Lokniti - Programme for Comparative Democracy was established in 1997 as a research programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi. The CSDS is an autonomous social science research institution. Since the inception of the CSDS in 1963, the writings of scholars like Rajni Kothari, D.L. Sheth and Ashis Nandy have become a point of reference for various attempts from the South to question the...

-The Hindu   ‘An offshoot of trickle-down urbanisation, census towns like Hatia and Hinjewadi can be engines of change for rural areas' Hatia, Ranchi: At the southern edge of Ranchi city lies Hatia, and not all of its residents are sure if theirs is a village or part of Ranchi city's sprawl into its surrounding rural areas. "It's still a village. The panchayat has the land records," says Santosh Majhi, standing by the side...

-Sify.com A survey said 76 per cent of farmers would prefer to do other work, while 60 per cent wanted their children to migrate to and settle in a city. These are a grim reminder of the condition of the 120-million farmer households in India. The survey, by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Lokniti for Bharat Krishak Samaj, of 5,000 farmer households across 137 districts in 18 states...

-Governance Now Professor Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti, a research programme of the New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and one of our leading ‘election watchers', maintains that we must not read too much in the higher voting numbers and credits the election commission for preparing more accurate voter rolls. Excerpts from an interview with Trithesh Nandan: * What do you make of the phenomenon of higher turnouts? Everybody...

-The Hoot Survey methodology is good at explaining correlations between past and existing attitudes, but is poor at predicting future behaviour. And surveys can end up making the elections sound like a horse race, says ANUP KUMAR A controversy has been brewing over banning pre-poll surveys in India. The issue is worthy of a serious discussion - especially when it comes to transparency in methodology and the relevance of pre-poll surveys...