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Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 68). / The study evaluates the three alternatives identified by the (National) Planning Commission for housing the Urban Poor in India: Upgrading, site and services, and housing. The basis for evaluation is the relationship of the cost of development to the cost of each of the components in development and the number of beneficiaries. The framework for evaluation is proposed as a model to assist: 1 ) Project designers to identify the relative importance of the various design parameters in development and to indicate quickly to the concerned agencies the impact of standards and regulations, 2) State and local agencies to determine the affordable standards, and 3) Allocation of available National resources by choosing affordable alternatives for housing the urban poor. The application of the model is illustrated for Ahmedabad. Conclusions are drawn from the application and for a specific set of assumptions. The assumptions governing the values assigned to the parameters of the model are based on case studies and design studies for three low-income settlements in Ahmedabad. / by Rajagopalan M. Palamadai. / M.S.

The principal aim of this thesis is to elaborate a politicized reading of Amartya Sen's Capability Approach. It explores how capabilities are augmented through the forging of contentious political subjectivities. In it, I build on the criticism that Sen's framework can be more sensitive to questions of power and politics. Against some of his critics, however, I argue that its 'politicization' must focus analytical attention on politics as the struggle to produce subjects rather than limiting its understanding to negotiations over authority, resources and allocations. I draw on quantitative and qualitative analysis of ethnographic data from rural eastern India to substantiate my argument. The first two chapters outline the contours of the debates and introduce the social, economic and political life of the study localities. Each of the four subsequent chapters elucidates the manner in which the contentious processes through which political subjectivity are forged augments capabilities. In Chapter 3 I advance the case that any discussion on capabilities needs to analyze how subjects interrogate the relations of domination and subordination which they have hitherto been compelled to inhabit. Based on an analysis of the contentions spawned by the Indian Government's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, I point to how the notion of cooperative conflict is helpful in understanding these processes. In Chapter 4, I draw attention to the analytic importance that needs to be accorded to 'voice' in order to understand how subjects contest and reconstitute these relationships: I base my analysis on the claims made on elected representatives by different groups of people in respect to 'poverty cards'. This emphasis leads in Chapter 5 to an investigation of the ways in which agonistic exchanges in public spaces augments capabilities: this I do through an examination of two specific disputes involving a variety of local actors. I develop these insights further in Chapter 6 to show how our understanding of the processes through which capabilities may be enhanced gains analytically from an analysis of the manner in which subjects construct their identities. Chapter 7 concludes.

This research centres on the church's involvement in human development and poverty alleviation programmes. This thesis acknowledges that many Third World nations received political freedom from Western colonialists, but many of these countries failed to successfully exploit the political freedom to improve economic growth and human development. Poverty is therefore one of the major problems facing people in Third World countries. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002