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Welcome to the eighth edition of the Research Newsletter! Read on for some interesting blogs and articles written by our Research Wing members and updates from different projects. We also have a section on blogs and articles from our partners and collaborators.

platform. You may also want to share your thoughts or feelings on seeing some of these glimpses with us. Please feel free to do so at research@pradan.net

All the Research Newsletters are curated and edited by Arundhita Bhanjdeo in the Research Wing with design support from Visual Best. You can write to her at arundhita@pradan.net should you have any suggestions and questions.

You can check all the previous editions of Newsletter here

Sharing our work will not only draw interest amongst fellow colleagues but will also initiate wider possibilities of knowledge exchange, collaboration and practice. You can read more on the different research projects in ‘Research’ on sampark.net

Let’s end Covid, join hands with CHIRAG Vani

The second wave of COVID-19 that hit India on March 26, 2021, proved to be far deadlier as it unexpectedly swept even the rural areas, unlike the first wave. The situation in Chakai block in Jamui District of Bihar worsened in mid-April with a total of 4,737 cases from Jamui including 13 deaths in Chakai, reported by the government agencies as of April 20, 2021. Shuvajit Chakraborty along with Atul Purty write how the community media platform, CHIRAG Vani, was used to create a bridge between the community and relevant information and awareness during the pandemic.

Measuring Women’s Political Empowerment: The Women’s Empowerment as Political Citizens Index

Empowering women in political spaces is not only critical for inclusive governance but also bears the promise of improved and responsive policy-making. Despite the need for and benefits from women’s political empowerment, few frameworks exist to assess and diagnose the extent of prevailing political power imbalances, particularly at the individual level. Nivedita Narain, Soledad Prillaman and Natalya Rahman in this blog propose a theoretical framework to conceptualize the process of political empowerment at an individual level and then introduce a new index of political empowerment measured through surveys conducted with individual women.

To read the blog published on the EMERGE website.



			Mujhe Nyaya Chahiye, Paise Nahin: A Collective’s Fight for Justice Building awareness of the rights women have to a life of dignity and one free of violence and helping them speak up against the violation not just their physical bodies but also of their dignity found its first success when the women en masse voiced their opposition to the ‘justice’ meted out for them by the traditional village justice mechanism. A beginning has been made… Read on to see how Written by Kuntalika Kumbharkar, Manoj Kindo and Nivedita Narain based on their experiences from the GROW (Gender Responsive Organisations for Women) project. This article describes events from Simdega district in Jharkhand.



			Arundhita Bhanjdeo presented work from GRTA-CHIRAG at a conference organized by the Research for Development Impact Network and the University of Queensland, Australia. The theme of our session was on Understanding and Improving Food Systems for Recovery where we presented the salience of forest foods/ uncultivated foods in the Santhal community’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
	We also shared what are the various ways that we are adopting to strengthen the local food systems in Chakai and making them resilient. We had a wonderful line of questions and engagement from the conference participants, many of whom are working on strengthening food systems in various parts of the world. Together with Arundhita, in PRADAN, Ayesha Pattnaik, Nivedita Narain and Shuvajit Chakraborty are involved in this piece of work.



	Ayesha Pattnaik presented the paper “Destinations Matter: Migrant Workers and Social Policy in the Times of COVID” at the Citizenship in Pandemic Times conference. This conference was organised by the University of Edinburgh (Citizens, Nations and Migration Network), the University of Aberdeen (The Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society, and Rule of Law) and Wayne State University (Centre for the Study of Citizenship).
	This research was presented in a panel on Domestic Migration and Citizenship in India, alongside presentations by other researchers working in India. The panel discussion covered topics including the future of migrant inclusive policymaking, discrimination within migrant worker groups, experiences of immigrant workers in India, and the impact of the pandemic on citizenship. The paper was published in the European Journal of Development Research co-authored by Nitya Rao, Nivedita Narain, Shuvajit Chakraborty, Arundhita Bhanjdeo and Ayesha Pattnaik.

Nivedita Narain participated in an exciting panel organised by the EADI European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes ... EADI ISS #Solidarity2021 conference. The roundtable discussed how grant-induced collaborations between researchers and the global south to demonstrate ‘social impact’ are installed and maintained during and beyond a project’s lifetime. It explored questions such as: How equitable are the terms of the collaboration? What are the power dynamics between partners within and

across universities/research centers and countries? How can academic solidarities be built, managed, and maintained through these collaborations and what are the obstacles? How does the need to show ‘social impact’ of research influence the nature of such research collaborations?

To read the blog published on the EMERGE website.

	The Table-to-Farm Video challenge was organised by the Youth Alliance for Zero Hunger in line with the UN Food Systems Summit 2021. They asked youths to choose a national dish and trace back the ingredients to the source while highlighting the benefits of the dish and the challenges of the dish’s ingredients along with the food supply chain.
	They mapped a total of 7 entries from all over the world out of which our team from India (with Banwaar Peetha film: https://youtu.be/Kt8cHbpyick ) and one from Cambodia were invited as speakers. Here is the link to the episode which was posted on Facebook : (4) Facebook Live \| Facebook. Our team member Sushmita Dutta presented about Banwaar. Banwaar commonly known as field rats, a food item for the Santhal population is hunted by the children of the community and is eaten by cooking it in the form of a ‘peetha’.



	Indian School of Development Management (ISDM) announced the launch of the working paper titled, ‘The Five Phases of Growth and Decline in Non-Profit Organisations’ in the ISDM working paper series. Congratulations to the Organisational Life cycles team in PRADAN-Nivedita Narain, Anju Bhaskaran, Vinitika Lal and Sudhir Sahni for completing this project. The research team presented a broad overview of the study to the Management Unit. We also conducted a Sampark webinar on June 25th titled ‘From Genesis to Metamorphosis: Life cycle Stages of Non-Profit Organisations’ to share results and PRADAN case study produced in this project and to kick start discussions in the organisation around the topic.



			NNEdPro is an award-winning interdisciplinary think-tank, building upon over a decade of nutrition education, research and innovation. After the success of the 2020 kids kitchen challenge, they invited 8-13-year-olds to send in recipe photos with a written description of the ingredients, steps in preparation and final product relating to making a ‘healthy breakfast’ for the whole family based on regional/traditional recipes and healthy eating principles.
	Suryakant Tudu, a student of Lahanti learning center in Chakai, Jamui district, Bihar, prepared a meal named, ‘Fried Fermented Rice Balls’ and entered into the competition.The NNEdPro team announced and congratulated us as the dish, Fried Fermented Rice Balls, has won the award for the two categories: Includes Regional Foods and Best Presentation with Explanation. He has been invited to join their Junior Ambassador’s Club for 2021-2022! The winners were announced during the 7th International Summit on Saturday, 17th July. The judging panel was very impressed with the wonderful work we have put into preparing the breakfast dish!

Our collaborative effort (an output of GRTA-CHIRAG project) to produce an open access MOOC (massive open online course) with The Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development on creative extension approaches & communication strategies to address the wellbeing and empowerment of rural & urban communities, especially women & children is now online on SWAYAM platform. The course is meant for field level functionaries, frontline workers who work for community development (also people

associated with NGOs & Governments) and students enrolled in the PhD programme in community resource management & extension education (IGNOU).Nivedita Narain and Arundhita Bhanjdeo from PRADAN are a part of creating the curriculum and session videos together with, University of East Anglia, UK, ICRISAT, MSSRF, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health and Panjab University.

Check out the course structure and join the course using this link:

Arundhita Bhanjdeo and Ayesha Pattnaik were a part of writing the Dialogue Report for the Women’s Agency and Gender Equity in Food Systems Independent Dialogue (click here to read) co-convened by The Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development (NISD), TIGR2ESS, Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS) and Bharat Krishak Samaj . The report was published by the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 (UNFSS).

Nikhil Munakhiya, a student of M.Sc (Statistics) from IIT Kanpur worked with us as an intern helping to compile and analyse data sets on Knowledge Attitudes and Practices (KAP) study conducted with Frontline workers in Chakai and Shikaripara under the CHIRAG project.

Here’s what he had to say about his work experience:

My experience was really great. I was assigned the task to analyze the Asha workers survey data which had 8 modules. Each module covers different areas like nutrition, hygiene, covid measures etc. My area of interest lies basically in statistics. And being able to work on raw real life-based data was really a good experience for me. Although I had faced many challenges but after talking to my mentor Ayesha Pattnaik we were able to find solutions for the same. We used to have meetings with Drs Nivedita and Arundhita they were always polite and helpful. This internship has given me confidence that I can use my theoretical knowledge in practical situations and has laid down a foundation for my career ahead.

Another intern, a BTech (Aerospace Engineering) student from IIT-K was working on the IKEA FoundationPRIDE project had to say the following:

My internship at Pradan was a very insightful, new and relaxed experience for me. I worked on organising real-world data and processing it into something that can be further analysed to solve issues related to the sector of agriculture, using geo-analysis tools like ArcGIS and Google Earth. I was guided very well and patiently through each step of every task by the mentor (Anju Bhaskaran) assigned to me.I also had a lot of freedom because of the flexible work timings that I had and it is something that I really appreciated and felt good about. Working with a non-profit organisation that deals in solving deep-rooted issues in the field of agriculture and empowerment of women in rural areas also felt very rewarding and I feel grateful for the opportunity of interning here.

Our collaborator, Professor Nitya Rao at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK made a short presentation at the South Asia Rethinking Research in Education Conference organised by Oxford South Asia Centre and University of Aarhus, Denmark on July 23. Her remarks mainly drew on the lessons from our GRTA project work with PRADAN. She discussed how we had continued using participatory methods for research, action and curriculum development, working with local youth as researchers and partners due to difficulties of travel and face-to-face interaction.

Land Degradation and Coastal Agriculture: History and Restoration Targets

Dr Pratheepa and Dr Rengalakshmi (both from MSSRF), write a blog explaining how land degradation is driven by both natural and manmade processes involving numerous complex factors. They highlight “Land degradation is one of the global environmental challenges, resulting in lower productivity which adversely impacts food security and the health of an agro-ecosystem

To read the article

From Cotton to Paddy: Political Crops in the Indian Punjab

Dr. Shreya Sinha, at the University of Cambridge published an article in the peer-reviewed journal-Geoforum. In the article, she builds an analysis of ‘political crops’ and explains the political ecology of cotton and paddy in the Indian PunjabUnlike the rest of the state of Punjab in India, cotton remained the dominant monsoon crop in the southwest region till the 1990s. As it has been increasingly replaced by paddy in recent decades, this paper asks what this shift in cropping pattern reflects about the state’s agrarian capitalism.

To read the article

IKEA Foundation-PRIDE (Regenerative Agriculture):

The monitoring exercise under this project has completed its soil sampling exercised for the baseline study. The data has been analysed and soil quality maps have been produced. We also brought on board an intern from IIT Kanpur who helped us with the creation of the base layers for further analysis. Thematic maps of water resources, land use land cover and soil quality layers have been created for the study sites. Further, a manual for replicating the procedures to create a temporally continuous data set using the same methods will be created and the data will be published through a website.

Simultaneously reports of training programmes conducted over the course of the project have been put in place. BRPs and CLF EC and SAC members have also been interviewed over the phone to explore change acts they may have undertaken.

Sustainability of SHGs (3ie)

Discussions with Centre for Policy Research to publish our report as a working paper and simultaneously working on a shorter version of the report to publish in a peer-reviewed journal

TIGR²ESS

We submitted our paper titled “Resilience as Wellbeing: A case of rural migrants in Eastern India to a journal called World Development. The paper explores what ‘building back better’ and ‘building resilience’ means for Adivasis and builds on the ongoing collaborative research in Chakai block since April 2019. The paper is co-authored by Nivedita Narain and Arundhita Bhanjdeo from PRADAN with Shreya Sinha from the University of Cambridge.

GROW

The project draws to a close soon. Kuntalika and Vinitika joined hands with Manoj and Indiranil in Thetaitangar and Dumri respectively, to conduct focus group discussions with Social Action Committee (SAC) and Executive Committee members. They also interviewed Block Resource Persons and Cluster Coordinators to explore the functioning of SACs.


	GRTA-CHIRAG The summer campaign on CHIRAG-IVRS has wrapped up and the monsoon campaign has been launched. The second round of the dietary diversity survey has been completed and while that data is being analyzed, a third-round is currently going on. CHIRAG project conducted a three-day residential event for piloting the Health and Nutrition curriculum from 23rd August to 25th August. The Health and Nutrition curriculum has been designed by Chandni Khanduja and Gautam Bisht. The curriculum is trying to create a creative learning tool that sees Nutrition through a localized and contextual lens. The target audience of this curriculum are Lahanti Club volunteers, SHG volunteers and Pradan health mentors aged 17-30. This is in addition to the IGNOU course running on the SWAYAM platform.		EMERGE The manuscript titled “Measuring Women’s Political Empowerment” has been submitted to EMERGE in the UCSD. A blog had been published too and an academic paper is under preparation. The manuscript is coauthored by Soledad Prillaman and Natalya Rahman from Stanford University and Nivedita Narain from PRADAN. DEVELOPMENT-LED INQUIRY A paper titled “Inquiring Systems and Development Led Inquiry: Uniting the Efforts of Farmers, Development Professionals and Researchers” was submitted in a special issue on Research Methods for the Third Sector in VOLUNTAS journal after incorporating reviewer comments.

	We bid farewell to Siddharth Panda and Sushmita Dutta. Siddharth was working as a Research Associate in the IKEA Foundation-PRIDE project on Regenerative Agriculture, based out of Ranchi, and Sushmita had joined the Research Wing from the Shikaripara team to work on the Process Documentation portfolio in the GRTA-CHIRAG project. She was based out of Chakai.