts such as tastes, ideas, skills, politics, and economic forces. Through investigating a range of contrasting cropscapes spanning millennia and the globe, the authors break open traditional historical structures of period, geography, and direction to glean insight into previously invisible actors and forces.

The article reads David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999) and Darren Aronofsky’s film The Wrestler (2008) as films that deploy masochistic spectacles of heroically suffering white men. Both Fincher and Aronofsky are well known for their dark and sometimes surreal films that frequently take up violence as a theme (Mayshark, 2007). They are also prominent auteurial voices, nominated for and winning multiple prominent film awards. Both Fincher and Aronofsky are, the article argues, representatives of a class of American directors who, starting in the early 1990s, made independent art house films and won accolades at various film festivals, making anti-mainstream, if not subversive cinema. These filmmakers of the 1990s sustained the spirit of enquiry that was the hallmark of the auteurs of the New Hollywood age. Our contention is that Fincher’s Fight Club and Aronofsky’s The Wrestler can be accommodated on this list as films made by subversive filmmakers and that they share common features owing to their commitment to explore constructions of masculinity and performances of the same. The question that the article seeks to address is—does David Savran’s framework offered in Taking it Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture (1998) predict the distinct male posturing of masochistically suffering white men visible in Fight Club and The Wrestler? The article will primarily use the theoretical framework offered by David Savran to examine where Fight Club and The Wrestler are situated with respect to the mainstream Hollywood fare featuring hyper-masculine heroes.

Since the 1980s and 1990s, there has been growing global recognition and endorsement of women as economic actors whose income-earning activities contribute to the survival and livelihood security of impoverished households and communities in many parts of the developing world. Women's economic contribution is considered particularly valuable when population groups living below the income-poverty line have struggled to cope with the adverse social effects of neo-liberal economic reforms. Given this backdrop, the aim of this study is to examine closely women's experience of laboring in the lower end of the informal labor sector, their workspace negotiations and conditions of labor, and to assess the significance of women's work to the survival and well-being of their households. The paper focuses on a case study of home and neighbourhood-based food production units in order to show how women's labor in these units is shaped by the intersecting dynamics of household patriarchies on the one hand and the profit maximizing ends of private capital, on the other. Primary data was gathered through interviews and focus group discussions with women workers and owners of these units located in the working class and industrial belt of North Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The paper argues that there has been an excessive responsibilizing of the women who work long hours in unregulated workspaces and feed and care for their families, often in the face of male disengagement from supporting the household. While aid agencies and national governments valorize women for their efficiency in 'managing' household poverty and sustaining fragile livelihoods with skill and ingenuity, this study foregrounds the gender-unjust implications of vesting poor women with the prime responsibility for alleviating global poverty.

Institutional regulations by licensing and capacity restrictions are often considered as barriers to competition in Indian industry. As most of these regulations have given way to market mechanisms, an increase in the number of entrants is to be expected. This paper attempts to measure the extent of barriers to entry in Indian manufacturing industries by quantifying the height of barriers for 1991/92 and, a decade after the onset of reforms, 2001/02. We find that, contrary to expectations, the height of overall barriers increased. This suggests that dismantling of commands and controls intended to ease entry seems to have paved the way for the erection and strengthening of market barriers to entry.

Background: Utilisation of continuum of maternal health care services is crucial for a healthy pregnancy and childbirth and plays an important role in attaining Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to maternal and child health. This paper aims to assess the percentage of dropouts across various stages of utilization of continuum of maternal health services (CMHS) in India and also investigates the factors hindering the utilization of these services. Methods: We used recent data from National Family Health Survey(NFHS) encompassing a total sample of 1,70,937 pregnant women for the period 2015–16. The percentage of women dropping out while seeking maternal health care is measured using descriptive statistics. While, the factors impeding the utilization of maternal health services is estimated using a Multinomial Logistic Regression Model, where dependent variable (CMHS) is defined as complete care, incomplete care and no care. Results: Only17% of pregnant women availed the utilisation of complete care and 83% either did not seek any care or dropped after seeking one or two services. For instance, it is found that 79% of women who registered for antenatal care services (ANC) did not avail the same adequately. An empirical investigation of determinants of inadequate utilization of CMHS revealed that factors like individual characteristics, for instance- access to media (RRR: 2.06) and mother’s education play (RRR: 3.61) a vital role in the uptake of CMHS. It is also found that the interaction between wealth index and place of residence plays a pivotal role in seeking complete care. Lastly, the results revealed that male participation (RRR: 2.69) and contacting multi-purpose worker (MPW) (RRR: 2.33) are also at play. Conclusion: The study suggests that the major determinants of utilisation of CMHS are access to media, mother’s education, affordability barriers and male participation. Hence, policy recommendations should be oriented towards strengthening these dimensions and the utilisation of adequate ANC has to be considered as the need of the hour.

The overarching policy question in private expenditure on health that we should all be addressing is, "What must the government do to reduce the debilitating (financial) effects of out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure of people?" A response to a comment (EPW, 21 November 2015) on the authors' earlier piece (EPW, 15 August 2015).