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Drawing on social identity theory and research on digital media and polarization, this study uses a quasi-experimental design with a random sample (n = 3304) to provide causal evidence on perceptions of who is to blame for the initial spread of COVID-19 in India. According blame to three different social and political entities—Tablighi Jamaat (a Muslim group), the Modi government, and migrant workers (a heterogeneous group)—are the dependent variables in three OLS regression models testing the effect of the no-blame treatment, controlling for Facebook use, social identity (religion), vote in the 2019 national election, and other demographics. Results show respondents in the treatment group were more likely to allay blame, affective polarization (dislike for outgroup members) was social identity based, not partisan based, and Facebook/Instagram use was not significant. Congress and United Progressive Alliance voters in 2019 were less likely to blame the Modi government for the initial spread. Unlike extant research in western contexts, affective and political polarization appear to be distinct concepts in India where social identity complexity is important. This study of the first wave informs perceptions of blame in future waves, which are discussed in conclusion along with questions for future research.

Global climate change has been connected to myriad societal and environmental consequences, including the potential for a rise in violent conflict. To advance understanding of violent conflict as a threat, we undertake a systematic review of peer-reviewed, empirical analyses examining the potential links between climate change and violent conflict. The review reveals three key findings. First, the reviewed studies offer mixed and varied evidence for links between climate change and violence. A majority of studies find evidence that climate variables are associated with higher levels of violent conflict. However, this general pattern masks many subtleties and countertrends that complicate moving to a simple conclusion that the link between climate change and violence is robust. Second, most studies hypothesize an indirect relationship between climate change and violent conflict mediated by and/or interacting with a complex set of intervening variables; however, these causal pathways have only weak empirical support. Third, the empirical basis of the literature has important limitations. Study findings appear to be sensitive to differing methodological choices, making systematic assessments inconclusive.

This chapter seeks to trace the changes in India’s cultural landscape under neoliberal globalization over the last two decades. In exploring the political sociology of globalization, the chapter links cultural change to shifting political preferences of India’s vast middle classes—the chief economic and political base of globalization. It argues that, in the first decade, the middle classes supported the economic opportunities ushered in by globalization but resented its cultural costs. The homogenizing pressures of globalization elicited a conservative middle-class reaction instrumental in the rise to prominence of right-wing political groups who vowed to resist Western cultural onslaught. In the

Why do some pro-poor democracies in global South enact generous and universal social policies accompanied by empowering outcomes while others, similar in many ways, do not? If lower-class integration and programmatic commitment steers policy outcomes to be more egalitarian, what explains the variance in redistributive commitment within the cluster of radical democracies? These questions are examined in the context of two celebrated cases of pro-poor reform in the developing world: the Indian states of Kerala and West Bengal. Despite a host of similar background conditions (democratic framework, programmatic political parties, strong labor unions, and a high degree of subordinate-class integration), the cases display considerable variation in their redistributive commitment. Using the comparative-historical method, this dissertation seeks to explain the variance. It argues that the welfare divergences of Kerala and West Bengal are a function of their divergent modes of lower-class integration. In Kerala, a radical-mobilizational mode of lower-class integration has organized the poorer sections of the working classes—landless laborers and informal sector workers—in autonomous class organizations. This has enabled them to vigorously assert their interests within the working-class movement and harness state power to advance their interests through a wide range of legislative protections and statutory entitlements. In contrast, a clientelist-corporatist mode of lower-class integration in West Bengal relies on dependent mobilization of the poorer sections, without effective self-representing class organizations and without the strategic capacity to pursue class action independent of middle-class collaborators. These distinct modes of lower-class integration engender qualitatively different state-poor relationships and, in turn, divergent visions of social citizenship. The origins of these distinct modes are then traced to their historical and peculiar patterns of class formation, class struggle, and class compromise. This dissertation provides nuance to the welfare-state literature by proposing analytical differentiation within a subset of radical democracies and then by specifying the conditions under which lower-class power and state power can be harnessed to create more redistributive and empowering social outcomes in the global South. It also makes a contribution in linking agrarian labor movements to the nature of welfare regimes and more broadly to social citizenship.

Yet another quake rocked the Indian soil on Valentine's Day, one that measured noticeably high on the cultural seismograph of this immensely diverse country. The impact was palpable in various places in Northern India including Delhi and Bombay. The seismic activity began when [Shiv Sena], a Bombay based Hindu nationalist political party unleashed a campaign against Valentine's Day and its attendant festivities which was vigorously joined by several mass organisations of the Sangh Parivar (Sangh Family) of which the ruling BJP is a defining constituent. The staggering foreign economic capital that made its way into the country also brought with it inescapable social capital -- a set of collective norms and values -- that promoted consumerism rather than community. While the average Indian clearly embraced the new economic opportunities that globalization presented, she resented its social costs. The rightist parties milked this growing uneasiness or social dislocation of the Indian middle class to hawk their political project -- in the name of national culture and nationalism. Caught up in the vortex of tradition and modernity and robbed of their locus of identity, the masses readily swallowed the pre-made cultural pill marketed by the Sangh Parivar and their cohorts. Thus, when pursuing the cultural fault lines was a political strategy for the right-wing to promote their regressive vision of culture and nation, it worked as a dose of antibody to the masses who felt terribly alienated from their familiar surroundings. Opening up of India's economy to the global market forces offered a fertile ground in which the Hindu right could pursue their schema vigorously. They incited protests against fast-food outlets, popular Western entertainment and anything and everything that was even distantly Western, all in the name of safeguarding the culture of Indian people. Modern social life entails a greater degree of individualism that accords larger personal autonomy for every individual (including women) and organizes society on the basis of achievement rather than ascription -- something that is inimical to the vision of the religious right. This notion of cultrue and Indian-ness is one that limits freedom, one that is super-imposed on the masses, one that is frozen in time and space, one that negates the unique variation from place to place and person to person. The proponents stand guilty of the same charge that they hurl against the West, of mindless homogenization and misappropriation. If public expression of love is un-Indian, is public expression of violence and hatred Indian? Not by any stretch of imagination.

The Immigration and Refugee Board requires the Tibetan asylum- seekers to have an M-1 medical clearance before their hearing dates can be set. This is arbitrary as no other claimants are required to complete a medical exam to have a hearing date, not to speak of an M- 1 clearance, which indicates the highest level of medical fitness. To add to their sorrows, the Minister of Immigration's representative is intervening in each case where a Tibetan has made a refugee claim, something that is unusual during refugee hearings, unless issues of national security and/or identity are involved. The minister's representative has also intervened in the applications for landed-immigrant status to question identity documents produced by the Tibetans on the pretext that these are documents issued by the Tibetan government in exile and that it is not recognized by any government in the world.

Preterm delivery is a major obstetric complication and a leading cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity. It is also associated with significant costs in terms of psychological and financial hardship, to the families. The primary objective of this study was to determine the risk factors associated with all preterm deliveries in singleton pregnancy in a tertiary care hospital and the secondary objective was to determine the fetal outcomes among women with preterm delivery. A case control study was conducted between January 2019 and June 2019 in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of a tertiary care center in Central Kerala, India. Women who delivered before 37 completed weeks of gestation were taken as cases and those who delivered at or after 37 weeks were considered as controls in a 1:1 ratio, approximately. Data regarding 191 cases and 200 controls were taken from delivery room records of the years 2016 to 2018 with the help of a predesigned checklist. Univariate and multivariate analysis were done to determine the magnitude of association between the exposure factors and preterm delivery. The mean age of study participants among the cases was 29.3 ± 5.1 years and controls was 28.1 ± 4.4. Pregnancy induced hypertension (aOR = 14.60; 95% CI 4.8, 44.1; p<0.001), abnormal amniotic fluid volume (aOR = 10.68; 95% CI 3.46, 32.98; p<0.001), premature rupture of membranes (PROM) (aOR = 10.27; 95% CI 4.82, 21.86; p<0.001), previous history of preterm delivery (aOR = 4.12; 95% CI 1.22, 13.85; p<0.002), history of urinary tract infection (UTI) during pregnancy (aOR = 3.67; 95% CI 1.39, 9.68; p<0.002), systemic diseases (aOR = 2.78; 95% CI 1.28, 6.39; p<0.001), anaemia (aOR = 2.54; 95% CI 1.28, 5.03; p<0.004) were found to be the independent risk factors for preterm delivery. On analyzing the fetal outcomes, the average birth weight of preterm babies was 2 ± 0.6 kg compared to 3.1kg among term babies. Early detection and adequate treatment of various conditions like anaemia, pregnancy induced hypertension, UTI and systemic illness can help in reduction of the prevalence of preterm delivery.