The article, based on original research from 246 villages, discusses contemporary marriage migrations of poor women from India's development peripheries to rural North Indian men. Anti-trafficking activists and organizations in India assert that migrant brides are trafficked into sexual slavery through 'coerced' alliances. Employing a postcolonial feminist lens, this article challenges hegemonic anti-trafficking discourse with its gendered presumptions about widespread 'bride-trafficking' by showing that the processes of cross-region marriage mediation and motives are replete with contradictions and ambiguities. Fieldwork reveals a range of actors, including the migrant brides, involved in marriage mediation while poverty and heightened dowry compromise women into such matrimonies.

As primary drivers of global growth, China and India as Asian giants are on the path to reforming their higher education systems to drive innovation. This paper based on both primary and secondary data sources investigates how India's democratic political leadership has facilitated higher education reform for fostering innovation while underlining key differences in the policy approach of the Chinese leadership. Findings identify the areas of reform for India and also reveal that epistemic boundaries between India and China are beginning to blur so far as right-wing ideological regimentation is concerned, with possible implications for innovation.

Man-made reservoirs are constructed to meet certain purposes and Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe, was designed for hydroelectric power generation. However, it has developed other multiple uses, and the growth of fisheries on the lake has had a significant impact on the livelihoods of local communities. The declaration of Covid-19 as a pandemic in Zimbabwe in March 2020 was quickly followed by the imposition of national lockdowns with varying levels of severity up to the present day. This was done to curtail the spread of the disease, meanwhile enhancing the nation's capacity in terms of acquiring testing kits, constructing more admission and quarantine centres as well as educating the people about ways to keep safe. In response to the calls by the government to monitor the movement of people and compliance of the lockdown rules, the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZNPWMA), the governing body of the Lake Kariba fisheries, imposed rules that have significantly impacted the fishing communities at Lake Kariba. Both gillnet fishers and rod and line fishers have been impacted, but our focus here is on women rod and line fishers. Using the precarious livelihoods conceptual frameworks, we show how the changes in water management during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns has generated high levels of precariousness on the livelihoods of women at Kariba. We define precariousness as the condition of uncertainties brought to the women fishers by changes in water restrictions. The precarity of women was induced by several factors. For instance, the women fishers reported that restrictions to accessing fish in areas with high catches impacted them. They are also now obliged to pay exorbitant fishing fees in a way to discourage them to fish; they were frequently chased away from the Lake by ZNPWMA officers; they had limited amount of time to fish due to curfews; and failure to comply results in heavy fines imposed on them among other challenges. We show how these challenges interact with the current Zimbabwe socio-economic crisis to worsen the precariousness and vulnerability of women fishers at Lake Kariba. Data presented in this manuscript are based on participant observation and interviews with women fishers at Lake Kariba.

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic had left heart-wrenching impacts on all facets of life in general and the availability, accessibility, and affordability of medicines and vaccines in particular. Rather, the world has been divided into two groups regarding access to medicine and vaccines as haves and have-nots. The rich countries had pre-ordered the vaccines of COVID-19 along with the holding of the same. The pandemic situation was further worsened, given the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in practice and restrictions on sharing technology of vaccines, medicines, and life-saving equipment. In this context, India and South Africa have proposed the joint proposal and garnered support for waiving off TRIPS to ensure equity, accessibility, and affordability of vaccines and the same as public goods. In this review, we emphasize that global justice is one of the important elements of normative international theories, which focus on all the moral obligations from the world's rich to the world's poor. The paper also questions and argues that if the rich countries fail to go by the principles of global justice, can the Indian and South African (SA) patent diplomacy play a catalyst role in global justice? The review concludes with an emphasis on global solidarity, and the acceptance of joint India-South Africa's "patent diplomacy" for TRIPS waiver would result in mass production and fair distribution, making the COVID-19 medicines and technologies available to everyone regardless of their poor-rich status.

This study developed a model that predicted factors that prompt the intention to take the COVID-19 vaccine among Nigerians. Data were collected from 385 respondents across Nigeria using snowball sampling technique with online questionnaire as instrument. Results indicated that cues to action, health motivation, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control positively predicted the intention to take COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria. However, perceived susceptibility, severity, and COVID-19 vaccine benefits did not predict the intention to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Further findings showed that COVID-19 vaccine barrier and attitude was negatively associated with the intention to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Public trust in government can significantly determine the outcome of health policies in any society. Hence, studies have been gauging peoples' level of trust in their governments' commitment and capacity to win the fight against COVID-19. However, these studies have omitted religious leaders. This is despite the fact that religious leaders play key roles in the area of health in many societies. The present study, therefore, explored the opinions church leaders have about the credibility of the COVID-19 statistics and other government responses in Nigeria. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 18 church leaders drawn from Anglican, Catholic, and Pentecostal churches in Nigeria. A descriptive narrative approach was employed in the thematic organization and analysis of data. Findings show that only one participant expressed confidence in the credibility of the COVID-19 statistics and other government's responses. The rest, with the exception of one participant who was uncertain, was distributed between those who believe the statistics and other government efforts are exaggerated and those who believe they are false. The study also found that denominational affiliation mattered with respect to the perceptions about the credibility of the COVID-19 statistics and other government responses. Implications of findings for policy and research are discussed.

Drawing on the literature of problem-oriented governance (POG) and social motivation for voluntary compliance, this study discusses how South Korea's efforts to cultivate distributed cognitions and build core capabilities of POG-reflective improvement, collaborative, and data analytic capabilities-contribute to the citizens' voluntary compliance with the current vaccination policy by improving trust and confidence. A systematic content analysis and documentation review of relevant policies, situation reports, after-action reports, official briefings, and news articles provide significant implications for both theories and practices of policy compliance and governance for effective and efficient management of many wicked problems like the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has varied across countries. Some countries controlled the virus relatively well, while others did not. In the United States, almost a million people died. However, South Korea's death toll is only about 12,000 even though its population is about one-sixth of the United States. What caused the difference? We argue that public compliance to government direction is the primary reason. South Korea's collective culture valuing communal benefits helped the people conform to government directions, such as mask wearing in public places. By contrast, American people resisted the government policies that restrict individual freedom due to the individualistic culture. In South Korea, historical experiences of relatively frequent national crises led to the rise of defensive nationalism, resulting in national union. However, the United States had relatively fewer national crises, and thus nationalism did not rise. Instead, national division, xenophobia, and hatred toward Asians prevailed in the United States. Besides the cultural differences, differences in national leader's characteristics, past experiences of public health crisis, and political system also contributed to the different outcomes of the crisis.

In this study, we examine China's cognitive warfare coordinated with military air operations during the COVID pandemic in Taiwan. In May 2021, Taiwan experienced its first novel coronavirus outbreak with up to 500 daily cases. The Chinese government launched a series of coordinated "cognitive warfare" campaigns targeting Taiwan in addition to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) frequent air force incursions into Taiwan's air zone. Meanwhile, through manipulation of the vaccine supply, China turned COVID vaccine into a political issue in Taiwan involving multiple players including pharmaceutical developers, tech giants, and local politicians. Combining multiple sources of data, we analyze the Chinese Government's orchestrated cognitive and information warfare (IW) efforts targeted at influencing the Taiwan public's trust in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government as well as its home-developed vaccine. Identifying the patterns of influencing using cognitive and IW, we found China's ultimate goal was to instill skepticism and confusion in Taiwan's public about the President Tsai Ing-wen's health policy and more generally undermine the creditability of the DPP government.

Facemasks have been proven an effective non-pharmaceutical measure against coronavirus disease-19. Against the backdrop of global mask shortages, Taiwan distinguished herself from other countries in that Taiwan took a whole-of-nation approach to masks and mobilized the society quickly to become self-sufficient in masks. This paper argues that successful virus securitization as a threat to national security was what enabled Taiwan to effectively mobilize the private sector to carry out the state's will in ensuring adequate mask supply. Moreover, Taiwan securitized the virus more successfully than many other countries because the virus was connected to China, the nation's existing security threat.

The coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has dramatically disrupted the global community, causing more than 6 million deaths worldwide and changing daily lifestyles for billions. Two Asian countries, South Korea and Taiwan, have been able to maintain low rates of infections and fatality. Five articles are collected in this special section to examine their successful experiences and the challenges they faced.

Located in the manufacturing hub of Shenzhen is Window of the World: a Chinese theme park that features miniature copies of heritage sites from around the world. The individuals living within this constructed simulation are imported from diverse countries. They come to work as performers, animating the different cultural pavilions. As such, the transnationalism made possible by this park provides a window through which we can observe cultural interactivity, as well as the ways in which culture is constructed and re-presented. This article examines some of the processes of cultural encounters through copies of commodified cultural heritage. It also sheds light on the ways in which Kung Fu movies circulating in Africa have inspired the imaginations of young people, revealing cultural feedback loops that provide openings for new contact. Grounded in ethnographic research, the findings here are based on interviews with Kenyan and South African contract workers at this theme park. This article explores young people's pursuits of new opportunities of identity-formation and self-representation, as well as economic stability and forward mobility.

North African nations, especially Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, have been heavily affected by COVID-19 if compared to other African countries. Governments in North Africa took proactive legal measures to manage the virus threat, safeguarding population health, but also triggering repressive and invasive mechanisms that in some cases jeopardized basic freedoms and rights. This work will analyze comparatively the anti-COVID-19 legislations, pointing out how the legislative measures mirrored the level of transition of democracy, the opacity of some regimes, exploitation of the pandemic to foster repressive control, and highlighting the weakness of new democratic institutions unprepared to balance health security and democracy.

In 1991, the Philippines joined a growing list of countries that reformed health planning through decentralization. Reformers viewed decentralization as a tool that would solve multiple problems, leading to more meaningful democracy and more effective health planning. Today, nearly two decades after the passage of decentralization legislation, questions about the effectiveness of the reforms persist. Inadequate financing, inequity, and a lack of meaningful participation remain challenges, in many ways mirroring broader weaknesses of Philippine democracy. These concerns pose questions regarding the nature of contemporary decentralization, democratization, and health planning and whether these three strategies are indeed mutually enforcing.

This article examines the water distribution systems in Johannesburg and Mumbai to argue that the political and institutional contexts of service delivery shape people’s access to the state and its resources, and also mediation between citizens and government institutions by councillors. Through ethnographies of water supply and distribution systems in Mumbai and Johannesburg, I explain how the organizational structure of the water utility, institutional arrangements of service delivery, regulatory systems, councillors’ proximity to decision makers and their relationship with municipal officials, civil servants and party members variously influence councillors’ mediation capacities and their ability to fulfil the claims of their constituencies for piped water supply and connections.

Poverty and food security are endemic issues in much of sub-Saharan Africa. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger in the region remains a key Millennium Development Goal. Many African governments have pursued economic reforms and agricultural policy interventions in order to accelerate economic growth that reduces poverty faster. Agricultural policy regimes in Zambia in the last 50 years (1964–2008) are examined here to better understand their likely impact on food security and poverty, with an emphasis on the political economy of maize subsidy policies. The empirical work draws on secondary sources and an evaluation of farm household data from three villages in the Kasama District of Zambia from 1986/87 and 1992/93 to estimate a two-period econometric model to examine the impact on household welfare in a pre- and post-reform period. The analysis shows that past interventions had mixed effects on enhancing the production of food crops such as maize. While such reforms were politically popular, it did not necessarily translate into household-level productivity or welfare gains in the short term. The political economy of reforms needs to respond to the inherent diversity among the poor rural and urban households. The potential of agriculture to generate a more pro-poor growth process depends on the creation of new market opportunities that most benefit the rural poor. The state should encourage private sector investments for addressing infrastructure constraints to improve market access and accelerate more pro-poor growth through renewed investments in agriculture, rural infrastructure, gender inclusion, smarter subsidies and regional food trade. However, the financing of such investments poses significant challenges. There is a need to address impediments to the effective participation of public private investors to generate more effective poverty reduction and hunger eradication programmes. This article also explores the opportunities for new public–private investments through South–South cooperation and Asia-driven growth for reducing poverty in Zambia.

Women get less of the material resources, social status, power and opportunities for self-actualization than men do who share their social location – be it a location based on class, race, occupation, ethnicity, religion, education, nationality, or any intersection of these factors. The process of feminization of poverty in Central Asia and Uzbekistan is intimately connected to the cultural and institutional limitations that put a ceiling on women’s involvement in economic activity. This article attempts to study and explore gender in the context of poverty reduction in Uzbekistan, the most populated state of Central Asia, to understand the ways and manner in which poverty and other forms of deprivation demand women’s participation in variety of contexts. The study is primarily an empirical one and is based on an extensive sociological investigation in the field.

Inspired by recent scholarship that calls for a more critical engagement with archives and knowledge production, this article plots the biography of an archive in Cape Town. Unravelling the layers of paperwork, it locates the origins of the archive in a repressive state project of excluding Indian immigrants and controlling those within the borders of the Cape Colony. The paper trail reveals documents of identity and the state’s attempts to verify identity. In seeking to answer the question as to how the historian should approach such an archive of control and surveillance, it concludes that a social history and gendered approach to migration is possible and the real treasures are those documents that enter the archive beyond the limits of state intentions.

This study examines India and Turkey as case studies relevant to the Senlis Council’s ‘poppies for medicine’ proposal. The proposal is that Afghan farmers are licensed to produce opium for medical and scientific purposes. Here it is posited that the Senlis proposal neglects at least three key lessons from the Turkish and Indian experiences. First, not enough weight has been given to diversion from licit markets, as experienced in India. Second, both India and Turkey had significantly more efficient state institutions with authority over the licensed growing areas. Third, the proposal appears to overlook the fact that Turkey’s successful transition was largely due to the use of the poppy straw method of opium production. It is concluded that, while innovative and creative policy proposals such as that of the Senlis proposal are required if Afghanistan is to move beyond its present problems, ‘poppies for medicine’ does not withstand evidence-based scrutiny.

Despite accelerated growth there is pervasive hunger, child undernutrition and mortality in India. Our analysis focuses on their determinants. Raising living standards alone will not reduce hunger and undernutrition. Reduction of rural/urban disparities, income inequality, consumer price stabilization, and mothers’ literacy all have roles of varying importance in different nutrition indicators. Somewhat surprisingly, public distribution system (PDS) do not have a significant effect on any of them. Generally, child undernutrition and mortality rise with poverty. Our analysis confirms that media exposure triggers public action, and helps avert child undernutrition and mortality. Drastic reduction of economic inequality is in fact key to averting child mortality, conditional upon a drastic reordering of social and economic arrangements.

Based on household food security surveys conducted in Ethiopia, this study seeks to understand the roles and limitations of income transfer projects as determinants of households’ food security. By covering the Food-For-Work Programs (FFWPs) and the Productive Safety Net Programs (PSNPs), the study shows that these programs served as temporary safety nets for food availability, but they were limited in boosting the dietary diversity of households and their coping strategies. Households which participated in the programs increased their supply of food as a temporary buffer to seasonal asset depletion. However, participation in the programs was marred by inclusion error (food-secure households were included) and exclusion error (food-insecure households were excluded). Income transfer projects alone were not robust determinants of household food security. Rather, socio-demographic variables of education and family size as well as agricultural input of land size were found to be significant in accounting for changes in households’ food security. The programs in the research sites were funded through foreign aid, and the findings of the study imply the need to reexamine the approaches adopted by bilateral donors in allocating aid to Ethiopia. At the same time the study underscores the need to improve domestic policy framework in terms of engendering rural local institutional participation in project management.