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Feminist contributions to debates on gender, poverty, and social justice have deepened our understanding of the ways gender as a structuring principle of social life and an embedded hierarchy of values produces different concepts and experience of poverty as well as adds new meaning to the idea of “human flourishing.” Gender inequality remains a major barrier to human development; the disadvantages facing women and girls are a major source of inequality; since women and girls are discriminated against in health, education, political representation, and labor market, which has negative repercussions for development of their capabilities and their freedom of choice, remaining far away from social justice (Nussbaum, 1995). Recent statistics show just how far societies are from achieving gender equality. In the above backdrop, the chapter focuses on the position and status of women in India in the realm of gender equality, poverty reduction, and social justice as well as the public actions viewed from India's perspectives. At the same time it highlights the importance of global actions in an endeavor to establish gender equality, breaking the chain of poverty trap and establishing social justice along with their fallouts in the subsequent years.

India is one of the largest tea producers and consumers in the world. Around 70% of Indian tea is consumed by domestic consumers. The world famous Darjeeling and Assam tea are India’s pride. Once India was the top exporter of tea in the global market, currently, it is lagging behind China, Kenya, and Sri Lanka. In the global arena, Indian tea is facing stiff competition from China, Kenya, and Sri Lanka. With this backdrop, the present study aims to investigate twin objectives. First, the changing growth pattern of India’s tea export is investigated. Along with this, the impacts of trade openness on India’s tea export are also scrutinized. The entire study is conducted based on the secondary data, compiled from the various issues of Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy published by Reserve Bank of India. The data are compiled for the period 1987–1988 to 2018–2019. The investigation of the first objective is facilitated by the Poirer’s Spline function approach. On the contrary, for the exploration of the second objective, we have calculated the “trade openness index.” The study concludes that initially with trade openness Indian tea industry was benefitting but the growth rate of tea export gets reduced over time. It is surprising that in the post-EXIM-2002–2007 phase the rate of growth of India’s tea exports has declined sharply. The study ends with suitable policy prescriptions.

Crime against women is an entrenched issue in India in general and its states in particular. The existing literature unveils so many socioeconomic factors responsible behind such a social curse. Economic disparities in terms of income have also been identified as one of the crucial factors in determining the crime rates in some countries of the world. The present study seeks to examine whether income inequality has any sort of associations with the crime against women in the states of India. The study has observed rising trends of crime rates and per capita incomes across the states in India for the period 2000–2019 and crime rates in the states are positively and significantly correlated with rising inequality in income. There, thus, needs the policies related to reduction of crime against women and reduction of income inequality. The study thus suggests the interventions of the legislative system, governments' tax policies toward the rich persons, public awareness programs, etc. to reduce violence against women.

Indian textiles have a history of fine craftsmanship, and because of that, it has its own global appeal and international demand. India has its own extensive base of raw material and manufacturing. This makes India the second-largest textile exporter in the world after China. India's share in the global textiles and apparels trade was approximately 5% in 2017. In 2017, India's textile industry contributes 7% of total industry output and employs about 45 million people directly. Its contribution to the country's GDP and export earnings in the same year was 2% and 15%, respectively. With this backdrop, the present chapter aims to investigate twin objectives. Initially, the changing growth pattern of India's readymade garment export is investigated. Along with this, the impacts of trade openness on India's readymade garment export are also scrutinized. The entire study is conducted based on the secondary data, compiled from the various issues of “Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy,” published by “Reverse Bank of India.” The data are compiled for the period 1987–1988 to 2018–2019. The investigation of the first objective is facilitated by the “Poirer's Spline function approach.” On the contrary, for the exploration of the second objective, we have calculated the “trade openness index.” It is measured as the sum of export and import as a percentage of GDP. The study concludes that the Indian readymade garment industry shows a declining growth rate and the industry is benefited from trade openness. The study ends with suitable policy prescriptions.

The world has been witnessing a new dreadful disease since the latter part of 2019. The disease known as the novel coronavirus disease often referred to as COVID-19 originated from the Chinese city of Wuhan in the Hubei province and has since spread across the world resulting in the World Health Organisation to declare it a global pandemic. Whilst it appears obvious that the pandemic continues to generate several impacts, knowledge of the true idea, nature and extent of the impacts is scanty, partly because the disease is novel, ongoing and an antidote is yet to be found for it as well as the fact that no or little systematic studies have been conducted into the impacts and the results codified. This study, therefore, explores the global overview of the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 based on evidence in the literature. The chapter found that several measures such as imposition of partial or total lockdowns, social distancing and stay-at-home policies, wearing of face masks and the use of gloves and hand sanitizers have been instituted to contain the pandemic since its outbreak. Apart from 4,766,468 infections with 318,201 deaths, which had occurred as at 19 May 2020 and are still counting, the measures instituted have resulted in increase in domestic energy consumption, generation of waste pollution, contraction in production, loss of income and jobs, disruption in market activities and depreciation in asset prices and values across the various sectors of the world's economy, increases in domestic violence and limited access to health services among others. Conversely, the pandemic has partly resulted in positive outcomes such as reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and boost in the operations of the ITC and other allied industries. However, in broad terms, it is a huge threat to sustainable development (SD) and gains made in that regard over the years are eroding. Furthermore, although there have been interventions from governments, United Nations and other international development organisations to ease the adverse impacts, more such interventions and efforts will be required to put the SD agenda on track.

The assertions of the government that poverty eradication and social development generally are the main challenges and that it is fully committed to address these issues have continued over time. But how genuine this claim is a matter of great concern. So, this chapter may be an attempt to analyze patterns in social sector expenditure on education (SSEE) and its impact on Human Development Index (HDI) among different states in India. The combined social sector expenditures (SSE) of Centre and States, which provide the best picture of India’s commitment towards the social sector in education, may be assessed. There are diverse ways of inspecting the trends in expenditures. Firstly, to look at SSE as a proportion of gross state domestic product (GSDP), secondly is to calculate SSE as percentage of aggregate budget expenditure, thirdly is to look at the real per capita expenditure (PCE) (at constant prices) for the social sector in the case of the states. This chapter looks at the trends in SSEE, considering all the alternative ways and the impact of SSEE on HDI. The result of the study shows that there is a positive relationship between SSEE and HDI. SSEE may lead to increases in gross enrolment ratio (GER) and literacy rate (LR). An increase in GER and LR may help in increasing the HDI.

Like the cross-country convergence or divergence analysis in incomes to address the global phenomenon, the same analysis is also required to be done in the case of a group of states within a national territory. Further, it is also required to see whether convergence or divergence in incomes of the states is attributable to the convergence or divergence in their allocations of bank credits. Thus, this chapter aims at examining whether the selected major states in India are converging or diverging in the allocations of bank credit, and if so, what will be the magnitudes of decreases or increases in the level of disparities and inequalities in credit allocations. This study concludes that there is a clear diverging tendency of credit allocations of the states of India during the post-reform period so far as the absolute convergence hypothesis of the neoclassical theory is concerned. Further, in terms of the framework of σ convergence, the study observes that all phases of the Indian economy have produced converging paths of the inter-state credit allocations, and the path becomes diverging during the post-reform phase. Based on the quantifications of the magnitudes of disparities and inequalities in terms of CV, C4 concentration, HHI and Gini values, this study thus reveals that there are significant increases in the levels of disparities and inequalities in the allocations of credit to the states from the pre-reform to the post-reform phases. Therefore, the persistence of divergence in income or rising income inequality during the phase of the major reform program in India may be due to the persistence of divergence and rising inequality in the allocation of bank credit.

This study aims to explore twin objectives. Initially, the study scrutinises the consequences of various pollution control acts and protocols signed by India to improve the air quality and then the study involves itself to investigate the aftermath of COVID-19 lockdown on the air quality of highly populated Mumbai city of India. The empirical analysis is facilitated by the application of Poirier’s Spline function approach on the secondary data compiled from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB). The corresponding structural shifting points are identified through the CUSUM of squares (CUSUMQ) test. The empirical results disclose that Kyoto Protocol and lockdown have positively influenced the air quality. This study ends with suitable policy prescriptions.

For the prosperity of both gender and for social justice, independence and empowerment of women is essential. Empowerment of women not only ensures her personal or household welfare but also spreads positivity throughout the community. This generation of positive externality by empowering women has actually attracted attention worldwide toward exploring the concept of women empowerment as well as analyzing their status. The present research focuses on comparative analysis of the status of women empowerment among the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries and side by side explores its relationship with the various macro-indicators related to growth and development. This study reveals that Maldives and Sri Lanka had a relatively better status of women empowerment as compared to other SAARC countries. Further, based on the panel data analysis, the authors have found that urbanization and globalization have a significant impact on women empowerment. Thus, this holistic approach of measuring women empowerment from a multidimensional perspective and detecting the influencing factors is inevitable for enhancing the status of women at the global level.