Suchergebnisse

The paper contributes to the under-researched domain of standard setting for bottled water quality in India. The paper opens-up the 'black box' of regulation-making by analysing the mandatory bottled water quality standards set by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The regulation-making exercise is dominated by bureaucrats and technocrats representing government departments, publicly funded institutions and representatives of big industries. In the standard-setting committees, representation of NGOs, small firms, technology suppliers, independent experts, consumers and citizens are either missing or limited. The kind of experts enrolled by the technical committee and the practice and principles employed by BIS for decision-making have a strong bearing on the regulatory standards. The standard setting for bottled water was the outcome of a complex process that was significantly shaped by the views and values of the dominant regulatory actors, especially what was perceived as valid and superior 'regulatory knowledge'. Discrete actors, such as bureaucrats, technocrats, big firms and NGOs, supported the wider adoption of international standards, but they had different rationales for advocating the adoption. However, the uncritical adoption of international standards has resulted in a disregard for incorporating environmental, epidemiological, dietary and diverse socio-economic factors into setting standards. Inclusion of socio-economic and other contextual factors could increase the validity and effectiveness of regulatory standards.

During the last two decades, numerous policy actors have advocated multiple models for the diffusion of solar energy-based technologies in India. In recent years, the social development-based energy business model was promoted by some NGOs, civil society groups and academicians for reaching the poor for meeting their energy needs. Using a case study approach, this article explores the social shaping of a solar micro-grid established in rural Bihar through the hybrid model of environmental governance. The article employs the social shaping of technology framework to explain the top-down and bottom-up interpretations of the solar micro-grid in rural India. By focusing on the idea of citizens and consumers, it explains the influence of the wider socio-political context in closing down the debate and stabilising the choices. The article illustrates the implications of the narrow framing of the socio-technical ensemble by the NGO's and civil society groups (top-down perspective) on the diffusion potential of the solar micro-grid. The bottom-up perspective adds more layer to the interpretation of the socio-technical ensemble. An integrated, comprehensive understanding based on both the top-down and bottom-up perspective would help in developing a responsible research and innovation paradigm.

Drinking water quality has drawn enormous attention from scientific communities, the industrial sector, and the common public in several countries during the last couple of decades. The scholarship in science and technology studies somehow overlooked this crucial domain. This article attempts to contribute to this gray area by exploring how drinking water quality is understood in Indian water policies, laws, and courtrooms. The article argues that water policies and laws in India were significantly shaped by international treaties and global environmental stewardship. In the courtrooms, the Indian judiciary employed minimum science-based evidence in decision making in the context of drinking water–related cases; rather they used a rights-based approach and minimally engaged with the issue of drinking water quality/standards. Whatever little science used as valid science by the judges in the decision making was entirely expert-based. The reliance of the judges on the scientific expertise of the experts representing regulatory organizations and public institutions was another unique characteristic of the relationship between science and law in India.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and scientific controversies are often the common denominators in most of the cases that have significantly shaped science and society relationships in the Global South during the past two decades. National and international NGOs and their network have often facilitated the "opening up" of regulatory governance in multiple sectors. This article draws from three cases—the bottled water controversy, the agribiotechnology debates, and the nanotechnology initiatives—and charts out the role of the NGOs and controversies in (re)defining the science-society relationship in India. The three cases illustrate how NGOs and controversies by their presence or absence at various stages of technology development shape the regulation-making exercise and the overall regulatory governance of science and technology.

The rapid growth in consumption of bottled water across the globe has drawn attention of policy makers and academicians alike. However, its consumption practices have been examined primarily in the context of industrialized countries. Drawing on studies of Science, Technology and Society, Public Understanding of Science, and institutions, this article explores the nuances of the consumption conundrum of bottled water in India. This mixed method study relies on data collected through surveys and ethnography of consumption practices at selected sites in Delhi. We find reasons for bottled water consumption to vary with the site of consumption. Although the notions of "purity" and "scarcity" drive consumption behavior, these attributes are far from being objective. Rather, they are shaped by a complex mix of sociocultural factors, public understanding of science, and trust on various institutional mechanisms of water provisioning.

Cutting across disciplines from science and technology studies to the arts and humanities, this thought-provoking collection engages with key issues of social exclusion, inequality, power and knowledge in the context of COVID-19. The authors use the crisis as a lens to explore the contours of contemporary societies and lay bare the ways in which orthodox conceptions of the human condition can benefit a privileged few. Highlighting the lived experiences of marginalized groups from around the world, this is a boundary-spanning critical intervention to ongoing debates about the pandemic. It presents new ways of thinking in public policy, culture and the economy, and points the way forward to a more equitable and inclusive human future. Chapter 12 is available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence