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Whether economic liberalisation generates employment in developing countries remains a matter of debate in academic and policy circles. This thesis explores the labour market implications of a series of liberalising product market reforms initiated in India in the 1990s. The analysis of Chapter 2 indicates that declines in input tariffs are associated with increased formal firm employment across all Indian states, while FDI reform is associated with increased (reduced) formal firm employment in states with flexible (inflexible) labour markets (1990-1997). The FDI effect holds for permanent employment in both groups of states but only affects casual (contract) employment to a significant extent in states with flexible labour markets. The evidence is supportive of the baseline results being driven by product market competition within the formal sector. Chapter 3 reveals that tariff liberalisation is not associated with significant changes in employment in informal enterprises, possibly because these enterprises rarely engage in international trade. However, on average and ceteris paribus, delicensing (FDI reform) is associated with statistically significant increases in informal employment and informal enterprise numbers in states with inflexible (flexible) labour markets (1990-2001). There is some evidence that the delicensing effect is attributable to increases in product market competition in delicensed industries in the post-reform period. The mechanism underlying the result associated with FDI liberalisation is more uncertain and could be one or a combination of competition and collaborative linkages between informal and formal manufacturers. Chapter 4 examines the impact of a post-1996 policy reform (‘SSI dereservation'), which liberalised product markets that had long been reserved for small businesses, on employment in informal manufacturing enterprises. On average and ceteris paribus, dereservation is associated with increased employment in larger informal ‘establishments', but not in tiny household enterprises (1995-2006), attributable in part to increases in product market competition with large formal firms.

This thesis investigates the svataḥ-prāmāṇyam doctrine of the 7th century Indian philosopher Bhaṭṭa Kumārila, based on an analysis of this doctrine as presented in the Bṛhaṭ-ṭīkā and in the Śloka-vārttika. The original contribution of this thesis consists in a novel interpretation of Kumārila's claim which diverges from the interpretations of the classical Indian commentators as well as those of recent scholarship by John Taber and Dan Arnold. Rather than a phenomenological or Reidean epistemology, this research argues that Kumārila provides a normative epistemology. In contrast to the interpretation of Dan Arnold, which roots justification and truth in the phenomenological fact of mere awareness which is undefeated, it is argued here that Kumārila articulates a normative process which mandates the believer to strengthen her beliefs through a purposive and goal-oriented process. The thesis begins with a consideration of the notion of svabhāva, to which Kumārila appeals, making a dispositional essentialist reading of this term, as a real causal power or disposition which is the essence of an entity conditional on its existence. It is then argued that Kumārila's claim concerns the manifestation of a competence. The operational dichotomy between pramāṇa and non-pramāṇa is compared to that between Good and Bad Cases in epistemological disjunctivism. It is shown that Kumārila articulates a belief protocol by analogy with normative processes in generative grammar and in legal and ritual interpretation. An antifoundationalist defence of this protocol and its applicability to the case of beliefs formed from Vedic testimony is provided. It is suggested that Kumārila's claim engages more closely with Sosa's notion of aptness than with any notion of justification.

This thesis provides a critical analysis of shifting US foreign policy toward India. The study covers the period from the end of the Second World War up to the end of the first Obama administration. With Indo-US relations since India's independence in 1947 used as a backdrop, the focus is on policy from the end of the Cold war and, specifically, from the time of the 9/11 attack. The thesis explores, in both conceptual and empirical terms, the reasons for United States growing involvement in the South Asian region and its enhanced engagement with India. The principle aim of the study is to determine whether the ramifications of 9/11 were mainly responsible for present state of Indo-US relations, or whether US policy toward India was driven by the broader changes in international affairs associated with globalisation, among which the rise of China is paramount. The approach taken is a critical historical analysis that has involved review of secondary literature and close examination of a range of primary US and Indian government material, supplemented by field work conducted in the US that involved interviews with policy makers and academics. This thesis shows that US policy toward India has two major dimensions: the first is the US adaptation of its foreign policy in response to the changed international political climate after the Cold War, a shift in which the question of its relative decline from sole superpower status was critical. The second dimension is India's rise, which has given it growing geo-strategic importance in the 21st century and has created the potential for India to become an essential partner in US attempts to maintain the stability of the international order and its own hegemonic role with this order. The argument of the thesis is that US policy toward India is more one of continuity than change, and that the driving force behind recent Indo-US relations is not primarily the consequences of 9/11, but is rather the result of power shifts within a more globalised world. In this changed context both the US and India have looked for closer, strategic relationships with countries that share their interests. While far from being united in this respect, their interests are sufficiently common so that from the end of the Cold War the US and India have developed a closer partnership. The effects of 9/11 contributed to an environment conducive to this partnership, but they were not the primary factor.

Through an ethnographic study of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) - an organisation renowned for its persistent fight against corruption in India - this thesis explores the aspirations and tensions of anti-corruption activists. In their commitment to improving governance structures by means of campaigning for transparency and accountability laws and policies, these activists ultimately aspire to strengthen democratic practice and to improve statecraft. By studying in detail the forms of actions, dynamics, politics and relationships among anti-corruption activists, the thesis explores how ideas of the state and democracy come to be internalised and addressed by civil society actors. The context is the nation-wide anti-corruption agitation that swept the country through most of 2011. This agitation gave rise to friction between civil society actors otherwise working for similar ends, leading to tension and competition on what constitutes democratic process and procedure. Based on extensive fieldwork, the thesis examines the ways in which MKSS responded to the shifting political landscape of anti-corruption activism. Drawing on the notion of relationality, I argue that political positions and identities are shaped and consolidated circumstantially through an oppositional stance and through processes of 'othering'. In considering the diverging understandings of democracy among civil society actors, this thesis seeks to expand ethnographically the theoretical concept of 'agonistic pluralism' (Mouffe 1999), that postulates that political conflict and disagreement is not only integral, but, moreover, crucial to democratic debate. Based on this conceptualisation, the conflict over the meaning of democracy among the anti-corruption activists is considered here as creating space for the expansion and enrichment of democratic debate. The very essence of democracy in India, as will be concluded, is constituted by such a productive tension.

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India is one of the largest developing countries in the world. Although many issues and phenomena arising from its transitional economy are worthy of research from an accounting perspective, the Indian accounting market is a field that remains relatively unexplored in the extant literature. One of the institutional features of India is that while it is mandatory for public sector companies and banks to have joint auditors, their appointment is voluntary for other companies. In a thesis motivated by this and other institutional features and the absence of related accounting and auditing studies conducted in an Indian setting, I examine the relations of auditor type and firm ownership with the types of auditor opinions issued under the joint audit requirement. Using a sample of 1,142 firm-year observations from the major Indian stock exchanges from 2006-2008, I develop an auditor opinion model to examine the relations between firm ownership, auditor type and auditor opinions under the joint-audit requirement that applies in India. Companies’ self-selection bias for auditors is also considered and corrected using the Heckman 2-step method. Based on the empirical results, I report as follows. First, Big 4 auditors are more likely to issue modified opinions than local Indian auditors. Second, the Indian government assumes a supervisory role rather than a collusive role and the joint-audit requirement is associated with a higher level of auditor reporting quality. Finally, companies audited by joint auditors are more likely to receive modified opinions than companies audited by a single auditor. The findings provide evidence of the importance of understanding the pattern of auditor opinion in India and the incentives of joint auditors, as well as the influence this pattern has on auditor reporting quality in a transitional economy.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University

The project entitled PEACOCK PILGRIMAGE comprises two components: the screenplay for a feature film, entitled Peacock Angel, and an exegesis, which explores the underlying influences on the screenplay. Peacock Angel is the story of a young girl, Deva, who grew up in India with a fascination for peacocks, especially the fictional peacock angel. After a time of isolation as a teenager in the West, she returns to India to reconcile with a tragic past and reconnect with her true longings. India is the place that mends her wounded heart. Within the symbolic realms of the screenplay Deva, as the central character, becomes the peacock ‘goddess’. Her journey allows us to explore layers within the themes of identity, memory and fantasy. The project holds an East/West theme, of disillusionment with Western material values and appreciation of the depth of Indian culture, of “the land where the heart is king”. Field research on the peacock, the key motif of the project, has led me on a journey through India that has been full of synchronicity and given me a particularly rich taste of her timeless culture. The exegesis elaborates on aspects of my journey, on the concepts of synchronicity and pilgrimage, and on the motif of peacock – highlighting its symbolic and mythical meanings. It also situates Peacock Angel within the field of world cinema, in the category of Western films made in India and the genre of magic realism.