Civil Services Chronicle October 2020

The No. 1 Magazine for IAS Aspirants Since 1990

The No.1 Magazine for IAS Aspirants Since 1990

The No.1 Magazine for IAS Aspirants Since 1990

This book acquaints the reader with the critical changes in India’s economy and society amidst the unprecedented pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, which has been devastating by breaking all prior records of illness and fatality. The present crisis is shown to be more than an acute health hazard as it carries with it other threats associated with the economy, society, culture, psychology, and politics. The dynamic driving forces that have a significant bearing on life, space, and time are explored, providing a basis on which social scientists can understand the prevailing equations and project the unforeseen future to contribute to a policymaking mechanism. The Indian scenario presented here takes into account how the COVID-19-induced lockdown of transport services, closing of factories, and restrictions on mobilization have caused the economy to face a recession, affecting mostly the unorganized sector. Travel restrictions and quarantines affecting hundreds of millions of people have left Indian factories short of labour, causing havoc in the production system. Semi-skilled jobholders have lost their employment, and the country has witnessed the plight of large pools of migrant labourers returning on foot to their homelands hundreds of miles away with their families and belongings. Contributors to this volume are drawn from diverse disciplines, displaying the solidarity of academic knowledge in a physically divided world. This common platform is provided to the practitioners of relevant academic disciplines under the umbrella of regional sciences – a forum for the exchange of ideas that may be effective in the sustainable management of the crisis and a way forward after it is mitigated. Thought-provoking discussions regarding different facets of the crisis are relevant not only to the current times but also to being prepared for the unforeseen post-COVID economic and societal order.

CURRENT AFFAIRS MAGAZINE FOR IAS,IPS,IFS,IRS AND OTHER STATE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION IN INDIA

This book explores the personal and professional lives of women in the Indian Civil Services and analyses the dynamics of gender and workplace identities for women in government. Based on first-hand interviews of women civil servants at various levels and ages, this book presents a narrative of their work conditions, the degrees of authority they exercise and their perceptions of themselves – in relation to their children, husbands, family, male and female colleagues, politicians and the public at large. It addresses pertinent issues like work–family balance, workforce diversity, equal employment opportunity, sexual harassment at the workplace, among others. Through this research, the author addresses questions such as, do women in public administration think differently from their male colleagues? And do they exercise different leadership styles, prioritise different issues, approach problems differently, make decisions in markedly different ways and play an actively representative role? This book helps to identify major obstacles that hinder the participation of women in decision-making and uncovers the bottlenecks that impede women’s advancement in the civil services specifically to policymaking positions. An important and timely study, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of gender studies, public administration, management and leadership studies. It will also be of interest to organisations working on issues of equal opportunity and affirmative action in public institutions.

This edited volume addresses how transnational interactions among civil society actors in Asia and its sub-regions are helping to strengthen common democratic values and transform dominant processes of policymaking and corporate capitalism in the region. The contributors conceive of transnational civil society networks as constructive vehicles for both informing and persuading governments and businesses to adopt, modify, or abandon certain policies or positions. This volume investigates the role of such networks through a range of interdisciplinary approaches, bringing together case studies on Asian transnationalism from South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia across four key themes: local transformations and connections, diaspora politics, cross-regional initiatives and networks, and global actors and influences. Chapters demonstrate how transnational civil society is connecting people in local communities across Asia, in parallel to ongoing tensions between nation-states and civil society. By highlighting the grassroots regionalization emerging from ever-intensifying information exchange between civil society actors across borders – as well as concrete transnational initiatives uniting actors across Asia – the volume advances the intellectual mandate of redefining ‘Asia’ as a dynamic and interconnected formation. Transnational Civil Society in Asia will appeal to students and scholars of international relations, politics and Asian studies more broadly.