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Importance and relevance of formal education continues to be a significant factor in social development and change. This is particularly important in developing countries like India, which has been traditionally and historically driven by the principle of inequality and hierarchy through religion and a caste system. Education has been a monopoly of few upper castes (especially Brahmins) whereas majority masses have been denied access to education. Education underwent significant change only after the advent of British. Although the Britishers’ goal of introducing modern education was limited to their vested interests, it was secular in nature and open to all and therefore it could reach the castes other than Brahmins. Supported by modern system of education, the industrial revolution brought modern values of life, such as equality and humanity, to India. For the first time in the history of India's education, these castes could access formal education.

There is sufficient empirical evidence to suggest that discrimination, defined as absence of equal opportunities, exists before the market as well as in the market against certain social categories in India. Inequality in access to sources of human capital acquisition reinforces inequality in the labour market and vice versa. Apparently, caste‐community discrimination and class discrimination overlap. However, in the case of socially deprived categories, the latter accentuates the former. The impact of modernisation notwithstanding, the inegalitarian sacral tradition of caste still has strong hold over the minds and lives of Indians. The development processes have strengthened caste and community consciousness resulting in the metamorphosis of different social categories into interest groups. With patron‐client relationship as the basis for political mobilization, development policies have favoured the dominant social categories as well as the articulate better‐off sections across all social categories. So it seems that “divinely ordained” social inequities persist in a secular garb, though possibly with reduced inhumanity. Yet, with increasing political assertion of the lower social categories and widening opportunities for social mobility, hegemony of the traditional elite is likely to decline. The change in the composition of the elite should foster non‐brahmanical pragmatic cultural ethos conducive to social mobility and development. The policies designed to promote equal opportunities, taking into account heterogeneity of Indian society, will speed up the process of socio‐economic change.

Focuses on affirmative action programmes in India for people belonging to the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes in the sphere of employment. The constitutional safeguards and the measures initiated to give effect to them are briefly reviewed. Examines the progress achieved in realizing the goals in terms of the fulfilment of the quotas (i.e. reservation targets) and discusses the problems in implementing the affirmative programmes. The extremely complex Indian experience sheds light on various unique measures initiated to give effect to public policy concerning affirmative action programmes. It affords many lessons for other countries wishing to pursue similar objectives.

Analyses the magnitude and complexity of the challenge of diversity in managing people in the Indian workplace. Considers the challenges for human resource management in the 1990s, and highlights the major issues and opportunities in coping with these challenges. Aims to provide direction for future empirical studies.

This paper examines perceived labor market earnings among adolescents and their parents by gender and caste. Previous research has established that lower subjective expectations of labor market returns among parents affect educational investment. Likewise, subjective expectations of adolescents about labor market returns are likely to affect their commitment to their education. In the labor market, gender and caste biases manifest itself in terms of lower wages for women and persons from marginalized communities. The authors ask if perceived earnings among adolescents and their parents vary by caste and gender over and above their intrinsic ability.

The authors use a unique dataset on adolescents that has been recently collected (2013-2015) by ASER Centre, the research and assessment wing of Pratham Education Foundation for the analysis. To answer the research question posed in the paper, they use standard OLS and quantile regression techniques.

Results confirm that girls have lower expected earnings than boys. Caste differences appear more rigid in Bihar.

The authors recognize that the results presented do not take into consideration the issue of selection bias. Hence, they are applicable not to the average adolescents in the study districts, but only to those who reported expected earnings. That said, they do not think that this technical limitation dilutes the broad policy conclusions emerging from the study.

The paper uses cognition as a measure of an adolescent’s intrinsic ability. Therein lays the uniqueness of the paper. It brings into the discussion on expected earnings test scores as a measure of an adolescent’s cognitive ability. It is also unique in that it focuses on adolescents in the age group of 11-16 years who are likely to join the labor force in few years. Previous discussion of subjective expectations in India did not include any measure to capture cognitive ability and did not focus exclusively on adolescents.

A continuous mixed opinion on the relevance of caste-based reservations and caste as a factor of socioeconomic disparity in the recent period demands update of evidence on socioeconomic inequalities among caste groups for effective policy making. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the caste inequalities in terms of socioeconomic opportunities and poverty are still persisting in rural Uttar Pradesh based on village census surveys?

This study used data primarily collected from four village census surveys under the project rural transformation in Uttar Pradesh, 2013. Bivariate analyses, human opportunity index (HOI), multidimensional poverty index (MPI) and inequality decomposition analyses used as methods of analyses.

The authors findings suggest that in spite of more than six decades of welfare policies and major political mobilization movements among lower castes in the state, the huge inequalities in terms of critical socioeconomic indicators such as landholding, higher education and wealth distribution and multi-dimensional poverty across the castes are still persisting in the state. Decomposition results suggest that between group inequalities contribute more to the total inequality in landholding whereas within group inequalities contribute maximum to total inequality in education and wealth status of different castes in rural Uttar Pradesh. However, within inequalities much less in general castes compared to SCs/OBCs.

Based on its latest empirical evidence, this study strengthens the argument that caste still matters in socioeconomic achievements of the population in India even after decades of planning and financing of social welfare schemes to uplift the lower castes in India. Thus, provides critical inputs to current debates on the relevance of caste as a determinant of socioeconomic status in India.

An analysis of the equity promotion and diversity preservation efforts made in India since independence and a critical appraisal of their impact is presented. It identifies the challenges confronting educational administrators who have to implement the programmes devised to keep the equity‐diversity balance that policy requires.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative assessment of caste-based conflict in India. The data for this paper are from the Rural Economic and Demographic Survey (REDS) of 2006 encompassing 8,659 households in 242 villages in 18 Indian states.

Using these data, the authors examine two broad issues: the sources of conflict in rural India and the degree to which these sources contribute to caste-basted, as opposed to non-caste-based conflict; the sources of conflict resolution in rural India: are some conflict-resolving agencies more effective at dealing with caste-based conflicts and others more effective with non-caste-based conflicts?

There was a rise in caste-based conflict over the (approximate) period 1996-2006. There are several reasons for the rise in caste-based conflict but, in the main, is the rise in assertiveness of persons belonging to India’s lower castes. In terms of conflict resolution, panchayats and prominent individuals were important in resolving village conflicts: 69 per cent of caste-based, and 65 per cent of non-caste based, conflicts were resolved by one or the other of these two agents.

This is the first attempt, using econometric methodology, to study caste conflict at a village level in India.

Non-farm employment has transitioned from a residual to a dominant livelihood option in rural India. Despite the sector’s diverse welfare implications, it is still a male-dominant sector with limited scope for female’s participation. Several socio-economic and cultural factors are responsible for such disparities in occupational choices. The purpose of this study is to examine this gender dimension of occupational diversification for rural India and focuses on the role of education, caste and land ownership in explaining employment probabilities across gender.

This study uses secondary data on employment and unemployment from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) for rural India and pooled the data for three periods that include 61st (2004–2005), 66th (2009–2010) and 68th (2011–2012) round comprising a total of 235,722 individuals. The study applies a multinomial logit regression model.

The results show that education facilitates females to diversify to sectors like manufacturing, mining and construction while educated males are more likely to diversify to services. However, the likelihood of diversification by educated females is low for those belonging to land-owning households. On the contrary, land ownership facilitates educated males to join sectors like mining and quarrying and services. It is also found that females belonging to Scheduled Tribe/Scheduled Caste (ST/SC) households diversify to low return activities like manufacturing and construction while males are more likely to join services.

This study has contributed to the literature on employment diversification by considering not only the gender aspect of diversification but also examining how education, caste and land would explain occupational choices between males and females. It is evident from the findings that education can be a liberating factor for females to participate actively in sectors outside agriculture but the status quo associated with land ownership in rural India declines their possibility of economic participation compared to males. Even educated females are confined to manufacturing and construction in the absence of proper non-farm employment opportunities for them.

The reduction in under nutrition is very slow in the past two decades in India even with high-economic growth rate and expansion in the ICDS programme. The ICDS evaluation studies majorly stressed on the general factors but they fail to acknowledge the structural factors - class and caste - while providing solutions. In Tamil Nadu nutritional status and utilization of ICDS services are better as compared to all-India average. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nutritional status of the poor and scheduled caste (SC) in Tamil Nadu and their utilization of ICDS services and to examine the role of group-specific factors in low reduction of nutritional status and utilization of ICDS programme.

Multivariate analysis and logistic regression method were used using SPSS.

The reduction of underweight is slow among the poorest and SC, moreover, the disparity between the richest and poorest as well as upper caste and SC is increasing. Logistic regression analysis shows that the poorest are marginalized, children belonging to poorer income group have higher chances of using the ICDS than the poorest and it is significant. After making the wealth quintile constant, the utilization of ICDS services across social groups showed that, though the poorest quintile has less access, within them the SC had utilized less compared to the other backward class (OBC). This indicates the poorest SCs are more vulnerable and marginalized across all quintiles and social groups.

In Tamil Nadu there is no sufficient sample of other caste/tribe and scheduled tribe. It would have given more insight on the utilization pattern. Lack of qualitative data has limited in explaining few phenomena to get more insight.

It will help the government to formulate more inclusive policy and address the issue of exclusion of marginalized people.

The main core argument was based on the Tamil Nadu National Family Health Survey (NFHS) III unit-level data.