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Operationalisation is the process of turning abstract concepts into observable and measurable quantities. It is required for data collection.
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When is it advisable to adopt the field research method of inquiry?
It is advisable to adopt field research when you need to collect firsthand data in a natural setting, observe behaviors or phenomena directly, and gain a deeper understanding of a particular context. Field research is particularly useful for studying complex social interactions, cultural practices, and environmental dynamics.
What is operationalisation and conceptualisation?
Conceptualization, Operationalization, and MeasurementCharles W. MuellerResearch begins with a "problem" or topic. Thinking about the problem results in identifying concepts that capture the phenomenon being studied. Concepts, or CONSTRUCTS , are ideas that represent the phenomenon. Conceptualization is the process whereby these concepts are given theoretical meaning. The process typically involves defining the concepts abstractly in theoretical terms. Describing social phenomena and testing hypotheses require that concept(s) be operationalized. Operationalization moves the researcher from the abstract level to the empirical level, where variables rather than concepts are the focus. It refers to the operations or procedures needed to measure the concept(s). Measurement is the process by which numerals (or some other labels) are attached to levels or characteristics of the variables. The actual research then involves empirically studying the variables to make statements (descriptive, relational, or causal) about the concepts
Indian nuclear deal with US?
There are several pointers that this may have happened on account of both domestic and international factors. Indications are that the Indian government's negotiations with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which went into four rounds, may be something of a charade to maintain the pretence that the deal is moving forward and would be completed by March or April. The process of completing the deal has suffered external setbacks, such as the resignation of the key U.S. negotiator, undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns. But the main reasons are domestic. The most important domestic factor at work has been the strong, widespread domestic political opposition to the deal, and in particular, the Left parties' threat to withdraw critical support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government if it proceeds to "operationalise" it. Such withdrawal would put the government in a parliamentary minority. Although the Left agreed in mid-November to allow the government to approach the IAEA for a special safeguards (inspections) agreement mandated under the deal, it did so on condition that no agreement would be signed unless first approved by a 15-member joint committee of the Left and the UPA. The first clear indication that the UPA would not risk withdrawal of support came on Jan. 11 when Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said: "We have to carry our supporters (the Left) with us because if they withdraw support, the government will be in a minority. Nobody is going to sign an international agreement of this nature with a minority government." Also at work has been the UPA's aversion to a mid-term election, especially after its leading party, the Congress, suffered a stinging electoral defeat in Gujarat at the hands of its arch rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), last month and lost the election in the small northern state of Himachal Pradesh. During the past month, many Left leaders have reiterated that they remain implacably opposed to the nuclear deal and will not be party to its further negotiation beyond the IAEA. Under the deal, a 45-nation association known as the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) must grant India complete exemption from its tough regulations pertaining to nuclear commerce after the IAEA safeguards are agreed. And before the deal becomes operational, the U.S. Congress must ratify a bilateral agreement signed last July between the U.S. and India, called "the 123 agreement" (because it refers to Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954). Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPM) , said on Jan. 20 that the government cannot move forward with the deal. "It has gone to the IAEA, it will come back to this committee, which we have set up...it is not going forward anywhere." However, the clearest and most categorical indicator came earlier this week with the release of the draft political resolution to be discussed at the CPM's Congress in March. Paragraph 2.32 of the document reads: "The firm stand taken by the Party and the Left brought ... (the nuclear deal) to the national centrestage...the Party exposed the adverse impact for India's independent foreign policy and strategic autonomy if the nuclear agreement locks in India to a strategic tie up with the United States." It goes on to say: "The Party and the Left decided that it would do whatever is necessary to block the agreement. Faced with the political consequences of such a confrontation with the Left, the Congress and the UPA decided not to proceed further with the operationalisation of the agreement." Given that India's communist parties take their party congresses and associated documents extremely seriously, this statement must be taken at its face value. "It would be astonishing if as important a document as the draft political resolution of a communist party were to contain a false statement or a gross mis-assessment of existing political realities," says Achin Vanaik, a professor of political science at Delhi University, and a long-time student of Left-wing politics. So the Left's offer to allow the government to go to Vienna to negotiate a safeguards agreement might essentially have been a face-saving formula. However, the negotiations with the IAEA have been far from smooth. Their slow progress over more than two months has belied the government's expectation, expressed repeatedly in the past, that the special safeguards agreement would go through like a shot and be concluded within weeks, if not days. In part, the expectation was based on as its strong support to expressed for the deal by IAEA director-general Mohamed El-Baradei. In reality, the Vienna talks were marked by a number of obstacles, including India's insistence on guarantees of uninterrupted fuel supplies for its reactors, and its demand to be allowed to build a strategic fuel reserve. Equally tricky was the issue of India being allowed to take "corrective measures" in case a supplier of nuclear fuel, materials or equipment stops their delivery. The latest problem pertains to the definition of what constitutes "peaceful purposes" in the use of nuclear energy. Under the "123 agreement", this excludes research in or use of materials in "the development of any nuclear explosive device". But it not only covers the "use of information, nuclear material, equipment or components" in such fields as "research, power generation, medicine," etc, but also includes "power for a military base, drawn from any power network, production of radio-isotopes to be used in medical purposes in military environment for diagnostics," etc. The Indian government insists on the "123 agreement" definition, but the IAEA says this may not be easily accepted by its board of governors. It is possible that the Vienna talks could founder on one or more of several contentious issues, major or minor. If New Delhi takes an inflexible position, for instance, by insisting that certain clauses such as guaranteed fuel supplies must be part of the operative text of the agreement, and not just included in its preamble that would be enough to stall the negotiations. "Taking a tough position makes sense from one point of view," says M. V. Ramana, a nuclear affairs analyst based at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Environment and Development in Bangalore. "The UPA government would prefer it that the deal fails at the IAEA than that it is killed by the Left." "If the deal collapses in Vienna, the UPA can claim virtue by saying it didn't compromise on principles or the national interest, and instead sacrificed the deal,'' he told IPS. Meanwhile, signs have emerged of growing international opposition to the nuclear deal. Australia under its new Labour government has reversed its earlier decision to sell uranium to India, and says that it cannot supply fuel to a country that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Earlier this month, more than 120 organisations and individuals from 23 countries signed a petition urging the NSG and the IAEA Board of Governors to oppose any arrangement that would give India special exemptions or access to technology related to plutonium reprocessing, uranium enrichment or heavy water production. The letter-petition is an initiative of the Washington-based Arms Control Association and the Tokyo-based Citizens Nuclear Information Centre. It has been supported by Mayors for Peace, an international network headed by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasak
What is the government doing about child labor?
Initiatives towards Elimination of Child Labour - Action Plan and Present StrategyThe problem of child labour continues to pose a challenge before the nation. Government has been taking various pro-active measures to tackle this problem. However, considering the magnitude and extent of the problem and that it is essentially a socio-economic problem inextricably linked to poverty and illiteracy, it requires concerted efforts from all sections of the society to make a dent in the problem.Way back in 1979, Government formed the first committee called Gurupadswamy Committee to study the issue of child labour and to suggest measures to tackle it. The Committee examined the problem in detail and made some far-reaching recommendations. It observed that as long as poverty continued, it would be difficult to totally eliminate child labour and hence, any attempt to abolish it through legal recourse would not be a practical proposition. The Committee felt that in the circumstances, the only alternative left was to ban child labour in hazardous areas and to regulate and ameliorate the conditions of work in other areas. It recommended that a multiple policy approach was required in dealing with the problems of working children.Based on the recommendations of Gurupadaswamy Committee, the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act was enacted in 1986. The Act prohibits employment of children in certain specified hazardous occupations and processes and regulates the working conditions in others. The list of hazardous occupations and processes is progressively being expanded on the recommendation of Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee constituted under the Act.In consonance with the above approach, a National Policy on Child Labour was formulated in 1987. The Policy seeks to adopt a gradual & sequential approach with a focus on rehabilitation of children working in hazardous occupations & processes in the first instance. The Action Plan outlined in the Policy for tackling this problem is as follows:· Legislative Action Plan for strict enforcement of Child Labour Actand other labour laws to ensure that children are not employed in hazardous employments, and that the working conditions of children working in non-hazardous areas are regulated in accordance with the provisions of the Child Labour Act. It also entails further identification of additional occupations and processes, which are detrimental to the health and safety of the children.· Focusing of General Developmental Programmes for Benefiting Child Labour - As poverty is the root cause of child labour, the action plan emphasizes the need to cover these children and their families also under various poverty alleviation and employment generation schemes of the Government.· Project Based Plan of Action envisages starting of projects in areas of high concentration of child labour. Pursuant to this, in 1988, the National Child Labour Project (NCLP)Scheme was launched in 9 districts of high child labour endemicity in the country. The Scheme envisages running of special schools for child labour withdrawn from work. In the special schools, these children are provided formal/non-formal education along with vocational training, a stipend of Rs.100 per month, supplementary nutrition and regular health check ups so as to prepare them to join regular mainstream schools. Under the Scheme, funds are given to the District Collectors for running special schools for child labour. Most of these schools are run by the NGOs in the district.Government has accordingly been taking proactive steps to tackle this problem through strict enforcement of legislative provisions along with simultaneous rehabilitative measures. State Governments, which are the appropriate implementing authorities, have been conducting regular inspections and raids to detect cases of violations. Since poverty is the root cause of this problem, and enforcement alone cannot help solve it, Government has been laying a lot of emphasis on the rehabilitation of these children and on improving the economic conditions of their families.The coverage of the NCLP Scheme has increased from 12 districts in 1988 to 100 districts in the 9th Plan to 250 districts during the 10th Plan.Strategy for the elimination of child labour under the 10th PlanAn evaluation of the Scheme was carried out by independent agencies in coordination with V. V. Giri National Labour Institute in 2001. Based on the recommendations of the evaluation and experience of implementing the scheme since 1988, the strategy for implementing the scheme during the 10th Plan was devised. It aimed at greater convergence with the other developmental schemes and bringing qualitative changes in the Scheme. Some of the salient points of the 10th Plan Strategy are as follows:· Focused and reinforced action to eliminate child labour in the hazardous occupations by the end of the Plan period.· Expansion of National Child Labour Projectsto additional 150 districts.· Linking the child labour elimination efforts with the Scheme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of Ministry of Human Resource Development to ensure that children in the age group of 5-8 years get directly admitted to regular schools and that the older working children are mainstreamed to the formal education system through special schools functioning under the NCLP Scheme.· Convergence with other Schemes of the Departments of Education, Rural Development, Health and Women and Child Development for the ultimate attainment of the objective in a time bound manner.The Government and the Ministry of Labour & Employment in particular, are rather serious in their efforts to fight and succeed in this direction. The number of districts covered under the NCLP Scheme has been increased from 100 to 250, as mentioned above in this note. In addition, 21 districts have been covered under INDUS, a similar Scheme for rehabilitation of child labour in cooperation with US Department of Labour. Implementation of this Project was recently reviewed during the visit of Mr. Steven Law, Deputy Secretary of State, from the USA. For the Districts not covered under these two Schemes, Government is also providing funds directly to the NGOs under the Ministry's Grants-in-aid Schemefor running Special Schools for rehabilitation of child labour, thereby providing for a greater role and cooperation of the civil society in combating this menace.Elimination of child labour is the single largest programme in this Ministry's activities. Apart from a major increase in the number of districts covered under the scheme, the priority of the Government in this direction is evident in the quantum jump in budgetary allocationduring the 10th Plan. Government has allocated Rs. 602 crores for the Scheme during the 10th Plan, as against an expenditure of Rs. 178 crores in the 9th Plan. The resources set aside for combating this evil in the Ministry is around 50 per cent of its total annual budget.The implementation of NCLP and INDUS Schemes is being closely monitored through periodical reports, frequent visits and meetings with the District and State Government officials. The Government's commitment to achieve tangible results in this direction in a time bound manner is also evident from the fact that in the recent Regional Level Conferences of District Collectors held in Hyderabad, Pune, Mussoorie and Kolkata district-wise review of the Scheme was conducted at the level of Secretary. These Conferences provided an excellent opportunity to have one-to-one interaction with the Collectors, who play a pivotal role in the implementation of these Schemes in the District. Besides, these Conferences also helped in a big way in early operationalisation of Scheme in the newly selected 150 districts.The Government is committed to eliminate child labour in all its forms and is moving in this direction in a targeted manner. The multipronged strategy being followed by the Government to achieve this objective also found its echo during the recent discussions held in the Parliament on the Private Member's Bill tabled by Shri Iqbal Ahmed Saradgi. It was unanimously recognized therein that the problem of child labour, being inextricably linked with poverty and illiteracy, cannot be solved by legislation alone, and that a holistic, multipronged and concerted effort to tackle this problem will bring in the desired results.
What are some modern aspects of India?
A New Frontier The tradition of science and technology (S&T) in India is over 5,000 years old. A renaissance was witnessed in the first half of the 20th century. The S&T infrastructure has grown up from about Rs. 10 million at the time of independence in 1947 to Rs. 30 billion. Significant achievements have been made in the areas of nuclear and space science, electronics and defence. The government is committed to making S&T an integral part of the socio-economic development of the country. India has the third largest scientific and technical manpower in the world; 162 universities award 4,000 doctorates and 35,000 postgraduate degrees and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research runs 40 research laboratories that have made some significant achievements. In the field of Missile Launch Technology, India is among the top five nations of the world. Science and technology, however, is used as an effective instrument for growth and change. It is being brought into the mainstream of economic planning in the sectors of agriculture, industry and services. The country's resources are used to derive the maximum output for the benefit of society and improvement in the quality of life. About 85 per cent of the funds for S&T come directly or indirectly from the Government. The S&T infrastructure in the country accounts for more than one per cent of the GNP. S&T in India is entering a new frontier. Atomic Energy The prime objective of India's nuclear energy programme is the development and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes such as power generation, applications in agriculture, medicine, industry, research and other areas. India is today recognised as one of the most advanced countries in nuclear technology including production of source materials. The country is self-reliant and has mastered the expertise covering the complete nuclear cycle from exploration and mining to power generation and waste management. Accelerators and research and power reactors are now designed and built indigenously. The sophisticated variable energy cyclotron at Kolkata and a medium-energy heavy ion accelerator 'pelletron' set up recently at Mumbai are national research facilities in the frontier areas of science. As part of its programme of peaceful uses of atomic energy, India has also embarked on a programme of nuclear power generation. Currently eight nuclear stations are producing eight billion kilowatt of electricity. Four more nuclear power stations are planned. The new nuclear reactors are designed in India. The peaceful nuclear programme also includes producing radioisotopes for use in agriculture, medicine, industry and research. Space The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), under the Department of Space (DOS), is responsible for research, development and operationalisation of space systems in the areas of satellite communications, remote sensing for resource survey, environmental monitoring, meteorological services, etc. DOS is also the nodal agency for the Physical Research Laboratory, which conducts research in the areas of space science, and the National Remote Sensing Agency, which deploys modern remote-sensing techniques for natural resource surveys and provides operational services to user agencies. India is the only Third World Country to develop its own remote-sensing satellite. More... Electronics The Department of Electronics plays the promotional role for the development and use of electronics for socio-economic development. Many initiatives have been taken for a balanced growth of the electronics industry. The basic thrust has been towards a general rationalisation of the licensing policy with an emphasis on promotion rather than regulation, besides achieving economy of scale with up-to-date technology. A multi-pronged approach has been evolved for result-oriented R&D with special emphasis on microelectronics, telematics, and high-performance computing and software development. Application of electronics in areas such as agriculture, health and service sectors has also been receiving special attention. For upgrading the quality of indigenously manufactured products, a series of test and development centres and regional laboratories have been set up. These centres for electronic design and technology help small and medium electronics units. A number of R&D projects have been initiated to meet the growing requirements of the industry. Oceanography India has a coastline of more than 7,600 km and 1,250 islands, with its Exclusive Economic Zone covering over 2 million sq. km and continental shelf extending up to 350 nautical miles. The Department of Ocean Development was established in 1981 to ensure optimum utilisation of living resources, exploitation of non-living resources such as hydrocarbons and minerals, and to harness ocean energy. Two research vessels, ORV Sagar Kanya and FROV Sagar Sampada, are assessing and evaluating the resource potential. Survey and exploration efforts have been directed to assess sea bed topography, and concentration and quality of mineral nodules. In August 1987, India was allotted a mine site of 150,000 sq. km in the central Indian Ocean for further exploration and development of resources. India is the only developing country to have qualified for Pioneer Status by the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1982, and it is the first country in the world to have secured registration of a mine site. India has sent 13 scientific research expeditions to Antarctica since 1981, and has established a permanently manned base, Dakshin Gangotri. A second permanent station, an entirely indigenous effort, was completed by the eighth expedition. The objective is to study the ozone layer and other important constituents, optical aurora, geomagnetic pulsation and related phenomena. By virtue of its scientific research activities, India acquired Consultative Membership of the Antarctic Treaty in 1983 and acceded to the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources in July 1985. India is also a member of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, and has played a significant role in adopting a Minerals Regime for Antarctica in June 1988. A National Institute of Ocean Technology was set up for the development of ocean-related technologies. It is also responsible for harnessing resources of the coastal belts and islands. Biotechnology India has been the forerunner among the developing countries in promoting multi-disciplinary activities in this area, recognising the practically unlimited possibility of their applications in increasing agricultural and industrial production, and in improving human and animal life. The nucleus of research in this area is the National Biotechnology Board, constituted in 1982. A Department of Biotechnology was created in 1986. Recently, the Biotechnology Consortium India Ltd. was set up. It will play the role of a catalyst in bridging the gap between research and development, industrial and financial institutions. Some of the new initiatives taken include developing techniques for gene mapping, conservation of biodiversity and bioindicators research, special biotechnology programmes for the benefit of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and activities in the area of plantation crops. The areas which have been receiving attention are cattle herd improvement through embryo transfer technology, in vitro propagation of disease resistant plant varieties for obtaining higher yields, and development of vaccines for various diseases. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) CSIR was established in 1942, and is today the premier institution for scientific and industrial research. It has a network of 40 laboratories, two cooperative industrial research institutions and more than 100 extension and field centres. The council's research programmes are directed towards effective utilisation of the country's natural resources and development of new processes and products for economic progress. It is now playing a leading role in the fulfilment of the technology missions evolved by the Government. Abeyaar.com
