COVID-19, Reverse Migration and Crisis Management: A Study of the Model of Government of Uttar Pradesh (India)

With the outbreak of the global pandemic of COVID-19, India witnessed one of the largest reverse migrations in its entire history. Amid continuously streaming heart-rending visuals of migrant workers struggling to somehow return to their place of origin, Uttar Pradesh emerged as the recipient of huge 3.2 million migrant workers employed in the informal sector. Accepting, welcoming, helping, encouraging and offering employment to those destitute workers amid the pandemic was a difficult task for the state government. An appropriate management of this problem has made it a classic case of crisis management by a state chief minister who dares to think beyond the reflex paranoia about resource crunch so as to come up with an improvised strategy. Purpose of this article is to discuss the crisis of reverse migration amid COVID-19 and the initiatives taken by the Government of Uttar Pradesh. The article uses case study approach to analyse the problem of livelihood faced by the migrant workers and the innovative model of employment and rehabilitation envisioned and implemented by the state government. Based on secondary data, it observes positive impact of skill mapping and other key strategies of the Government of Uttar Pradesh.

Interpreting Citizenship Amendment Act: Its Content and Context

India is endowed with a proud history of inclusive government and religious tolerance. Indian citizenship has always been firmly rooted in the country’s constitution, which lays priority on equality, regardless of gender, caste, religion, class, community or language. Attaching citizenship rights to religious affiliation runs counter to the letter and spirit of India’s Constitution and constitutional morality. The major thrust of the present article is to project government’s stance on the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, constitutional provisions in relation to the Act, thematic arguments of critics and constitutional experts on the matter, multifarious challenges ahead in respect of its implementation, by establishing the fact that any measure taken must remain in conformity with international norms and values and necessity of amending the law to do away with the arbitrary selection of countries and religious groups so that the current agitation can be easily tranquilised.

Book review: Subhash Sharma, Development and its Discontent

Subhash Sharma, Development and its Discontent. New Delhi: Rawat Publications, XIV+266 pp., ₹850.00, ISBN: 9788131607077.

Census Mapping in India and Role of GIS: A Look Ahead at Census 2021

The 2021 Census of India for over 1.3 billion population deploying 3 million enumerators, has significant evidence value for 71 countries where census is scheduled during 2021. Census mapping plays a major role in accurate, complete and timely census. It delineates the exact and correct boundaries of all the administrative units. The Indian census has been using Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies over the last three censuses. In this study, we focus on the applications and methodologies being adopted for the census mapping in Census 2021 in India which is going to be the first digital Census of India. Five mobile apps have been developed for data collection and for map-related work. The 2021 Indian census utilises the latest census mapping techniques, namely standardisation of GIS spatial database design, geo-referencing of administrative units and latest mobile mapping application (Arc GIS Quick Capture) for field operations and built-up area digitisation work. We also discuss the various challenges and their solutions for census mapping in India, most prominently a high quality, updated, comprehensive and geo-referenced address registry for accurate data collection and mapping, and the use of geo-referenced high-resolution satellite images at village level for covering the gaps in rural boundary maps.

Book review: Parameswaran Iyer, Method in the Madness: Insights from My Career as an Insider-Outsider-Insider

Parameswaran Iyer, Method in the Madness: Insights from My Career as an Insider-Outsider-Insider. Noida: HarperCollins, 2021, 274 pp., ₹370.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9789390327560.

Book review: S. Levitsky & D. Ziblatt, How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future; D. Acemoglu & J.A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty and D. Roy Chowdhury & J. Keane, To Kill a Democracy: India’s Passage to Despotism

S. Levitsky & D. Ziblatt, How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future. New York: Penguin Random House UK, 2018, £ 9.99. D. Acemoglu & J.A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. London: Crown, 2013 (South Asian Edition), ₹699. D. Roy Chowdhury & J. Keane, To Kill a Democracy: India’s Passage to Despotism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, £20.00; $25.95.

The CM Window in Haryana: A Landmark Initiative for Grievance Redressal

Grievance redressal is often a general administrative exercise which is adopted by various state governments and agencies with varying degrees of commitment and efficacy. An ideal redressal mechanism aims at safeguarding degrees against official apathy, corruption and systemic aberrations. It also implicitly acts as a deterrent to erring agencies and functionaries as well as sets a benchmark for a higher executive’s oversight to peoples’ complaints. A revisit to the course and manner of this hitherto routine exercise reveals that the functional and effectual system for addressing people’s grievances has to include a mechanism which is specific as well as achievable and includes a procedure for measurable performance. The CM Window initiative of the Government of Haryana has set its sight at unrestricted grievance redressal across departments and geographical spreads of the state through a process of decentralised complaint recording, prompt solutions and centralised monitoring at the highest level. This article offers a closer insight into the focus, working, effectiveness and limitations of the ambitious exercise to ameliorate citizens’ hardships.

Book review: Sunil Ambekar, The RSS: Roadmaps for the 21st Century

Sunil Ambekar, The RSS: Roadmaps for the 21st Century. New Delhi: Rupa, 2019, 230 pp., ₹495. ISBN: 978-9353336851.

Wellbeing of Employees During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Innovative HR Practices of Organisations

The whole world has been battling through the COVID-19 pandemic which has resulted in the prevailing global crisis. There has been an adverse impact of this pandemic on economic, physical and psychological/mental wellbeing of the people. Many researchers have found that COVID-19 related anxiety is leading to psychological and behavioural changes. Most reported psychological changes are depression, psychological distress, worry, anxiety about being infected, subjective wellbeing and reduced quality of life. These behavioural and psychological changes are reducing the effectiveness of the workforce which is eventually taking a toll on the overall productivity. Several organisations have implemented a number of strategies to deal with the unforeseen challenges faced by their employees. These interventions have helped the employees restore their mental wellbeing. This article attempts to identify and underscore some important HR initiatives that organisations have taken to maintain and enhance the motivation of their workforce during this COVID-19 pandemic.

A Critical Assessment of the Value of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Public Policy Implementation Theories, with Reference to the Case of Implementation of Passport Seva: An eGovernance Policy in India

What are the challenges in public policy processes? Why do some critical public problems not carry to the agenda-setting of policy-making, or even if carried, they fail during implementation? One of the responses to these queries is that policy-making often happens in a complex, dynamic, sociopolitical environment where there are overarching structures above the policy makers and there are competing actors, ideas, groups, policy networks, institutions and policy subsystem that interact with unequal power and conflicting interests (Sanderson, 2009). It is thus realised that the systematic study of public policy is significant for bringing progressive change in society. Hence it is required to build new knowledge and to improve upon the working of public policy. This article will study the value of the top down and bottom up theories in the case of implementation of a new eGovernance policy on passport issuance in India. The findings are that due to resistance from different stakeholders, the project could be implemented only after certain bottom up changes to the policy along with change management strategies.