On the history and social life and customs.

On the social life and customs of Lois, Indic people.

The book brings together implementation studies from the Asia Pacific countries in the context of the deadline of 2015 for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The contributors to this volume are scholars belonging to the Network of Asia Pacific Schools and Institutes of Public Administration and Governance (NAPSIPAG). NAPSIPAG is the only non-West governance research network presently located at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi after having shifted from its original location at INTAN (Government of Malaysia) at Kuala Lumpur in 2009. ‘Implementation’ is a less understood but a much debated area of governance research. It requires micro-level analysis of government agencies, service delivery departments and stakeholders on one hand and its national and global policy level connections on the other. Implementation studies are above disciplinary divides and subsequent disjunctions which inhibit explorations on policy downslides or failures. The studies relate to the new initiatives which governments across the region have undertaken to reach out to the MDG targets agreed upon in 2000. The focus of analysis is the policy framework, local capacities of both the government agencies and people in drawing partnerships with relevant expert groups, ability to bring transparency and accountability measures in transactions for cost-effective results, leadership and sustainability dimensions which influence the functioning of local agencies. The book is especially important in the background of 15 voluminous Administrative Reforms Commission Reports accumulating dust in India and similar efforts lying unattended in many other countries of this region as well. Countries like Malaysia, which has focused upon ‘implementation strategies’ combined with timely evaluation and supervision of administrative agencies has almost achieved most of their committed MDGs. A special report of Malaysian efforts, initiates the debate of moving beyond the ‘best practice research’ in implementation arena. The central idea of this book is to demonstrate the role of communities in making governance effective and government responsive to the needs of people.

Folklore Studies in India: Critical Regional Responses is an interesting compilation of twenty-eight critical articles on the beginning of folklore studies in the different parts of India. In the absence of a book that could map the history of Indian folklore studies single-handedly, this book can be deemed as the first-of-its-kind to feature the historical development of folklore studies in the different states of India. This book succinctly introduces the readers to the folk culture, folk arts, and folk genres of a particular region and to the different aspects of folkloristic researches carried out in that region.

This volume presents an interdisciplinary framework to map out contemporary educational studies in India. Based on conceptual tools, quantitative methods and ethnographic accounts drawn from extensive fieldwork, it addresses emerging discourses on educational policies, their operation in the everyday functioning of institutions and actual practices in teaching and learning. Individual chapters discuss the intersectionality in the current educational system of region, gender, class, caste and minorities. With comparative perspectives and case studies from across states, including under-studied rural and urban regions of India, the book explores a wide range of issues affecting the educational system, including socioeconomic and gender inequalities; the educational status of tribal settlements in the hinterlands and their respective urban areas; the marginalisation of minorities; challenges in accessing educational avenues and choices; and the model for imparting vocational education and training. It navigates complex sites of discrimination and exclusion in the institutional spaces of the educational system and assesses the consequences of market dynamics and ideological undercurrents. Presenting first-hand information from the field, it evaluates educational policies, practices and research; investigates challenges and failures; provides suggestions and fosters critical thinking for a knowledge society. The findings in this book will be of interest to researchers, scholars and teachers of education, economics, sociology, urban education and the politics of education, as well as of public policy, governance and development studies. It will also be useful to research institutions, policymakers, educationists, social scientists, education professionals, and governmental and non-governmental bodies working on education.