Social Science

Pithora art is a form of folk painting of tribes, residing in eastern Gujarat. It is highly ritualistic painting done by tribal people in order to invoke their God-Baba Pithora. The aim of this paper is to examine the changes revolving around Pithora art form. This study employs content analysis and is based on secondary sources such as books, journal articles, tribal literature and monographs. The main objectives of this study are to describe the ritualistic significance of this tribal art form; to discuss the changes that Pithora art has undergone; to locate the current status of this art form in the context of tribal development and to discuss the contributory factors responsible for change. The impact of changing society is visible in the themes of Pithora paintings. However need of the hour is to preserve their art and use it for the development of the tribes. ABSTRACT

The process of urbanisation has dramatically increased in India in recent years. The Government of India launched Smart City Mission in 2015 which was intended to transform 100 cities into smart cities. The focus of our research is one such city in India on its path to smartification. Pune’s smart city mission focuses on techno-infrastructural development to increase mobility and digital connectivity. Social-cultural and historical indicators are not considered an integral part of this development. Given this, does the smart city mission of Pune privilege the techno-infrastructural development of a city over its social and cultural development?  In this paper, we identify museums and heritage sites in Pune as signifiers of a city's culture and analyse metro development plans through GIS to understand whether the museums' current geography mentioned above and heritage sites require alignment with Pune’s planned smart city mission. The research shows that the quest to ‘upgrade...

The psychological challenges associated with gender identity in developing countries like India are only recently receiving research attention. The study aimed to understand selfesteem, perceived social support, and depression among trans men in India. A comparative analysis was also undertaken between those who have and have not undergone sex reassignment surgery. The sample comprised 30 trans men, out of which 15 had undergone sex reassignment surgery and 15 had not. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and Beck's Depression Inventory-II were used. Perceived social support from family and friends was found to be a significant predictor of self-esteem. Support from all three sources-family, friends, and significant others significantly predicted depression among the total sample. Trans men who had undergone sex reassignment surgery, reported higher self-esteem and lower depression levels, as compared to those who were yet to undergo surgery. The findings highlighted the contribution of social support in fostering the mental health of trans men. The consequent psychological benefits of surgery were also demonstrated. The study has implications for planning and designing mental health interventions for this community.

Chaturshringi Devi is one of the many local goddesses that reside in Pune City, Maharashtra, India. Her physical manifestation was conceived almost 400 years ago in the form of a naturally formed rock protrusion located on the hill slopes close to Senapati Bapat Road. No matter what day it is, the temple has a regular stream of visitors and devotees, which may be attributed to the serene surroundings within a hectic city or to the faith in the Goddess herself. Being a Goddess of local origin and a conspicuous lack of prevalence in any other parts of India, it is highly likely that Chaturshringi Devi is of folk descent. Chaturshringi, as is common with many deities, is known through a multitude of names that include Ambeshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati.

The current research done on the Indian market has little to no data about any relationships between the Capacity Utilization and Interest Rate nor any research correlating Capacity Utilization and Domestic Investment. As such, the following paper focuses on locating, analyzing and understanding the relationship between these 3 variables, taking the capacity utilization as the both the dependent and independent variable in parts of the data processing. In order to answer this question, the hypothesis chosen is that the capacity utilization will have a positive correlation with domestic investment while having a negative correlation with interest rate.

India is one of the world's fastest growing economies and is ranked 4th in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Knowing that most developing countries have only limited amounts of resources for environmental protection, our study aims to understand the extent to which some of the major contributing factors affect greenhouse gas emissions in India, to channel these limited resources in the most efficient manner. Our paper analyses forest area, population, industrial growth, coal and petroleum consumption and its relationship with GHG emissions between 1990 and 2012. It was found that, although graphically some of these variables did not seem to have very much of a relationship with GHG emissions, the correlation test that was conducted had the opposite results, and showed a strong relationship for all the variables and GHG emissions. Further, the paper looks at the reasons behind certain fluctuations in these variables to help understand the scenario within these years.

Crime is a phenomenon that has existed throughout human history and is one of the most serious urban problems today. It is detrimental to the quality of life and hampers economic growth and welfare. Though there has been extensive study on the persistence of crime, there is still little understanding and quantitative evidence of what the major determinants of crime are, with each discipline, be it economics, sociology, psychology or law etc. developing alternate theories for the same. Further, the determinants of crime vary based on the different economic, cultural and religious factors, making it even more difficult to explain. Developing countries such as India have increasing rates of crime, but still lack a clear understanding of the determinants of crime. As property crime accounts for the largest share of total crimes in India, this study aims to understand the extent to which the various socio-economic factors affect the incidence of property crime in India using macroeconomic state-wise data. The major independent variables that are believed to have an impact on property crime, and therefore have been chosen for analysis include unemployment (used as the main variable because of contradictory views in the literature), literacy rate (proxy for education), death rate (proxy for health), population density and state domestic product (proxy for income) of all the states and Union Territories in India. Using the OLS method and regression analysis, this paper shows that there is a weak negative correlation between unemployment and property crime as can be seen by the beta values. Further, death rate seems to have a great impact on property crime, followed by literacy rate and then unemployment as can be seen from the change in the adjusted R^2 values with additional variables in each of the regression models. SDP and population density have very little effect on property crimes in India. Policy makers should focus their limited resources in improving health and education levels in India to reduced the property crime​ ​rates​ ​in​ ​the​ ​most​ ​efficient​ ​manner.