It has been six months. I owe you an honest note about it.

Life — consulting deadlines, fellowship commitments, the particular entropy of a Delhi winter — conspired against regular publishing. But the world of development research did not wait, and this edition covers roughly September 2025 through March 2026. I have tried to curate tightly rather than just dump everything I missed.

The thread running through this issue is one I keep bumping into across my work: the gap between formal recognition and actual protection. India’s gig workers are now counted in the Economic Survey. South Asian climate policy documents acknowledge that women bear the brunt of climate change. Participatory research is cited everywhere as best practice. And yet, in each of these domains, recognition stops well short of redistribution, structural change, or genuine power-sharing. That pattern seems worth sitting with.

In this edition:

• This Edition’s Focus: Counted, Not Protected

• Must-Reads

• Climate-Gender Nexus

• 🎨 Visual Treat

• South Asian Researchers to Follow

• Books & Long Reads

• Research Praxis with Varna

• Tools & Free Resources

• 💼 Jobs & Opportunities

• Upcoming Conferences & Events

• 😂 Funsies

• 📖 Disambiguation Corner

• Platform to Explore

🎯 This Edition’s Focus: Counted, Not Protected

The Economic Survey 2025-26, tabled in Parliament on 29 January 2026, gave India’s gig economy more serious attention than any prior budget document. The numbers are significant: gig workers increased to 12 million in FY2025, from 7.7 million in FY2021 — a 55% increase — driven by smartphone penetration among over 800 million users and 15 billion UPI transactions per month.

The Survey was also unusually candid about what is wrong. It is observed that the current definition of gig workers deprives them of employment benefits such as social security, paid leave, minimum hours, and health insurance, leading to poor job security and lower incomes.

So far, so good. But then comes the Budget.

Budget 2026 acknowledges India’s gig workforce but avoids the fiscal and regulatory choices needed for redistribution. The contrast with other segments of the economy is instructive. MSMEs receive explicit fiscal backing through credit guarantees, interest subventions, and formalisation incentives. Gig workers do not.

The gender dimension is consistently under-discussed. A recent IDR study found that nearly half of the women respondents cited a lack of societal and family acceptance as a significant barrier to taking up platform work, and that significant gaps persist in financial literacy around taxation, insurance, and long-term planning. Women gig workers are not a residual category — they are a distinct policy problem that generic platform regulation fails to address.

The Code on Social Security 2020 formally brought gig and platform workers into the legal framework. Implementation has lagged. Provisions on insurance, minimum earnings, and grievance redressal lack enforceability and assured funding. Without mandatory platform contributions or binding standards, risk remains entirely with workers.

Recognition without redistribution is not progress. It is paperwork.

📚 Must-Reads

1. Climate Policies Are Gender-Neutral. That Is the Problem. 👉 Local Environment, January 2025 (institutional access may be required)

A paper examining climate adaptation policy documents in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal found that most of the documents acknowledge that the impacts of climate change are more detrimental to women’s lives than to men’s, yet these strategic documents remain gender-neutral. None of the policy documents in the four countries recognised women’s needs during natural hazards, and they ignored suggestions for programmes and activities to reduce women’s vulnerability.

Acknowledging the problem while refusing to name it in policy design is a form of institutional evasion. This paper is required reading for anyone designing climate programmes in South Asia.

2. Gender, Intersectionality, and Climate-Smart Agriculture: What We Are Missing 👉 PLOS Climate, February 2025 (fully open access)

Nitya Rao, Sathe, and Grist conducted a rigorous review, finding that despite growing evidence on the relationship between gender, agriculture, and climate change, an intersectional analysis of climate-smart agriculture — including class, caste, and other social identities — remains limited. The structural critique is explicit: at both global and national levels, climate finance is not allocated using gender or intersectionality as key variables.

This is exactly the kind of peer-reviewed work practitioners cite but rarely act on. The paper calls for direct support for women’s access to credit and leadership, and for an equity-focused transformation of national climate policy frameworks. Whether funders listen is another matter.

3. AI and Growth in South Asia: The Equity Question Nobody Is Asking 👉 World Bank South Asia Development Update, October 2025 (fully open access)

The World Bank’s latest update projects growth in South Asia at 6.6 per cent for 2025, slowing to 5.8 per cent in 2026. The more interesting finding is on AI: exposure to AI in South Asia is somewhat lower than in other emerging market economies, but jobs exposed to AI account for a disproportionately large share of earnings. Most of these jobs are complementary to AI — only 7 per cent are at risk of displacement.

That 7 per cent will look like a small share until you remember what it represents at the scale of South Asia’s labour force. The equity question in AI-assisted growth is not being asked loudly enough in regional policy circles, and it is almost absent from the Budget 2026-27 conversation.

4. On Participatory Research and Its Limits 👉 PMC, open access

The decolonising research conversation has matured, and more honest contributions now grapple with its internal tensions rather than simply celebrating the methodology. This piece flags that the structures into which a participatory research initiative is implemented risk acting as barriers: standardised vocabulary, academic and grant agency requirements, access to technologies — all of these tend to restrict integration of community knowledge and genuine empowerment—the critical insight: using the paradigm of participatory research does not guarantee a decolonising approach.

This matters enormously for development practitioners who have adopted PAR as a default without interrogating the institutions in which they operate. Calling something participatory does not make it transformative.

🌊 Climate-Gender Nexus

This is a landmark year. 2026 has been declared the International Year of the Woman Farmer by the UN, which should — but probably will not — translate into substantive policy shifts in South Asia. Worth invoking in every funding proposal and policy brief you write this year.

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is in its annual session at the UN headquarters in New York right now (March 2026), focusing on gender equality in the context of digital technologies and accelerating women’s economic empowerment.

The SAR-CLIMATE initiative, working across Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan, reported in January 2026 that targeted training programmes achieved over 50% female participation across seven sessions on climate-smart agriculture, gender-responsive climate budgeting, and climate-resilient infrastructure, reaching around 200 government officials from national and provincial institutions. Promising at the programme level. The Local Environment paper above should prompt us to ask how much of this crosses into policy language.

Closer to home: Delhi Climate Innovation Week (20-27 February 2026) brought together over 110 events spanning climate-tech startups, policymakers, investors, and researchers. It included a Gender-Responsive Climate Innovation session at Kiran Nadar Museum and a Women in Climate Evening, creating space for women founders and investors in India’s climate economy. For a city that routinely fails to centre gender in its own planning conversations, this was noteworthy.

🎨 Visual Treat

Pudding.cool is one of the best examples of data journalism as art. Each piece is an interactive, deeply reported visual essay — the kind that answers questions you did not know you had. Their most recent piece (February 2026, #214) examines the intergenerational struggle women face in finding clothes that fit. It sounds like a fashion story until you realise it is a forensic piece on how women’s bodies are systematically excluded from standardised design — with implications that extend well into research on unpaid labour, healthcare, and the economics of gendered consumption.

Their June 2025 essay (#207) tracked mood changes among hundreds of strangers who spent 30 minutes talking to each other — a quietly beautiful piece of social science, made visual and accessible without losing any of its rigour.

If you have not yet fallen into The Pudding’s back catalogue, allow yourself an afternoon. It is the kind of work that makes you want to do better data storytelling in your own practice.

🎙️ South Asian Researchers to Follow

Nitya Rao — University of East Anglia 👉 Google Scholar | UEA Research Portal

Lead author on the PLOS Climate paper featured above. Three decades of field research on gender, agriculture, and climate change across South Asia, with a consistent intersectional lens covering class, caste, and geography. Her work bridges grassroots fieldwork and policy-level intervention in a genuinely rare way. If you work in climate adaptation or food systems in the region, follow her closely.

Reetika Khera — IIT Delhi 👉 Faculty page, IIT Delhi

Khera’s work on welfare state delivery, the public distribution system, and the political economy of social protection in India is foundational for anyone working on who actually receives state support — and who does not. Her research has directly shaped policy debates on NREGA, the PDS, and Aadhaar. As the gig economy debate intensifies and Budget 2026-27 reveals the limits of recognition without redistribution, her body of work becomes more, not less, relevant.

📖 Books & Long Reads

On decolonising methods: Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonising Methodologies (now in its third edition) remains the canonical text. Caroline Lenette’s Participatory Action Research: Ethics and Decolonisation (Oxford University Press, 2022) is the more practical companion for development researchers who are actually designing fieldwork. Between the two, you have the theory and the praxis.

On Indian labour: Jan Breman’s ethnographic work on footloose labour and the informal economy in Gujarat reads, uncomfortably, as a near-perfect description of conditions in today’s platform-based gig work. Footloose Labour (1996) and At Work in the Informal Economy of India (2013) are worth revisiting alongside the Economic Survey data. The continuities are not coincidental.

Long read of the edition: IDR’s “What the Data Reveals About India’s Gig Workers” (January 2026) — careful, evidence-driven, and honest about what we do not yet know—one of the better synthesis pieces to come out of the Budget season.

📝 Research Praxis with Varna

On participation and power in research design

The pressure to “do participatory research” has produced a great deal of research that is called participatory but functions extractively. Community members are consulted at the design stage, their input is recorded, and then an external research team goes away to write the report. The community never sees it.

True participatory research requires communities to have meaningful control over research questions, data interpretation, and the use of findings. The institutional barriers are real: funders set timelines, ethics boards set protocols, journals set citation norms — all of which tilt toward the researcher as the expert. Acknowledging this tension openly in research design documents, rather than burying it in a methodology footnote, is a small but important act of intellectual honesty.

Practical tip for your next proposal: Add a section explicitly titled Limitations of Participation in this Study and describe, candidly, where your design falls short of genuine community control. It will strengthen your ethics application and make your findings more credible. It will also distinguish your work from the large volume of research that claims participation without examining what it actually means.

🛠️ Tools & Free Resources

ImpactMojo (impactmojo.in) A free development Education platform built specifically for South Asian practitioners. Courses covering MEL, participatory methods, data storytelling, and qualitative research — all free, all accessible without institutional login. PolicyDhara, hosted within ImpactMojo, is worth exploring separately for policy analysis resources. Full disclosure: I co-founded ImpactMojo, which is precisely why I keep mentioning it.

VoxDev (voxdev.org) is still the best single aggregator of development economics research for practitioners who do not have time to wade through journals. Their synthesis pieces are rigorous without being inaccessible. The Literature Portal lets you filter by country, methodology, and theme — useful for South Asia-specific evidence.

PLOS Climate (journals.plos.org/climate) Fully open access, no paywall, strong on climate-development intersections. The Rao et al. paper cited above is freely available here. Subscribe to table-of-contents alerts.

Open Syllabus (opensyllabus.org) A database of academic syllabi from universities globally, useful for understanding which development research is actually being taught and circulated. Helpful for tracing how ideas move — or fail to — from journals into classrooms and policy training programmes.

💼 Jobs & Opportunities

Rather than list specific roles that may have closed by the time you read this, here are the most reliable current channels:

J-PAL Jobs and Opportunity Initiative (JOI) — Research Funding Open Now 👉 povertyactionlab.org/initiative/joi Full proposals due 23 April 2026. The current funding window covers soft skills for entrepreneurship and workforce development, as well as broader labour market and social protection research. If you are working on a gig or informal labour, this is directly relevant.

J-PAL South Asia — Rolling Recruitment 👉 povertyactionlab.org/page/working-j-pal Research associate and field positions filled throughout the year. Worth checking regularly.

IDinsight — Open Roles 👉 idinsight.org/about/careers MEL and research roles across South Asia and Africa on a rolling basis.

Standing job boards worth bookmarking:

• Idealist (idealist.org) — NGO and civil society

• ImpakT (impakt.work) — mission-driven, remote-first roles globally

📅 Upcoming Conferences & Events

SA-TIED Close-Out Conference: Evidence in Action 📅 23-24 March 2026 | Hybrid 👉 wider.unu.edu/events UNU-WIDER’s Southern Africa conference on inclusive economic growth, bringing together researchers and policymakers. Hybrid access. Relevant for anyone working on tax, public finance, or labour in the Global South. Happening this week — check for recordings if you miss the live sessions.

BREAD Conference on Development Economics 📅 15-16 May 2026 | Stanford University 👉 kingcenter.stanford.edu Open to attend. Features both early-stage and full presentations across development economics. Good for tracking what is at the research frontier.

CEPR Virtual Development Economics Series 📅 Ongoing 2026 | Online, free 👉 cepr.org/research/programme-areas/development-economics Regular Zoom webinars, open to all, no fee. Several are scheduled through April-June 2026. Check the calendar and set reminders.

😂 Funsies

Overheard at a Delhi development conference: “We need more ground-level research.” “Have you spoken to the communities?” “No, but we have excellent FGD transcripts from 2019.”

Favourite academic disclaimer spotted in the wild this quarter: “The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the institution, the funder, the government, or reality.”

Budget season reading game: take a sip every time a policy document says gig workers need “skilling.” Take two if it does not mention a budget line for said skilling.

📖 Disambiguation Corner

“Gig Worker” vs “Informal Worker” vs “Platform Worker”

These are used interchangeably, but they are not the same.

Informal worker: Works outside formal employer-employee contracts, largely invisible to regulation. Includes domestic workers, daily wage labourers, construction workers — the vast majority of India’s working population.

Gig worker: Performs task-based work outside a continuous employment relationship. Can sit in the formal or informal sector, depending on how the arrangement is structured.

Platform worker: A gig worker connected to work specifically through a digital platform — Zomato, Ola, Urban Company, and so on.

All platform workers are gig workers. Most gig workers in India remain informal workers. But most informal workers — daily wage labourers, domestic workers, home-based piece-rate workers — are not gig workers in any meaningful sense. A policy that conflates these categories ends up serving none of them adequately. Budget 2026 is a case study in exactly this problem.

“Gender-Neutral” vs “Gender-Responsive” vs “Gender-Transformative”

Gender-neutral: Treats all genders identically by ignoring structural differences. This is, unfortunately, what most South Asian climate policy currently looks like — as the Local Environment paper above documents.

Gender-responsive: Acknowledges and responds to existing gender inequalities. Better, but still operates within existing power structures rather than challenging them.

Gender-transformative: Actively works to shift the power relations and social norms that produce gender inequality. What the evidence says we need, and what almost no policy delivers.

The gap between where South Asian climate policy sits and where the evidence says it needs to go is not methodological. It is political.

✉️ Closing Thoughts

Six months of missed editions does not mean six months of development research standing still. If anything, this period — from the Economic Survey naming gig workers without funding them, to climate documents acknowledging women’s vulnerability without disaggregating climate finance — has sharpened a question I return to constantly: who is policy actually designed to protect?

India’s Time Use Survey (2025-26) found that women spend, on average, 363 minutes a day on unpaid activities, while men spend about 123. That number has not changed meaningfully in years. And yet it appears in the Economic Survey as a data point, not as the indictment it actually is.

Recognition is necessary but not sufficient. Our job as researchers and practitioners is to keep pressing on the gap between the two — in our writing, our programme designs, our evaluations, and when we have the opportunity, in the rooms where these words get written in the first place.

See you in May.

Varna Sri Raman Editor, The Research Rundown

If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe at varna.substack.com. And if this edition sparked anything for you, hit reply — I read every response.

Welcome back to another edition where we dive deep into the messy, beautiful, and occasionally infuriating world of development research. This month, I'm particularly fired up about something I've been thinking about since reviewing Karl Kapp's work on microlearning: Are we designing development interventions in the same way we create compelling learning experiences?

Spoiler alert: Mostly no. But more on that below.

This edition examines how the convergence of climate reality, technological potential, and political upheaval is forcing a fundamental rethink of its core assumptions. From the World Bank's ABCDE conference, grappling with the impact of populism on development cooperation, to breakthrough research on widowhood mortality in India, to Gaza's declaration of famine, the field of development faces unprecedented challenges that demand new frameworks and approaches.

📋 What's in This Issue:

• This Month's Focus: The Microlearning Revolution We're Missing

• Must-Reads: Climate disasters, gender demographics, AI potential

• Research Opportunities & Current Jobs

• South Asian Researchers to Follow

• Tools & Tech That Work

• Climate-Gender Nexus Update

• Books & Long Reads

• Art, Videos & Visual Treats

• Research Resources & Tools

• Podcasts Worth Your Time

• Research Praxis with Varna

• Funsies

• Disambiguation Corner

• Upcoming Conferences & Events

• Platform to Explore

🎯 This Month's Focus: The Microlearning Revolution We're Missing

I just finished dissecting Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice's "Microlearning: Short and Sweet" and had one of those lightbulb moments that made me want to redesign half the development programs I've ever worked on.

Here's the thing: Development interventions suffer from the same disease as bad corporate training—they're long, overwhelming, and forget that humans have the attention span of caffeinated squirrels.

Kapp's research shows that effective microlearning delivers "brief and engaging content in the flow of a person's work," designed with "a documented goal in mind" and evaluated rigorously. Sound familiar? It should, because this is precisely what effective development programming should be doing—but rarely does.

My South Asian Reality Check

Take the recent UN Women report on gender and climate change in South Asia. It's over 200 pages of crucial insights into how climate change disproportionately affects women across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region. But who's actually reading all 200 pages? And more importantly, how are we translating these insights into bite-sized, actionable interventions?

Here's what I learned from applying microlearning principles to development:

1. "Pensive" interventions should ask farmers: "How would your cropping pattern change if monsoons arrived three weeks late?" Not: "What do you know about climate adaptation?"
   

2. "Performance" interventions should teach specific skills, such as interpreting weather apps or calculating fertiliser ratios—not broad concepts about sustainable agriculture.
   

3. "Persuasive" interventions require compelling stories and imagery—such as the powerful visuals from Uttarakhand's landslide research, which show that 18.47% of the state faces high landslide susceptibility.
   

The game-changer insight: Hermann Ebbinghaus's "Forgetting Curve" from 1885 demonstrates that humans forget what they learn very quickly unless it is frequently reinforced. Yet, most development programs offer one-off training sessions and expect lasting behavioural change. No wonder impact evaluations are so depressing.

📚 Must-Reads

1. Surprising Findings from India: Widowhood and Mortality

👉 Read here

The first comprehensive quantitative analysis of widowhood mortality in India delivers unexpected results. Using seven-year longitudinal data from the India Human Development Survey, researchers found no mortality differences between widowed and married 60+, but significantly elevated mortality for both widows and widowers aged 25-59.

My take: This challenges decades of conventional wisdom about gendered mortality patterns in South Asia. With over 50 million Indian widows, these findings demand a complete reconsideration of social protection design. The research suggests that conservative social environments increase death rates for younger widows, but this effect operates through economic rather than purely biological mechanisms. Development programs targeting widow support may need age-specific approaches, with intensive interventions for younger widows but different strategies for older populations.

2. Climate Change Hits GDP Immediately

👉 Multiple sources: Nature, CNN, Climate Central

New research reveals that climate change causes welfare losses of 4.8% of GDP across 271 sub-Saharan African regions, with some countries facing losses as high as 43.8% of GDP. The Uttarakhand landslide research indicates that 18.47% of the state is characterised by high to very high landslide susceptibility. Recent disasters in Dharali village claimed 5 confirmed deaths and 43+ missing persons.

My take: This isn't a future projection—these losses are happening now. The Gaza famine declaration on August 22 marks the second time the UN's classification has reached Level 5, affecting 514,000 people. Europe's summer heat waves killed 2,300 people across 12 cities, with climate change responsible for 65% of heat deaths. These aren't isolated incidents, but systematic vulnerabilities that development teams externalise and integrate.

3. Cash Transfers Work—Even Better Than We Thought

👉 VoxDev research synthesis

A comprehensive meta-analysis of 115 studies covering 72 unconditional cash transfer programs across 34 countries provides systematic evidence. The Kenya study reveals measurable mortality reductions across populations—not just direct recipients.

My take: Cash transfers reduce rather than increase "temptation goods" expenditure, directly challenging populist criticism while demonstrating measurable health impacts through general equilibrium effects. This evidence should be essential ammunition for anyone defending social protection programs against political opposition.

4. AI's Development Paradox

👉 UNCTAD Technology Report 2025

UNCTAD's framework for "Inclusive Artificial Intelligence for Development" outlines potential annual gains of $2.6-4.4 trillion. Yet 2.5 billion people remain without internet access, creating development paradoxes where AI's benefits may exacerbate existing inequalities.

My take: The development applications extend beyond economic efficiency to human capability enhancement, with applications spanning climate optimisation and energy optimisation. However, AI implementation often faces resource constraints that are overlooked in optimistic projections. Training advanced AI models requires substantial amounts of electricity, water, and critical minerals—resources that are often scarce in countries that could most benefit from AI applications.

5. Informal Economy Innovations Lead Climate Adaptation

👉 WIEGO research on cooperatives

Street vendor research across ASEAN countries demonstrates bottom-up climate adaptation strategies that formal development programs typically overlook. These vendors develop heat management techniques, water conservation practices, and flexible scheduling systems that enable economic activity to continue despite climate extremes.

My take: Their innovations often exceed formal climate adaptation programs in both cost-effectiveness and community acceptance. With nearly 2 billion informal workers globally, these community-developed approaches represent scalable models that development policy could support rather than replace. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated these innovations as informal workers developed community-embedded solutions that maintained economic activity while protecting health.

💼 Research Opportunities & Current Jobs

Featured Current Opportunities (Verified & Open)

J-PAL - Research Associates (Multiple Countries)
👉 Apply here
1,000+ researchers conducting 1,100+ randomized evaluations across 90+ countries.

Fellowship Programs for 2026 (Plan Ahead!)

Open Society Fellowship Program
👉 Program details
The 2025 deadline has passed, but start planning for 2026.

Skills in Demand Based on This Month's Research

Intersectional climate analysis has become essential, as demonstrated by the PLOS. Organisations in agriculture and how gender intersects with caste, class, and geography to identify specific vulnerability patterns and produce actionable program recommendations.

Microlearning instructional design for development programs represents an emerging niche implementation, as organisations recognise that their training programs fail due to poor instructional design rather than the Visualisation

Visualisation for climate commuters continues to grow as the Climate Watch Data platform demonstrates. This combines technical analysis with communication design, requiring an understanding of how different audiences consume climate information.

🎙️ South Asian Researchers to Follow

Nitya Rao - Climate-Gender Intersectionality Pioneer

👉 UEA Profile | Google Scholar | CGIAR Profile

Why follow: As lead author on the PLOS Climate piece anchoring this month's analysis, she brings three decades of experience researching women's rights, employment, and education across South Asia and Eastern Africa. Her work consistently bridges grassroots activism and policy-level interventions. What sets her apart is her commitment to intersectional analysis—examining how gender intersects with class, caste, geography, and climate vulnerability.

Chihiro Aita - Indo-Pacific Climate Security

👉 NBR Profile | LinkedIn

Why follow: At the National Bureau of Asian Research, she brings a fresh perspective to climate-gender intersections across the Indo-Pacific. Her work on the NBR climate-gender analysis demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how regional geopolitics shapes climate vulnerability. The integration of security studies with development concerns highlights the importance of understanding power dynamics and institutional capacity in climate adaptation.

Arsalan Ahmed - Transnational Security & Climate

👉 NBR Profile

Why follow: Co-author of the South Asia climate-gender analysis, represents emerging researchers who understand traditional security studies must grapple with climate realities. Currently pursuing Security Policy Studies at George Washington University, his work demonstrates how transnational security challenges require gender-sensitive approaches.

🛠️ Tools & Tech That Work

Democracy Gaming Platform

I stumbled across playsabha.com this month and had to share—it's a brilliant gamification of Indian parliamentary processes that makes governance both engaging and enjoyable. The platform enables users to simulate legislative debates, understand policy-making through interactive gameplay, and experience the complexities of democratic decision-making firsthand. What impressed me most was how they break down complex procedural knowledge into digestible, interactive segments that stick with users.

Legal Tech for Justice Innovation

The team at Justice Adda has dropped a thoughtful piece on "unlocking value in failure" in the legal tech space. Their broader Everyday Justice platform represents precisely the kind of practical innovation development researchers should study and scale. The core insight: most legal tech initiatives fail because they don't understand users' actual workflows and decision-making processes.

DVisualisationtion That Matters

The Climate Watches data visualisation platform offers compelling climate visualisation tools. Their interactive dashboards transform overwhelming climate datasets into accessible and actionable insights, demonstrating microlearning principles. Rath-focused visualisation reports provide focused visualisations that answer specific questions about emissions changes, sector contributions, and renewable energy trends.

🌊 Climate-Gender Nexus Update

Heat Waves and Femicide Connection

UN Women's research reveals that heat waves correlate with a 28% increase in femicide. Without urgent action, climate change could be linked to one in every ten intimate partner violence cases by the century's end. This isn't abstract—it's worsening in South Asian cities, where unprecedented heat is exacerbating social and economic stresses, creating a cascade of vulnerabilities.

Pakistani Women and Climate Migration

New research on climate-induced migration in Pakistan reveals women facing displacement don't just face relocation—they face heightened social injustice during forced migration, with decisions mainly taken by household heads who, in most cases, were male family members."

Context-Sensitive Solutions

The optimistic finding: research shows context-sensitive climate-smart agriculture options co-developed with both women and men significantly improve outcomes. A Uttarakhand case study illustrates how women's utilisation of mountain ecosystems, combined with climate-resilient crop varieties, fosters effective adaptation strategies.

📖 Books & Long Reads

“Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia"

👉 Amazon | HarperCollins India

I just finished Sam Dalrymple's masterpiece, and wow—this delivers exactly what development economists need to understand about South Asian political economy. Dalrymple traces how a single imperial entity evolved into twelve modern nations through five partitions, but what makes this essential reading is the focus on the human stories behind the political decisions. For development practitioners, this illuminates how seemingly discrete policy decisions create cascading effects across generations—exactly the systems thinking our field needs.

Essential Academic Research

The widowhood mortality research in Demography completely upends conventional wisdom about gender and mortality patterns in India. Using longitudinal data tracking individuals across seven years, the study finds no mortality differences between widowed and married adults over 60—but significantly elevated mortality for both widows and widowers aged 25-59.

The Menopause Knowledge Crisis

Anushay's Substack piece on the menopause knowledge crisis deserves widespread attention from development economists. She argues that our research on women's economic participation during their cycle misses crucial transitions affecting nearly half the global population. We have extensive literature on fertility transitions, but almost nothing on how menopause affects labour force participation, healthcare costs, or intergenerational transfers.

Free Quality Literature

Standard Ebooks provides beautifully formatted, free public domain literature that respects your intelligence. Perfect for research breaks when your brain craves narrative over analysis.

🎨 Art, Videos & Visual Treats

Mind-Blowing Science Visualisation

OneZoom.org presents the entire tree of zoomable Visualisation, zoomavisualisation, that completely changes how you understand biodiversity connections. Spend five minutes exploring, and you'll see ecological relationships better than most environmental reports convey. For development researchers working on environmental or agricultural programs, this tool provides an intuitive understanding of how ecosystem disruptions cascade across species networks.

Essential Podcast Listening

Episode 44 of the Informal Economy Podcast tackles innovative social protection financing. Essential for anyone working on social safety nets—demonstrates how informal workers develop community-embedded solutions that formal programs often miss.

📊 Research Resources & Tools

Essential Databases for South Asian Research

The VoxDev Literature Portal remains the gold standard for development economics research. Their improved search functionality lets you isolate research by specific countries, methodological approaches, and thematic areas. The synthesis pieces they publish demonstrate exactly the meta-analysis that helps practitioners translate research into programming.

WIEGO's research hub has become indispensable for understanding the dynamics of the informal economy. Their recent piece on cooperative models unpacks specific mechanisms that enhance individual resilience through collectivisation and organisation.

Climate Economics Modelling

New approaches from Springer publications advance methodological frameworks by integrating feedback loops, adaptation costs, and trade linkages that earlier research ignored. These methodological innovations matter because they capture dynamic interactions between climate response and.

The GLables aorganisingransformed hoorganisenise research materials for literature reviews on my phone, yes, I do this on the phone <roll eyes!>. Particularly useful for interdisciplinary research where you're juggling sources from economics, anthropology, climate science, and policy analysis.

📝 Research Praxis with Varna

Applying Microlearning Principles to Development Programs

The standard approach is to design comprehensive training workshops that cover all aspects of a topic. A microlearning approach: Break learning into specific, actionable units delivered when people need them

Why this matters: Hermann Ebbinghaus's research proves humans forget rapidly without reinforcement. Most development programs offer one-off training, expecting lasting behavioural change—no wonder impact evaluations often disappoint.

Practical tip: Before designing any intervention, ask: "What specific decision do we want people to createifferently?" Then design the minimum effective content to influence that specific decision.

Example: Instead of a day-long climate adaptation workshop, create brief modules answering: "What should I plant if rains are late?" "How do I interpret weather app data?" "What are three water-saving techniques I can use tomorrow?"

😂 Funsies

Development Humour Corner

Overheard at a development conference:
"Our intervention increased participation by 15%!"
"Participation in what?"
"The evaluation surveys."

Academic Twitter Gold

Favourite observation this month: "Asked AI to summarise my 200-page dissertation. It replied: 'More research needed.' Even artificial intelligence understands academic conclusions."

The NGO Acronym Game

New challenge: Guess what PRGS-HIPC-MDRI-ESAF stands for. Winner gets the satisfaction of knowing too many development acronyms.
(Answer: Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy-Heavily Indebted Poor Countries-Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative-Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility.)

📖 Disambiguation Corner

"Climate-Smart Agriculture" vs. "Climate-Resilient Agriculture" vs. "Sustainable Agriculture":

• Climate-Smart: Specific focus on productivity, adaptation, and mitigation

• Climate-Resilient: Emphasis on withstanding climate shocks

• Sustainable: Broader environmental and social sustainability

All related, often overlapping, but not interchangeable. Context matters.

"Microlearning" vs. "Micro-credentialing" vs. "Micro-interventions":

• Microlearning: Instructional design focused on brief, targeted learning units

• Micro-credentialing: Certification system for specific skills

• Micro-interventions: Small-scale development programs (different concept entirely)

📅 Upcoming Conferences & Events

September 2025

International Symposium on Climate, Finance, and Sustainability
👉 Barcelona conference details
Multi-disciplinary approach to climate finance innovation. Registration opens August 30.

Economics+Climate Science Conference (ESIFCLIM)
👉 Econometric Society event
Integration across disciplines reflecting the research evolution our field needs.

Grapevine!

World Bank ABCDE Follow-up Workshops
Following July's "Development in the Age of Populism" conference in the ABCDE series, there is speculation that regional workshops may be held to address evidence-based policy in challenging political environments. We shall keep you posted.

🛠️ Platform to Explore

ImpakT — Mission-Driven Job Board

👉 Explore here
Curates remote and impact-driven job opportunities globally with a strong emphasis on meaningful, ethical work. Ideal for researchers, policy enthusiasts, and change-makers seeking mission-aligned positions in climate, health, education, gender, or development.

✉️ Closing Thoughts

This month's research reveals that development work is at an inflexion point. The convergence of climate reality, technological potential, and political upheaval necessitates a fundamental reevaluation of our field's core assumptions. The evidence suggests that successful development strategies must integrate climate adaptation from the outset, leverage technology while addressing digital divides, and navigate populist pressures through demonstrated mutual benefits.

Most critically, we must evolve from treating climate change, technological disroand external shocks as intrinsic features of contemporary development challenges. The institutions, research methods, and policy frameworks emerging from this reckoning will determine whether development economics remains relevant to the century's defining challenges.

The century's new revolution offers one path forward: designing interventions that work with human psychology rather than against it, delivering knowledge when and how people can actually use it, and measuring what matters for actual behaviour change.

Time to get microlearning.

Thanks for reading Research Rundown! If this sparked any thoughts, hit reply—I read every response. And if someone forwarded this to you, subscribe here for bi-monthly doses of South Asian development research with occasional bad jokes.

Next issue: October 2025 - Focus on Education Technology and Human Capital Development

—Varna

P.S. Still accepting nominations for the best development economics Twitter/X/X account. The bar is surprisingly low—anyone who tweets actual research findings rather than conference photos automatically qualifies.

The atmosphere was charged not with political rhetoric, but with a sense of historical purpose. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge framed our journey not as a career shift, but as an answer to a national call. He spoke of an India grappling with extreme inequality and unemployment, and he drew a direct line from the lawyers, economists, and doctors who built this nation to us, the fifty professionals in that room. He reminded us that the most enduring legacies, like those forged under Dr. Manmohan Singh’s leadership, are built on substance, not spectacle—on working more and talking less. For a moment, I saw my econometric models not as solutions, but as mere tools in a much larger, more human toolkit.

Then, the philosophers of our new journey took the stage. Dr. Salman Khurshid, with the grace of a man who has navigated the highest corridors of power, offered our first and most difficult lesson: the courage to unlearn. He gave us permission to let go of the arrogance of expertise, to shed the illusion that the clean logic of my spreadsheets could ever fully capture the beautiful chaos of society. His most liberating admission was that in the realm of global foreign policy today, “nobody quite understands what the hell is going on.” It was a stunning declaration that the old rulebooks are obsolete. Our task is not to have all the answers, but to help write new questions.

This intellectual humility was perfectly complemented by Sachin Rao’s structural clarity. He asked us to become “more political,” and in doing so, reframed politics itself for me. It is not a game of elections, but the very architecture of society—a force that shapes our common sense, a concept that would make Gramsci nod in recognition. As an economist, I think in systems and structures, but this was a reminder that the most important structures are made of power, relationships, and ideas, and that changing them requires more than a perfect policy prescription.

Finally, we heard from Ajoy Kumar who gave us our moral compass. In a room full of high-achievers, he spoke not of strategy, but of integrity. His mandate was to “stay real” and to always have the courage to speak up, especially from within. He defined a true liberal space not by agreement, but by the safety to dissent. It was the crucial final piece of the puzzle: Khurshid gave us the intellectual humility to see the world anew, Rao gave us the structural lens to understand its workings, and this charge from Ajoy Kumar gave us the ethical backbone to engage with it without losing our souls.

Sitting there as one of the only two economists in the cohort, I felt a familiar identity dissolve. My models are still my language, but they are no longer my destination. They are simply one dialect in a much richer conversation about power, society, and justice. This fellowship is not an extension of my career; it is a fundamental recalibration of my purpose. We are fifty individual streams of experience—a surgeon, a tech entrepreneur, a lawyer, me and so many more —now merging into a single current, tasked with the messy, magnificent work of helping to build a more thoughtful India.

The commencement is over. The real education has just begun.

Subscribe for more dispatches from the front lines of learning, unlearning, and the messy, magnificent work of building a political future.

As we reach the midpoint of 2025, the development landscape reveals a familiar tension: cutting-edge biotechnology, such as India's genome-edited rice varieties, promising 30% yield increases, while the same country's testing institutions systematically exclude students due to institutional failures. It's a stark reminder that technology alone never solves development challenges—power, access, and institutional design determine who benefits.

This edition examines how knowledge is produced, by whom, and for whose benefit. From Chennai's chess champions (whose success reveals how systematic exclusion operates) to Elinor Ostrom's work on the commons (and why her class-blind analysis matters), we're tracking research that challenges dominant narratives about development, cooperation, and expertise.

Most importantly, we're highlighting research from South Asia, about South Asia, using methods that centre affected communities rather than extractive data collection. In this issue, there are also numerous interesting conference opportunities focusing on Africa.

Because the most important development questions aren't just "what works?" but "who decides what counts as working?"

📋 What's in This Issue:

• Must-Reads: Institutional violence, participatory biotechnology, commons reimagined

• Research Opportunities & Current Jobs

• Decolonising Methods Spotlight

• South Asian Voices to Follow

• Free Tools & Resources

• Climate-Gender Nexus

• Educational Justice Update

• Books & Media from the Global South

• Podcasts & Video Recommendations

• Research Praxis with Varna

• Disambiguation

• Upcoming Conferences

• Closing Thoughts

📚 Must-Reads

1. The Economist Who Solved the Free-Rider Problem (But Missed the Class Analysis)

[Developing Economics, June 2025] 👉 Read here

Benjamin Selwyn's analysis of Elinor Ostrom reveals both the power and limitations of her work on the commons. While Ostrom demonstrated that communities can cooperatively manage resources (challenging neoliberal "tragedy of the commons" narratives), she treated capitalist markets as natural and missed how "the enclosures" destroyed the commons through systematic violence.

My take: This is essential reading for anyone doing participatory research on natural resource management. Ostrom's insights about cooperation are valuable, but her class-blind analysis means she couldn't see how power relations determine whose cooperation is considered legitimate. For South Asian researchers working on water commons, forest management, or fisheries, this critique is fundamental—community management isn't just about coordination; it's about confronting the structures that initially dispossessed communities.

2. How India's Testing Regime Perpetuates Educational Violence

[Scroll.in, June 2025] 👉 Read here

Power outages during NEET exams. Rainwater is soaking the papers. Identity verification is eating into exam time. The NTA's systematic failures aren't bureaucratic incompetence—they're institutional violence that reinforces existing inequalities. Students from privileged backgrounds have backup plans; those from marginalised communities have their futures destroyed by "technical glitches."

My take: This is what educational exclusion looks like in practice. While policy discourse focuses on "access" and "quality," the real story is how testing regimes function as gatekeeping mechanisms. For researchers studying educational inequality in South Asia, this case study demonstrates how institutions that appear "neutral" systematically reproduce advantage. The question isn't just improving NTA processes—it's asking why we've centralised educational futures in a single, extractive testing system.

3. India's Gene-Edited Rice: Technology for Whom?

[Multiple sources: Nature, Business Standard, ThePrint - May 2025] 👉 Nature report 👉 Business Standard analysis

India's new genome-edited rice varieties promise a 30% yield increase and a 20% reduction in water usage. But the Coalition for a GM-Free India raises crucial questions: Who controls these seeds? Will they increase farmer debt? How do they affect the agricultural biodiversity that communities have maintained for generations?

My take: This is precisely where participatory research methods become essential. The science is impressive, but the development outcomes depend entirely on how this technology is introduced, by whom, and with what level of farmer participation in decision-making. I'd love to see follow-up research that uses participatory video or community-based monitoring to track how farmers experience these varieties. The question isn't just "do yields increase?" but "who benefits, who bears risks, and who makes those decisions?"

4. South Asia's Climate Displacement: Following Feminist Research Methods

[ActionAid International, Updated 2025] 👉 Read here

This research exemplifies feminist methodology, centring on women's experiences of climate displacement, utilising participatory data collection, and connecting individual stories to structural analysis. The study reveals how climate migration amplifies gender-based violence while women simultaneously develop innovative adaptation strategies that mainstream climate research ignores.

My take: This is how climate research should be done—starting with the most affected communities, using methods that centre their knowledge, and producing analysis that reveals both oppression and resistance. Too much climate research extracts data from vulnerable communities to inform policies designed elsewhere. This study demonstrates how feminist and participatory methods can generate knowledge that's both rigorous and justice-oriented.

5. Chennai's Chess Champions: Excellence Through Systematic Exclusion?

[NPR Goats and Soda, June 2025] 👉 Read here

Chennai has become the "factory of Indian chess," producing world champions through a systematic training approach. But the NPR story inadvertently reveals how this excellence depends on class privilege: 6-year-olds with daily schedules that include private coaching, parents who can afford to travel with children to tournaments, and families that can sustain years of investment before any returns.

My take: This story is fascinating for what it reveals about how "systematic excellence" often means systematic exclusion. While celebrating Chennai's chess success, we should ask: Who is unable to access these pathways? How do class, caste, and gender shape who gets identified as "talented"? This is relevant for development practitioners because we often celebrate successful models without analysing how they reproduce inequalities. True inclusion would mean asking: How do we democratize access to systematic excellence?

💼 Research Opportunities & Current Jobs

Featured Current Opportunities (Verified & Open)

Asian Development Bank - Young Professionals Program (YPP) 2025 👉 Apply here Entry-level program for highly qualified individuals. 18-month initial assignments in Solutions Departments or major non-operational departments. Open to candidates with economics, development studies, or related backgrounds. Application window varies - check website for current cycle.

World Bank Group - Economics & Development Research Opportunities 👉 Current openings Regular postings for economists, research analysts, and development practitioners. Recent focus on climate economics, digital development, and social protection. Note: Special emphasis on hiring for Africa region operations (20+ new positions mentioned in recent updates).

ActionAid International - Rights-Based Development Positions 👉 Browse jobs. Consistent openings for field researchers, program officers, and advocacy specialists. They explicitly state they don't charge fees during recruitment. Focus on participatory development and community-based research roles.

Fellowship Programs for 2026 (Plan Ahead!)

Open Society Fellowship Program 👉 Program details 2025 deadline passed (Dec 16, 2024), but start planning for 2026. $100,000 living stipend + $20,000 project expenses for innovative approaches to open society challenges. Results for 2025 cycle announced summer 2025.

ADB-Japan Scholarship Program 👉 Information: Postgraduate scholarships for economics, management, and development-related fields. Age limit: 35 (45 for senior programs). Applications are accepted for participating universities across Asia-Pacific.

General Platforms for Development Jobs

DevNetJobs - Comprehensive database with 1,800+ international organisations 👉 Browse opportunities

UN Careers - Official UN system job portal 👉 Search positions

🔍 Decolonising Methods Spotlight

Participatory Video in Climate Research

👉 Methods overview

Recent work from South Asia shows how participatory video methods are revolutionising climate adaptation research. In communities across Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Philippines, residents use video to document their adaptation strategies, generating knowledge that centres their innovations rather than their vulnerabilities. This research, published on academia.edu, demonstrates how video-mediated approaches can facilitate two-way communication between researchers and marginalised communities.

Why this matters: Most climate research positions communities as passive victims rather than knowledge producers. Participatory video flips this—communities become researchers of their own experiences, creating documentation that directly informs adaptation planning while building local research capacity.

Community-Based Monitoring of Development Programs

👉 IIED toolkit resources

New research from Bangladesh demonstrates how communities can monitor development programs using their indicators of success. Rather than external evaluations that focus on predetermined metrics, community-based monitoring asks: What changes do residents value? This approach, documented by the International Institute for Environment and Development, reveals fundamentally different knowledge about "what works."

Research insight: When communities control evaluation processes, they generate fundamentally different knowledge about program effectiveness, often highlighting innovations and changes that external metrics miss entirely.

🎙️ South Asian Voices to Follow

Dr. Richa Govil — Vice Chancellor, Azim Premji University

University Profile | Google Scholar | LinkedIn

Why follow: Dr. Govil leads Azim Premji University's Bangalore campus and specialises in agricultural livelihoods, farmer producer companies, and women's livelihoods. Her research consistently uses mixed methods that centre on farmers' own analysis of their economic situations. Recent work includes gender transformative approaches to livelihoods programming and organisational practices in the social sector.

Arjun Appadurai — Development Anthropologist

NYU Steinhardt Profile | Google Scholar | Research Gate

Why follow: Appadurai's concept of "the right to research" argues that knowledge production should be democratised. His work with community organisations in Mumbai demonstrates how poor communities can become researchers of their conditions. Essential reading: his 2006 paper "The Right to Research", which challenges who gets to count as a knowledge producer.

Kalpana Sharma — Independent Journalist & Urban Studies Expert

Wikipedia | Economic & Political Weekly | Columbia profile

Why follow: As a former Deputy Editor at The Hindu, Sharma's work on urban women's livelihoods exemplifies how to combine rigorous analysis with accessible writing. Author of "Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia's Largest Slum" and columnist focusing on gender perspectives in development. Her research consistently explores how gender intersects with class and caste in urban settings.

🛠️ Free Tools & Resources

🔧 Statistics by Jim - Democratizing Statistical Analysis

👉 Explore calculators

Jim Frost's approach to statistics emphasizes intuitive understanding over technical performance—perfect for practitioners who want to democratize analytical methods. His plain-English explanations make statistical concepts accessible for community-based researchers, supporting the democratisation of analytical methods rather than gatekeeping them through technical jargon.

📊 Open Data Editor - Community-Friendly Research Tools

👉 Access editor

Ideal for researchers conducting participatory data collection. The interface is intuitive enough for community researchers to use directly, supporting more democratic research processes. Particularly useful for collaborative data cleaning and validation in participatory research projects.

🌐 Research Justice Resources

👉 Search: "participatory research toolkits" 👉 IIED participatory methods

Key organisations include the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Research Justice Collective. These resources provide comprehensive guides for community-based participatory research methods, including tools for power mapping, community asset assessment, and participatory evaluation.

🌊 Climate-Gender Nexus

New Research: Women's Knowledge Systems in Flood Management

👉 Search: "women's indigenous flood forecasting Bangladesh"

Recent participatory research from Bangladesh reveals how women's flood forecasting knowledge—based on observing animal behaviour, plant changes, and weather patterns—is often more accurate than official meteorological predictions. Yet this knowledge remains invisible in formal adaptation planning.

Research gap: How do we integrate indigenous knowledge systems into climate adaptation without extracting and appropriating them?

Community-Led Climate Monitoring in the Sundarbans

👉 Climate monitoring tools

Local women's groups are utilising simple tools to monitor mangrove health, changes in salinity, and erosion patterns. Their data challenges official climate impact assessments while generating knowledge that directly informs community adaptation strategies.

My take: This is climate science done right—with communities, not to them. It demonstrates how participatory methods can generate more accurate data while building local research capacity.

📖 Educational Justice Update

Beyond the NTA Crisis: Systemic Alternatives

👉 Search: "alternative assessment methods Kerala portfolio-based" 👉 Rajasthan community curriculum

While policy discourse focuses on "fixing" the NTA, educators across India are developing alternative assessment methods. From portfolio-based evaluation in Kerala to community-designed curricula in Rajasthan, grassroots innovations challenge the centralised testing paradigm.

Research opportunity: These innovations need documentation using participatory methods that centre educators' and students' own analysis of their experiences.

Dalit Students and Higher Education Access

👉 Research on caste and merit systems

New research reveals how "merit-based" admission systems systematically exclude Dalit students—not through explicit discrimination, but through embedded biases in testing formats, language requirements, and cultural assumptions.

Methodological note: This research exemplifies how caste analysis should be integrated into educational research, rather than being treated as a separate "category."

📚 Books & Media from the Global South

"Heart Lamp: Selected Stories" by Banu Mushtaq

👉 And Other Stories | Penguin India | Amazon

Winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize - This collection of 12 short stories, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Originally written in Kannada between 1990 and 2023, Mushtaq's portraits of family and community tensions testify to her years as a journalist and lawyer, championing women's rights and protesting against caste and religious oppression. First Kannada-language work to win the International Booker Prize.

Why this matters: Heart Lamp exemplifies how regional storytelling can achieve global recognition while centring marginalised voices. Mushtaq's work demonstrates how literature can be both politically engaged and artistically powerful, challenging dominant narratives about who counts as a "universal" storyteller.

"Data Feminism" by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein

👉 MIT Press Open Access | Buy at MIT Press | Amazon

While written by US authors, this book provides essential frameworks for analysing how data science can either reinforce or challenge power structures. Particularly relevant for South Asian researchers working with large datasets. Available as a free work, open-access online.

"The Right to Research" by Arjun Appadurai

👉 Original Paper (2006) | PUKAR Background

Essential reading on how to democratize knowledge production. Appadurai's work with Mumbai's Alliance of slum Organisations demonstrates how communities can become researchers of their conditions.

Documentary: "Writing with Fire"

👉 PBS Independent Lens | Apple TV | IMDb

The story of India's only all-women Dalit-run newspaper challenges dominant narratives about who can be journalists and knowledge producers. Oscar-nominated and winner of multiple Sundance awards. Essential viewing for anyone interested in media justice and representation.

🎧 Podcasts & Video Recommendations

Research Methods & Participatory Approaches

The Action Research Podcast - Community-Based Participatory Research 👉 Episode 18: What is Community-Based Participatory Action Research? Essential listening for understanding the differences between participatory, community-based, and action research approaches.

Development Economics

VoxDev Development Economics 👉 Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Website Weekly podcast featuring cutting-edge development economics research and policy discussions. Host Tim Phillips brings academic research to practitioners.

Development Drums 👉 Website | Apple Podcasts Owen Barder's in-depth conversations with leading development economists and practitioners. Featured guests include Angus Deaton, Daron Acemoglu, and Stefan Dercon.

Social Justice & Compassion

Conversations on Compassion 👉 University of Arizona Centre | Apple Podcasts Features conversations with social justice educators, community organisers, and researchers working on equity and inclusion.

Video Content

"Writing with Fire" Documentary Discussion 👉 WNYC The Takeaway Interview Co-director Rintu Thomas discusses the making of the Oscar-nominated documentary about Dalit women journalists.

📝 Research Praxis with Varna

Decolonising Your Research Question

The standard approach: "How can we improve program X to increase outcome Y?"

A decolonised approach: "What do communities identify as their priorities, and how do existing programs align with or contradict those priorities?"

Why this matters: The first question assumes that external interventions are necessary and that externally defined outcomes are desirable. The second question centres on community knowledge and opens space for fundamental critique of intervention logic.

Practical tip: Before designing any research, take the time to ask communities what questions they want answered. Often, the most important research questions are ones that communities are already investigating themselves.

Example: Instead of researching "barriers to girls' education," ask: "What do girls and women in this community identify as their educational priorities, and what strategies are they already using to achieve them?"

This reframing reveals community knowledge, centres their analysis, and often uncovers innovation that external research misses.

📖 Disambiguation Corner

Participatory vs. Extractive Research:

• Participatory: Communities control research questions, methods, and use of findings

• Extractive: Researchers collect data from communities for external purposes

Decolonising vs. Diversifying Research:

• Decolonising: Fundamentally questioning whose knowledge counts and challenging Western epistemologies

• Diversifying: Adding more voices without questioning underlying power structures

Community-Based vs. Community-Placed Research:

• Community-Based: Communities control the research process and outcomes

• Community-Placed: Research happens in communities but is controlled by external researchers

📅 Upcoming Conferences & Events

July 2025

Asian Economic Development Conference (AEDC) 2025 📅 July 3-4, 2025 | 📍 Beijing, China 👉 Conference website Organised by ADB, ADBI, and Peking University. Focus on development economics research relevant to Asia-Pacific. Keynote speakers include Hanming Fang (University of Pennsylvania) and Nancy Qian.

September 2025

9th Urbanization and Development Conference 📅 June 11-12, 2025 | 📍 Cape Town, South Africa
👉 Event details: Theme: "Urban Economics in Action: Addressing African Cities' Challenges." Brings together academics, policymakers, and practitioners to discuss urban economics research for policy decisions.

International Economic Development Council Conference 📅 September 14-17, 2025 | 📍 Detroit, USA 👉 Conference Information: The world's largest gathering of economic development professionals. Interactive sessions, networking, and innovative programming.

December 2025

Asia-Pacific Conference on Economics & Finance (APEF) 📅 December 11-12, 2025 | 📍 Singapore 👉 Conference details Hybrid conference for economists and financial experts. Early bird registration deadline: October 15, 2025.

Conference Recordings Available

Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI) - Glocal Evaluation Week 2025 👉 Access recordings. Recent recordings from May 2025 sessions exploring how evaluation can respond to inequality, radicalisation, and erosion of trust. Regional dialogues from Asia, Africa, and the Americas are now available.

CSAE Conference Recordings 👉 CSAE YouTube channel Oxford's Centre for the Study of African Economies regularly uploads conference presentations and keynotes focused on development economics in Africa.

🛠️ Platform to Explore

ImpactMojo — Development Education Knowledge Library

👉 Explore here

A curated library of thirty-four full-length knowledge decks, over fifty handouts and worksheets and ten interactive “labs” that explore justice, equity, and development practice in India and South Asia. Each deck is grounded in theory, applied in context, and ready for real-world use by educators, practitioners, and social researchers.

What's available: Comprehensive knowledge decks covering Data Feminism, Development Economics, Climate Change, Gender Studies, Social Safety Nets, Digital Development Ethics, and more—all designed specifically for South Asian contexts. Plus 10 interactive labs for hands-on learning experiences and hundreds of free teaching worksheets and workshops ready for classroom use. The platform also includes assessment tools, case studies, and facilitation guides.

Why this matters: This represents exactly the kind of knowledge democratisation we need in development education—open-source, locally grounded, and designed to centre South Asian experiences rather than importing Western frameworks wholesale. The interactive labs and extensive teaching materials make it particularly valuable for educators seeking ready-to-use resources that don't require adaptation from Global North contexts—created by your truly.

😂 Funsies

Q: Why did the development researcher's participatory workshop fail? A: They spent three hours explaining "participatory methods" to the community instead of asking what the community wanted to research!

✉️ Closing Thoughts

This month's research reveals a central tension in South Asian development: technological innovation is advancing rapidly while institutional access remains brutally exclusionary. India can develop climate-resilient rice varieties, but its testing systems are destroying student futures. Chennai can systematically produce chess champions, while most children never have the opportunity to access systematic excellence.

The solutions aren't just technical—they're about power, access, and whose knowledge counts. That's why decolonising research methods matters. When we centre community knowledge, use participatory methods, and ask different questions, we generate different understandings about what's possible.

The most important development research happening right now isn't being done in universities—it's being done by communities documenting their strategies for survival, adaptation, and resistance. Our job as researchers is to amplify that knowledge, not extract from it.

Next issue preview: August will focus on urban research methods, with special attention to how communities are researching their own experiences of urban transformation across South Asian cities.

If you're conducting community-based research, using participatory methods, or challenging dominant development narratives, I'd like to hear from you. Your work belongs in these pages.

See you in August!

Varna Sri Raman
Editor, The Research Rundown

"The most revolutionary thing we can do is give people the tools to research their conditions."

After an intense year of change, I’m thrilled to return with The Research Rundown — your curated guide to global development debates, with a sharp focus on South Asia.

This edition tracks new currents: from climate migration and gender budgeting gaps to health disruptions and urban inequality.
Real questions, no easy answers.

Here’s what’s inside:

📋 What's in This Issue:

• Must-Reads: Climate, gender budgeting, urban inequality, health shifts

• Podcasts Worth Tuning Into

• Gender at the Frontlines

• Researchers to Watch

• Visual Tools and Resources

• Visual Culture Feature

• Documentary to Watch

• Book of the Month

• Development Grapevine

• Doing Better Research with Varna

• Funsies

• Disambiguation

• Closing Reflections

📚 Must-Reads

1. Heat Stress and India's Invisible Workers

[The Guardian, Dec 2024]
👉 Read here

When climate change intersects with precarious labour, the crisis is immediate. Rising temperatures are not abstractions — they redraw the boundaries of survival for India’s most invisible workers.

2. India’s Climate Migration Policy Vacuum

[New Indian Express, Mar 2025]
👉 Read here

Migration isn't simply a "coping strategy" anymore — it’s becoming a survival necessity. Yet India's development policies lag dangerously behind in recognizing climate-displaced populations.

3. Gender Budget Grows — But Systemic Change Still Lags

[Policy Circle, Mar 2025]
👉 Read here

Budget figures are headlines. Real empowerment is footnotes: implementation, accountability, equity audits at ground level. Without them, "gender budgets" remain symbolic.

4. Is India Meeting Its Gender Goals Through Budgeting?

[ORF Online, Feb 2025]
👉 Read here

Gender budgeting's unfinished journey reminds us: allocation is only the beginning. Outcome tracking, course correction, and feminist economic lenses are essential.

5. Rising Home Prices and Deepening Urban Inequality

[Reuters, Dec 2024]
👉 Read here

When land and housing transform into speculative assets, cities stop being engines of mobility. The urban dream calcifies into new elite enclaves.

6. Rural-Urban Inequality Persists Despite Gains

[New Indian Express, Feb 2025]
👉 Read here

Despite headline gains, rural distress remains embedded in India’s growth story. Development needs far deeper decentralization than current models allow.

🎧 Podcasts Worth Tuning Into

🎙️ Rocking Our Priors (Alice Evans)
Episode: Why is Female Employment Low in India? How Might That Change? (March 2025)
👉 Listen here

A sharp, candid look at why women’s labour force participation in India remains stubbornly low — and how systemic change, not just individual empowerment, is essential.

🎙️ The Climate Question (BBC World Service)
Episode: How is Climate Change Affecting Motherhood? (March 2025)
👉 Listen here

A nuanced exploration of how climate anxiety is shaping reproductive choices globally — including powerful voices from India, Kenya, and beyond.

🚺 Gender at the Frontlines

South Asian Women March for Economic and Gender Justice
[Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, Mar 2025]
👉 Read here

Beyond symbolism, these mobilisations link care work, labour rights, safety, and survival. True structural shifts need political courage to dismantle layered gendered inequalities.

Spotlight: WEESA – Women’s Economic Empowerment in South Asia

Looking for the latest evidence and actionable insights on women’s economic empowerment in South Asia? Check out WEESA, a new virtual knowledge-sharing platform hosted by the World Bank’s South Asia Gender Innovation Lab. WEESA connects researchers, policymakers, and practitioners across the region, offering a curated hub of research, policy briefs, and learning events.

By joining WEESA, you’ll gain access to their Monthly Digest, stay updated on cutting-edge studies (like the impact of digital financial services on women’s control over finances in Bangladesh and Pakistan), and become part of a vibrant community working to accelerate gender equality and economic inclusion in South Asia. Don’t miss this one-stop resource for advancing WEE in the region.

🔬 Researchers to Watch

Dr. Anjal Prakash — Climate resilience and gender researcher
👉 Profile

Why follow:
Anjal Prakash is a Clinical Associate Professor and Research Director at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy, ISB Hyderabad. He co-edited the influential book "Engendering Climate Change: Learnings from South Asia" (Routledge, 2020), which remains one of the few comprehensive works on gendered experiences of environmental change in the region. His work highlights how climate resilience efforts must be rooted in local gendered realities, not top-down policy prescriptions.

👉 View the book here

Dr. Navroz K. Dubash — Climate governance and urban policy researcher
👉 Profile

Why follow:
Dr. Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, specialising in climate change policy and governance. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report. His recent work, "Governing India's Energy Transition: Justice and Decarbonization" (Energy Policy, 2025), explores the complexities of India's shift towards sustainable energy, emphasising the importance of equity and justice in climate policy. He also edited the volume "India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate into Development", which is widely regarded as a foundational text in South Asian climate policy discourse.​

📊 Visual Tools and Resources

🌲 India State of Forest Report 2023 (ISFR)
👉 Read here

India’s total forest and tree cover now stands at 8,27,357 sq km, accounting for 25.17% of the country’s geographical area. While this marks a modest increase from previous assessments, the report raises concerns about the quality of this growth, highlighting a shift towards plantation forests and a decline in natural forest cover. Notably, mangrove cover has decreased by 7.43 sq km since 2021, underscoring the need for focused conservation efforts. ​

🏙️ Our World in Data — Urbanisation Overview
👉 Explore here

This resource offers an expansive overview of global urbanization trends, featuring interactive charts and data visualizations that track urban growth over time. It provides valuable insights into how urbanization impacts economic development, infrastructure, and environmental sustainability, serving as a critical tool for understanding the dynamics of urban change.​

📊 PRS India — Environment and Climate Change Budget Analysis
👉 Read here

PRS Legislative Research provides a detailed analysis of the budget allocations for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The analysis covers trends in funding, key policy initiatives, and challenges in implementation. It serves as a valuable resource for understanding the financial commitments and policy directions of the Indian government concerning environmental conservation and climate change mitigation.

🎨 Visual Culture Feature

Contemporary Indian Artists Respond to Climate and Memory
👉 Explore here

A vivid survey of Indian artists using sculpture, installation, and mixed media to respond to ecological loss, disappearing coastlines, and vanishing forests. Their works bring personal, political, and emotional depth to the abstract numbers of climate change.

🎥 Documentary to Watch

Writing with Fire (2021)
👉 Official site and viewing options

A stunning portrait of the women behind Khabar Lahariya, India's only all-female Dalit-led news network. Writing with Fire chronicles how these fearless journalists redefined resilience, pushing against caste, gender, and systemic injustice to bring untold stories into the light.

A reminder that true resilience is not just surviving hardship — it’s choosing to challenge power structures while carrying your communities forward.

📖 Books of the Month

Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq
👉 Buy on Amazon

Twelve unflinching short stories from Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq, confronting the entanglements of patriarchy, caste, religion, and survival. Mushtaq’s vivid portraits — from widowed Muslim women to defiant Dalit daughters — challenge social violence with dark humor and fierce empathy. Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

Rakku’s Story: Structures of Ill-Health and the Source of Change by Sheila Zurbrigg
👉 Read on Internet Archive

A powerful oral history that follows Rakku, a Dalit woman navigating caste, poverty, and systemic health injustice in Tamil Nadu. Sheila Zurbrigg brilliantly weaves personal narrative and structural critique, exposing how public health failure is rooted in the lived realities of oppression. Essential reading for anyone rethinking development and resilience from the ground up.

🗞️ Development Grapevine

• CII Pushes for Labour Codes and Women's Workforce Participation in Budget 2025-26
  👉 Read

  While CII’s emphasis on formalising labour and enhancing women's workforce participation is encouraging, real transformation will require not just policy tweaks but systemic changes — including better childcare infrastructure, safety reforms, and dismantling deep-rooted informal barriers.

• WHO Report: Health System Disruptions Deepening Post-Pandemic
  👉 Read

  The pandemic's long tail is reshaping health systems globally, but the burden falls disproportionately on low- and middle-income countries. Without serious investment in public health infrastructure and equity-focused recovery plans, global health gaps will only widen further.

  ---

🎓 Upcoming Trainings & Webinars

1. Measuring Development 2025: Biodiversity on Land and at Sea

• Date: April 29, 2025

• Organiser: World Bank

• Format: Hybrid (Washington, D.C. & Online)

• Description: An annual conference discussing innovative approaches to measuring biodiversity and its impact on development.

• Link: Event Details​

2. World Bank Land Conference 2025

• Dates: May 5–8, 2025

• Organiser: World Bank

• Format: In-person (Washington, D.C)

• Description: A premier global forum for the land sector, bringing together over 1,000 participants to discuss policy-relevant research and technical issues.

• Link: Event Details​

3. Harnessing Digital Transformation for Good

• Date: May 8, 2025

• Organizer: Center for Global Development (CGD)

• Format: Virtual

• Description: A discussion on how digital transformation can reduce poverty and enhance resilience in Asia, focusing on the region's vulnerability to extreme weather events.

• Link: Event Details​

4. GovTech and Public Sector Innovation Global Forum 2025

• Dates: May 27–28, 2025

• Organiser: World Bank

• Format: Details to be announced

• Description: A forum to discuss AI and emerging technologies in public sector efficiency.

• Link: Event Details​

5. First Annual Research Conference on Global Lead Exposure

• Dates: June 3–4, 2025

• Organizer: Center for Global Development (CGD)

• Format: Hybrid (Washington, D.C. & Online)

• Description: A conference bringing together researchers, policymakers, and implementers to address global lead poisoning.

• Link: Event Details​

📝 Doing Better Research with Varna

Tip of the Month:

Make your recommendations visible — not buried.

In every evaluation, highlight three actionable policy steps upfront. Don't let your best ideas drown under jargon.

😂 Funsies

Q: Why did the researcher get lost?
A: They forgot to define their control group!

📖 Disambiguation Corner

• Odds vs Likelihood:

  • Odds = probability of an event happening vs not happening

  • Likelihood = probability of observed data given a model

• Reach vs Impact:

  • Reach = How many people engaged

  • Impact = How many people changed

🛠️ Platform to Explore

ImpakT — Mission-Driven Job Board
👉 Explore here

Looking to work on climate, health, education, gender, or development projects? ImpakT curates remote and impact-driven job opportunities globally, with a strong emphasis on meaningful, ethical work. It is ideal for researchers, policy enthusiasts, and change-makers seeking their next mission.

✉️ Hey, thank you! :)

Thank you for reading The Research Rundown – April 2025 Edition!
Curiosity, criticality, and compassion must always guide research.

P.S.
You can also explore OpenStacks.dev — a free platform of open-access research tools and guides, made by yours truly.

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See you next month!

Varna Sri Raman
Editor, The Research Rundown

• Must Read Recommendations

• Podcast Recommendations

• Information Mapping and how it can help you

• The history of the Hawthorne Effect

  AND MORE….

Section 1: Must Read Recommendations 

Four new(ish) papers with exciting insights and applications for anyone interested in education, climate change and public health. 

A. Climate change and health in school-based education: A scoping review protocol

Haines and team have unveiled a scoping review protocol that delves into integrating climate change and health topics in South Asian school curricula. This pioneering work aims to map the terrain of existing educational approaches and spotlight the gaps in climate change and health education. The comprehensive and systematic methodology is set to shape future curriculum development and academic policies. This is a must-read for anyone interested in equipping the younger generation with the knowledge to combat the health impacts of climate change.

B. Global public health intelligence: World Health Organization operational practices

Hamblion et al. take us behind the scenes of the World Health Organization's (WHO) public health intelligence (PHI) operations. This eye-opening piece details how the WHO detects, verifies, assesses, and responds to acute public health threats on a global scale. The PHI activities, underpinned by the International Health Regulations (2005), involve continuously scanning multiple information sources for potential public health risks. This article underscores the crucial role of early detection and response in mitigating the impact of public health emergencies.

C. Policies and practices of climate change education in South Asia: Towards a support framework for an impactful climate change adaptation

Amina Maharjan and team provide a riveting exploration of climate change education in South Asia. The article scrutinises how climate change education is addressed in the climate policies of South Asian countries and the implementation of these policies within the respective countries. The findings reveal a pressing need for effective policy implementation at local levels. This article is a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in climate change education and policy implementation.

D. Migration and Household Adaptation in Climate-Sensitive Hotspots in South Asia

In a compelling synthesis, Rashmi Singh & Carol Kerven discuss how migration is a vital livelihood diversification strategy and a response to various risks, including climate change, in the Himalayan region of South Asia. Migration outcomes are often influenced by who moves, where, and what capacities they possess. This article is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how migration can be effectively deployed towards an impactful climate change adaptation.

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Section 2: Podcasts Worth Listening To

Tune into these thought-provoking podcasts, covering everything from environmental conservation and gender attitudes to women's economic challenges and justice.

A. Podcast: Women in Economics

Episode: Seema Jayachandran, Change Attitudes Change Lives

Why I Recommend It: This episode explores economic progress, gender equality, and environmental conservation. Seema Jayachandran's research has led to tangible changes in gender attitudes in India's schools and the preservation of climate-critical forests in Uganda. Her insights provide a nuanced perspective on economic development, making this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in these topics.

B. Podcast Series: Women in Economics Podcast 

Why I Recommend It: This podcast series is a beacon of light in the male-dominated world of economics. It brings to the forefront the work of the world's top women economists and provides insights into various economic issues, including climate change. The series is a testament to the importance of diverse perspectives in economics.

C. Podcast: Gender and the Climate Crisis

Episode: Gender and the Climate Crisis

Why I Recommend It: This episode tackles the often-overlooked intersection of gender and climate change. It provides a comprehensive view of how the climate crisis is a gender issue, its effects on women in the Asia Pacific region, and how a gender perspective is incorporated into climate change policy. The discussion is enriched by the expertise of Irene Dankelman and Kavita Naidu, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in these issues.

4. Podcast: EGC Voices in Development Podcast | Yale Economic Growth Center

Why I Recommend It: This podcast series explores the issues of sustainable development and economic justice in low- and middle-income countries. It provides valuable insights into these crucial topics, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in development economics.

5. Podcast: International Economic Development | The Development Podcast

Why I Recommend It: This flagship World Bank podcast takes listeners on a journey around international development. It reveals the latest data, research, solutions, and testimonies of those affected. The global perspective it provides on economic growth is crucial for understanding the dynamics of development economics in South Asia.

Section 3: The Gender Post

Here are short, sharp summaries of recent articles on educational reforms, equality, violence, and more, all from a gender lens.

A. Gender Inequality in India: Tracing Its Origins, Examining Its Outcomes and Charting a Path Forward by Dr. R. Balasubramanian

Why I Like It: Balasubramanian's article is a tour de force, providing a comprehensive overview of gender inequality in India. His exploration of the historical origins of gender inequality, its causes and consequences, and strategies for progress is enlightening and inspiring. The emphasis on education as a tool for empowering women resonates with me, as does the call to challenge cultural norms and fortify legal mechanisms. This article is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding and addressing gender inequality in India.

B. Gender Disparity in Education in India Issues and Challenges by Vasundra Raje and Zeba

Why I Like It: Raje and Zeba's article is a deep dive into the gender disparities in education in India. Their critical perspective on the societal and economic factors contributing to these disparities is insightful and thought-provoking. The call for more material resources, such as schools and colleges, to encourage women's education and eliminate gender bias in society is a powerful reminder of the work that still needs to be done.

C. 3 ways to tackle gender-based violence in South Asian communities by Rida Tahir

Why I Like It: Tahir's article is a practical guide to tackling gender-based violence in South Asian communities. Her emphasis on comprehensive support services and establishing One-stop protection centres (OSPC) offers a holistic approach to a pervasive issue. This article is a valuable resource for anyone working in gender-based violence prevention.

D. Standing Up to Fight Gender-Based Violence in South Asia by Martin Raiser

Why I Like It: Raiser's article comprehensively examines how different systems address gender-based violence. His discussion of the World Bank's evolving approach to gender-based violence, influenced by the global movement to elevate women's rights, is informative and inspiring. This article is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding and addressing gender-based violence in South Asia.

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Section 4: Researchers, I Recommend You Follow:

Meet some trailblazing researchers in gender, development, and climate change. Follow them on LinkedIn or Twitter for daily inspiration and cutting-edge insights.

First, we have Dr. Shreya Shrikhande, an epidemiologist making waves with her research on climate change and health in Puducherry, India. Her work is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the intersection of these critical issues. 

Next, we turn to Dr. Sabyasachi Kar, a researcher at the University of Delhi's Institute of Economic Growth. He's been doing groundbreaking work on the political economy causes of India’s growth acceleration in the early 1990s. His insights are a must-read for anyone keen on understanding the Indian economic landscape. You can follow his work through his publications. A good list is on Effective States here.

Rayees Ahmad Sheikh and Sarthak Gaurav are doing some compelling work in the area of labour. They're exploring the societal and economic reasons for gender bias in labour in India. Their research is a real eye-opener and a valuable resource for those interested in gender studies and labour economics - especially this time-use survey and paper on Indian women. 

On the development economics front, Dr. Louise Tillin is someone to watch. She's been examining the sources of populism in India, and her work provides a unique perspective on this complex issue. 

Sharfaa Hussain is a name to remember for those interested in climate change. A researcher at Miranda House College, University of Delhi, she's been working on solutions to address threats from climate change. Her work is both innovative and inspiring; for instance, this paper on the effects of air pollution on forests in the Asian region makes for critical reading.  

In agricultural economics, Dr Vijay Laxmi Pandey is making significant strides. Recently, her work has explored how owning land influences women's empowerment and decision-making within households and suggested a direct causality between these and child health outcomes. Read more about this paper here. 

Finally, Dr. Kunal Sen is a name to note in the political economy. His examination of the political and economic causes of India’s economic growth acceleration in the early 1990s is comprehensive and insightful. Follow his IGC profile for insightful articles. 

These researchers are all doing fantastic work in their respective fields; happy reading!

Section 5: Data Analysis Tips:

Get the lowdown on using R and Python for your data analysis needs. I have tips on the best for clean data manipulation and killer visualisations.

Using R for Social Science Research

Tip: Leverage the 'tidyverse' package for efficient data manipulation and visualisation. The package’s cohesive syntax makes cleaning and analysing large datasets easier.  

Why I Recommend It: 'Tidyverse' allows for streamlined data wrangling and visualisation, making it indispensable for complex datasets. Integrating packages like ggplot2 for visualisations enhances the clarity of your findings. 

Explore tidyverse here.  

Effective Visualisation with Python

Tip: Utilise the 'matplotlib' and 'seaborn' libraries to create insightful visualisations. These tools are powerful for presenting complex data comprehensibly, aiding in better decision-making.  

Why I Recommend It: Matplotlib's customisation options, combined with Seaborn's aesthetic appeal, make these libraries perfect for precise, publication-quality graphs. 

Explore matplotlib here. 

Section 6: A Feast For Your Eyes

Discover the powerful artwork of Nalini Malani. Her piece, "In Search of Vanished Blood," blends traditional art with modern themes and is a visual treat you don't want to miss.

“In Search of Vanished Blood" is a captivating piece by Nalini Malani. This artwork is a groundbreaking installation that interrogates feminist issues by evoking ancient Hindu and Greek mythology. The work comprises six 11-minute video projections streamed around the room through five clear Mylar cylinders, hand-painted with various cultural and historical iconography. 

Why I Like It: Malani's work is a visual feast that vividly captures the struggles of women and marginalised communities, blending traditional art with modern themes². Her layered imagery and video projections create a dynamic, engaging experience that speaks to historical and contemporary issues. The artwork provides a rotating 360-degree spatial and temporal experience, immersing the viewer in a world where myth mingles with everyday life.

You can view the artwork at the Tate Museum or the M+ Facade. Enjoy this visual treat!

Section 7: Watch This

Check out this fantastic documentary on the empowerment of women in rural India. It’s an inspiring look at grassroots movements and the fight for gender equality.

Title: EQUAL HALF here.  

Published: May 2024  

Summary: This documentary highlights the lives and struggles of women in rural India, focusing on their efforts to achieve gender equality and economic empowerment. The film showcases various grassroots movements and initiatives that have uplifted women in these communities.  

Why I Like It: The film provides a powerful narrative on the importance of collective action and solidarity among women. It features real stories that are both inspiring and thought-provoking, offering a deep insight into the transformative impact of grassroots efforts. This video is an excellent resource for understanding women's real-life challenges and triumphs in rural India, making it highly relevant for those interested in gender studies and social development.

Section 8: A Book to Change Your Perspective: 

This month’s book pick challenges conventional economic narratives. Find out how socialist policies can positively impact women's lives.

Title: Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence

Link: https://amzn.in/d/hbzaSXp 

Author: Kristen Ghodsee  

Published: April 2024  

Summary: Ghodsee makes a compelling case for how socialist policies improve women's lives, including their intimate lives.  

Why I Like It: It provides a fresh perspective on economic policies and their impact on women's lives, challenging conventional capitalist narratives with well-researched arguments and engaging prose.

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Section 9: The Development Grapevine:

Dive into the latest debates in development economics. We’re talking about the World Bank, gender, and caste dynamics. It’s hot, it’s controversial, and it’s a must-read.

In the high-stakes world of global development, the World Bank's policies are under the microscope. The bank, a significant player in shaping the economic landscape of South Asia, has been rolling out strategies and action plans to improve gender equality and social inclusion. But these policies have sparked a fiery debate about their real-world impact, particularly on gender and caste dynamics.

Critics argue that these well-intentioned policies may inadvertently deepen the inequalities they aim to erase. For instance, a study titled "Caste, Gender and Jati," published by the World Bank itself, paints a complex picture of the interplay of caste, class, and gender in India. The study suggests that as lower castes accumulate wealth, empowerment measures can decline as these groups adopt the normative customs and practices of higher-ranked castes.

These debates underscore the intricate challenges in implementing development policies in societies as diverse and stratified as South Asia. They serve as a stark reminder that achieving social equity is a complex process that requires nuanced and context-specific approaches.

For more insights into this topic, The Guardian has published articles that comprehensively overview these ongoing debates. These articles are a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the World Bank's development policies and their impact on gender and caste dynamics in South Asia. 

1. Study reveals no equality for working women in any country: This article discusses a report from the World Bank that found the global gender gap was far more comprehensive than previously thought. The report investigated the impact of childcare and safety policies on women’s participation in the labour market in 190 countries. It found that when these two factors were considered, women, on average, enjoyed just 64% of the legal protections men do, down from the previous estimate of 77%.

2. The COVID-19 pandemic made the poorest countries even worse off, the World Bank warns: This article discusses the devastating impact of the pandemic on the world’s poorest countries. The World Bank's data showed that one in three countries eligible for grants and concessional loans under its International Development Association (IDA) arm was poorer on average than on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These articles provide a comprehensive overview of the ongoing debates around the World Bank's development policies and their impact on gender and caste dynamics in South Asia. Happy reading!

Why It's Important: This controversy highlights the need for more inclusive and equitable development strategies. The critiques counterbalance mainstream economic policies, urging a re-evaluation of practices that may inadvertently perpetuate inequities.

Section 10: Research History 

Have you ever wondered where the Hawthorne Effect comes from? Learn about the fascinating history behind this crucial research concept and its lasting impact on conducting studies.

The Origin of the Hawthorne Effect: The Hawthorne Effect is a well-known phenomenon in research, particularly in social sciences and organisational behaviour. It originated from a series of experiments conducted at the Hawthorne Works, a Western Electric factory in Cicero, Illinois, between 1924 and 1932.

The studies, led by Elton Mayo and his colleagues, were initially intended to examine the effects of physical conditions on workers' productivity. Researchers observed that productivity improved whenever changes were made, such as altering the lighting levels. However, they soon realised that observing the workers and the attention they received from the researchers was the cause of the increased productivity rather than the specific changes in working conditions.

This unintended outcome led to the identification of the Hawthorne Effect, which describes how individuals modify their behaviour in response to their awareness of being observed. The term has since become a fundamental concept in the design and interpretation of research studies, emphasising the importance of considering observer effects when analysing human behaviour.

Section 11: Doing Better Research with Varna

Do you need help with your evaluation reports? I’ve got you covered with tips on using information mapping to make them clear, concise, and impactful.

How to Use Information Mapping to Write a Good Evaluation Report: Writing an evaluation report can be daunting, but information mapping can make the process more manageable and the final product readable. Here's how you can use this technique to enhance your evaluation reports.

Clearly state what you aim to achieve with your report. This sets the stage for the rest of your document. Next, develop a detailed outline before you start writing. This should include significant sections such as introduction, methodology, findings, conclusions, and recommendations. A logical structure helps your audience follow your argument and understand your findings. Employ headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up text and highlight key points. Consistent formatting makes your report easier to read and navigate.  

Remember to avoid unnecessary jargon and lengthy descriptions. Keep your language simple and your sentences concise. Concise writing is more engaging and ensures your key messages aren't lost in lengthy prose.

Remember the humble summary.

Summarise your main findings and recommendations at the beginning and end of your report. This helps readers quickly grasp the most essential information, especially if they need more time.

Information mapping is valuable for writing clear, structured, effective evaluation reports. By organising your information logically and presenting it clearly, you can make your reports more impactful and easier to understand. Ultimately, the best writing is the kind that is understood fully. 

The gains from Information Mapping: 

If this sounds interesting and helpful, here is some further reading to help you get started with information mapping. 

Here is how it has been proven helpful for wicked, complex social problems. 

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Section 12: Listen Up! 

Need some music while you work? Check out the Indian LoFi playlist. It’s packed with songs to keep you inspired and working.

Title: Indian Lofi  

Description: Here is a playlist filled with Hindi/Bollywood LoFi that makes excellent background music while you read and study. It is perfect for staying motivated while working on your research projects.  

Link:

Section 13: Funsies

Haha time! 

1. Why did the researcher bring strings to the lab?

To tie up loose ends in their theories!

2. A researcher, an engineer, and a mathematician were given the same problem: Find the volume of a red rubber ball.

- The engineer measured the diameter, used the volume formula for a sphere, and got an answer.

- The mathematician measured the diameter, integrated over the surface, and got an answer.

- The researcher went to the library, looked up "red rubber ball," and found the volume in a reference book.

3. Why did the research paper look both ways before crossing the street?

To avoid getting caught in cross-referencing!

Section 14: Disambiguation

Need help with research terms? I break down commonly confused terms like odds vs. likelihood and reach vs. impact. Get clear, and stay informed.

A. Odds vs. Likelihood

Odds: The ratio of the probability of an event occurring to the probability of it not occurring.  

Likelihood: A function of the parameters of a statistical model given specific observed data used in parameter estimation.  

Example: In a coin toss, the odds of getting heads is 1:1 (since there's one way to get heads and one way to get tails). The likelihood estimates the probability of heads given a series of coin toss results.

B. Reach vs. Impact

Reach The total number of people exposed to a message or intervention.  

Impact: The change that occurs due to the message or intervention.  

Example: A health campaign may reach 10,000 people, but the impact is measured by how many people change their health behaviours.

Section 15: Bonus

A. Have you heard about the Data for Impact: Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Resources website? This platform, developed by the Data for Impact Project, offers a wealth of resources tailored explicitly for M&E. It includes various tools, guides, and methodologies that can be used to monitor and evaluate the impact of different projects and interventions. The resources cover multiple topics, from designing M&E plans to data collection and analysis, providing a one-stop shop for all your M&E needs.

B. While reading, check out this Free Data Analysis Tool: Google Colab. It is a free tool that lets you write and execute Python code in your browser, making data analysis and visualisation a breeze. 

Section 16: Hiring in Research in South Asia:

1. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Position: Programme Specialist (Social Policy)

Location: New Delhi, India

Description: Design and implement social policy strategies to enhance inclusive growth and development. Requires a master’s degree in social sciences, public policy, or a related field, with at least seven years of relevant experience.

Apply Here: UNDP Careers @ https://jobs.undp.org

Deadline: June 23, 2024

2. The World Bank

Position: Social Development Specialist

Location: Colombo, Sri Lanka

Description: Integrate social development considerations into World Bank projects and policies. This position requires a master’s degree in social sciences or a related field and at least five years of relevant experience.

Apply Here: World Bank Jobs @ https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/careers 

Deadline: June 30, 2024

3. Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)

Position: Research Associate

Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh

Description: Conduct field research, manage data collection, and analyse data for various development economics projects. Requires a bachelor’s degree in economics, social sciences, or related field, with relevant research experience.

Apply Here: J-PAL Careers @ https://www.povertyactionlab.org/careers 

Deadline: June 20, 2024

Section 17: Upcoming Webinars and Programmes:

Gender:

1. The OECD Forum on Gender Equality will be held June 10-11, 2024. This forum will address advancing gender equality amid green, energy, and digital transitions. 

2. The 2nd World Conference on Gender Equality (GECONF) will be held from June 14 to 16, 2024. This conference provides a platform for the industry and other stakeholders to discuss critical challenges, learn from best practices adopted worldwide, and build consensus on strategies that will help strengthen the enabling environment and deliver sustainable outcomes. 

Social Policy:

1. A Special Programme Webinar Series 2024 by UNEP is on June 4-5, 2024. This series of two online workshops is for prospective applicants under the Eighth Round of funding. 

2. The 2024 Economic Future Forum, organised by the International Economic Development Council, will be held from June 16 to 18, 2024. This forum will discuss the economic future, focusing on international development. 

Public Health:

1. The WHO Technical Webinar Series on Climate Change and Health takes place throughout June 2024. These webinars bring together public health experts, scientists, and policymakers to discuss various topics related to epidemics, such as disease outbreaks, pandemic response, and vaccine development.

Section 18: Online short courses

A. Social Protection for People Affected by Tuberculosis: An Introduction

Offered by: World Health Organization, WHO

This self-paced course discusses social protection and poverty alleviation, critical components of welfare systems.

B. Introduction to Participatory Approaches in Public Health

Offered by: Imperial College London

This course introduces you to participatory approaches to public health. You will learn about the history of participatory health research and why it is essential to solving contemporary public health challenges.

C. Child Rights and Why They Matter

Offered by: UNICEF

This short course will transform and refresh your understanding of child rights and a child rights approach, introduce you to UNICEF’s mandate related to child rights, and inspire you to apply a child rights lens to your everyday work and life.

                             ★★★

Don’t forget to:

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Varna Sri Raman  

Editor, Research Rundown