Africa's Air Transport Infrastructure: Challenges, Complexities and Opportunities

African aviation has witnessed steady growth pre-COVID and as result of increased demand for air travel, there is an urgent need to improve the air transport infrastructure. This chapter examines the underlining complexities and challenges that are undermining the African region's propensity to exploit its growth trajectory. The chapter explores multiple differences in regional airport infrastructure. Infrastructure is considered a key component of the investment climate, reducing costs of doing business and enabling people to access markets. In general, Africa, by every measure of infrastructure coverage, lags behind their peers in other parts of the developing world. Poor infrastructure of most African airports is seen as a principal reason why the region continues to struggle to fulfil its undoubtedly economic potential. These infrastructure problems can hardly be solved due to limited financial resources and will therefore consequently lead to retaining infrastructure problems. The chapter proposes a series of blueprint measures in order to galvanize Africa's growth potential within air transport development. This calls for speeding up privatization and allowing more private equity investments to support air infrastructure improvements. The most desired option to finance airport infrastructure would be the Public–Private Partnership (PP). However, on the local level, banks have relative weak capital coffers, which also limit access to infrastructure capital loans. Investors see some underlining risks in financing airport projects in Africa, namely uncertainty related to forecasts of passenger growth numbers. Other risks are embedded in currency markets, whereby most domestic airport infrastructure with project revenues is generated in local currencies, but servicing foreign debt and equity involves payment in foreign currency. The chapter finally examines the impact of COVID-19 on airport operations. From 2019 to 2021, airports were severely affected by the global pandemic causing massive loss of revenues for both airport operators and airlines. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Seniors' Long‐Term Care in Canada: A Continuum of Soft to Brutal Privatisation

We situate the contemporary crisis of COVID‐19 deaths in seniors' care facilities within the restructuring and privatisation of this sector. Through an ethnographic comparison in a for‐profit and nonprofit facility, we explore what we identify as brutal and soft modes of privatisation within publicly subsidised long‐term seniors' care in Vancouver, British Columbia, and their influence on the material and relational conditions of work and care. Workers in both places are explicit that they deliver only bare‐bones care to seniors with increasingly complex care needs, and we document the distinct forms and extent to which these precarious workers give gifts of their time, labour and other resources to compensate for the gaps in care that result from state withdrawal and the extraction of profits within the sector. We nonetheless locate more humane and hopeful processes in the nonprofit facility, where a history of cooperative relations between workers, management and families suggest the possibility of re‐valuing the essential work of care. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The privatization of school administration in Brazil: digital control and corporate interests

The article analyzes the potential consequences of the digital platforms for the management work of regular education in public schools. The research corresponds to a year before the Coronavirus Pandemic, 2019, until 2021. Brazilian schools remained closed during 2020 and the first half of 2021, at least, in most states because of the coronavirus pandemic and, gradually, presential learning were resumed in the hybrid modality, meeting corporate and philanthro-capitalist interests. The investigation derives from documentary research in the programs of the 26 Brazilian state governments and the Federal District, digital technology companies and private organizations that influence government educational policies aiming at the adoption of their digital platforms, previously identified in another research. The argument is the introduction of private platforms in the pedagogical activities administration, expanded during the pandemic, constitutes a way for the privatization of school administration in accordance with the strategies of digital capitalism, in which identity and user access profiles become currency. In the same way, time and relationships – in this case, between teachers and students, schools, families and knowledge – are now mediated and "shaped” by a tool alienated from school routine, gradually assuming a protagonism in administration. For the analysis, the considerations were: the role assumed by the applications adopted in the school routine;the time of simultaneous and non-simultaneous interaction between teacher/student;and non-simultaneous working time within the scope of teaching hours. © 2023 Grupo de Investigacion FORCE. All rights reserved.

Parenting in the pandemic: exploring the experiences of families with children on Universal Credit before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

The expansion of the UK's support for families with children from the late 1990s was put into reverse over the decade from 2010. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, parents may have felt that they had less support from the government and increased private responsibility in bringing up the next generation. Drawing on qualitative interviews with parents in England and Scotland claiming Universal Credit, this article analyses parenting experiences for low-income families during the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular concerning the costs of looking after children, caring for children, and family relationships/mental health. Our findings suggest that the privatisation of parenting in the UK has been further reinforced during the pandemic, with largely negative implications for families with children. The positive experiences for some with families must be supported by public policy change to persist.

The Great Indian Water Crisis: Sarnath Banerjee's Graphic Narrative All Quiet in Vikaspuri as an Acerbic Attestation of the Urban Water Crisis in India

Through a detailed analysis of the visual imagery as well as the verbal mode of narration, in Sarnath Banerjee's Graphic narrative All Quiet in Vikaspuri, the study suggests that the water-deprived, post-apocalyptic world that Banerjee reflects, is a spitting image of the Anthropogenic water crisis in India. Drawing theoretical insights from Madhav Gadgil, Ramachandra Guha and Dipesh Chakrabarty, the paper attempts to suggest the "Great Indian Water Crisis" is fueled by "short-termism," increased corporate privatization of water, myopic government development policies and erection of dams and other capitalist structures. The paper also aims to uncover how sociopolitical "slow-violence" is rendered to the natural resources under the garb of "Vikas" (development) and privatization. By contriving the narrative around the quest for the river Saraswati, Banerjee draws attention to the ever-so-real issue of groundwater overextraction in India, leading to its dipping levels and in turn, depletion. Further, the paper argues that "intermediality" of graphic narration abets Banerjee to cater to "the representational challenges" of the Anthropocene.

Learning from the Future of Kuwait: Scenarios as a Learning Tool to Build Consensus for Actions Needed to Realize Vision 2035

This perspective is a qualitative meta-analysis study using a critical interpretive synthesis that narrates three future and equally plausible scenarios of social and economic development in the State of Kuwait over the next 15 years. The first scenario follows what we call the ‘Sustainable Growth' model as defined by the United Nations Development Goals and the Kuwait Vision 2035 presented by the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. As a polar opposite, the next scenario is what we call the ‘Mismanaged Resourced-Based Autocracy' model, a negative reflection of the worst-case scenario. The third scenario is in between these two, and we call it the ‘Equality of Outcome Between Societal Groups' model. So as not to lay blame for past actions or point fingers, which could prove counterproductive to a consensus-building process for needed actions, we chose to use the pasts of other countries for future projections for the State of Kuwait. Our search through recent socio-economic pasts revealed that Singapore was the best fit for the first scenario, Venezuela for the second, and Lebanon for the third. All these countries became fully independent at approximately the same time as the State of Kuwait and share many other similarities. The three future projections were used as input variables to the outcome, which was a bottom-up and top-down consensus-making process regarding utilitarian action for Kuwait to be used by Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Think-Tanks, Development Agencies, the government and the parliament.

From lucem aspicio to the neoliberal shadow: cleaning services outsourcing at the University of Costa Rica.

Introduction: Changing universities into for profit corporations has taken them to outsourcing as a way to reduce expending. Objectives: This article tries to understand the way in which outsourcing, as a «third space»or «middle space» is built by workers hired by Servicio de Limpieza a su Medida S.A (SELIME), at the University of Costa Rica (UCR). It also describes how these persons experience precarious labor, which is established by contracts, norms and practices between private and public spheres. Method and technique: Our research is based on participant observation, analysis of five minutes of sessions from the Consejo Universitario, nine in depth interviews with cleaning workers, and an interview with the personnel from the Oficina de Servicios Contratados. The interviews focus on the categories working conditions and labor environment. Another interview with the working team from the Vicerrectoría de Administración that is analyzing outsourcing at UCR focused on outsourcing policies and bidding processes at the University. Results: We analyze the way in which a bicephalous and ambiguous structure of precarious forms creates hierarches and affect the bodies of people dedicated to cleaning work as they occupy the bottom step of a normed but arbitrary and hostile organization, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Conclusions: It is evident the fragmentation of the labor sector in this structure, with which labor control is facilitated. Despite all these, and in contradiction with the humanistic vision at the University, the public institution sustains and even increases outsourcing. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] Introducción: La transformación de las universidades en corporaciones para el lucro ha llevado a que se utilice la tercerización como un medio para reducir costos. Objetivos: Este artículo busca conocer la forma en que se construye la tercerización, entendida como un «tercer espacio» o «espacio en medio», por las personas trabajadoras contratadas por la empresa Servicio de Limpieza a su Medida S.A (SELIME) para brindar servicios de limpieza en la Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR). Asimismo, intenta describir cómo estas personas viven la precariedad laboral establecida mediante contratos, normativas y prácticas entre lo privado y lo público. Método y técnica: La investigación se basa en observación participante, revisión de cinco actas del Consejo Universitario, en nueve entrevistas en profundidad con personas trabajadoras de limpieza, una entrevista con el personal de la Oficina de Servicios Contratados que giran alrededor de las categorías condiciones laborales y ambiente laboral;y otra con el equipo de trabajo formado por la Vicerrectoría de Administración, a cargo de analizar las políticas sobre tercerización en la UCR, la forma en que estas se han implementado y el procedimiento para aprobar las licitaciones. Resultados: Se determina la manera en que una gestión bicéfala y ambigua estructura formas de precariedad que jerarquizan y vulneran los cuerpos de las personas que deben dedicarse a tareas de limpieza, esto al ocupar el escalón más bajo de una estructura normada pero arbitraria y hostil, especialmente en el contexto de la pandemia del Covid-19. Conclusión: En esa estructura se genera la fragmentación del sector trabajador, con lo cual se facilita su control. A pesar de esto, y en contradicción con la visión humanista de la universidad, la institución pública sostiene y aumenta esta forma de contratación. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Revista Reflexiones is the property of Universidad de Costa Rica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Pipeline Philanthropy: Understanding Philanthropic Corporate Action in Education During the COVID-19 Era and Beyond

In response to COVID-19 many companies, particularly technology companies, voluntarily attended to the strained education sector by donating or temporarily discounting their core products, generating public support and gratitude. This type of philanthropic corporate action demonstrates an expansive and perhaps increasing function in the provisioning of certain educational materials and resources by private actors. This article analyzes this strand of corporate activity as pipeline philanthropy and shows how this model of strategic corporate giving differs from existing models of philanthropy in education. Through illustrations this study assesses the democratic implications of corporate entanglement through philanthropic action to evaluate whether the benefits brought about by an enhanced role for corporate actors in education are worth what they compromise. © The Author(s) 2023.

Changing Higher Education in the United Kingdom: Examining Three Trends through a Neoliberal Lens

Perry discusses how neoliberalism has had a dramatic impact on higher education in the UK. She traces the history of neoliberalism in broad strokes from the pre-Thatcher years to the post-Thatcher years and identifies three key trends in higher education: widening participation and the politics of aspiration, the emergence of the student entrepreneur-consumer, and the marketization of higher education. With specific reference to the third trend, she discusses the use of Internet-based education by higher education institutions and its potential impact on students. The coronavirus pandemic has posed major challenges for student recruitment and increased the precariousness of students in the instructional process.

Has the acceleration of privatization become inevitable in Bahrain?

Bahrain remains the most vulnerable Gulf country due to its limited savings and sharp rise in debt levels, leaving it exposed to high financing risks. The financial crisis has been deepened by the economic double blow of the decline in oil prices and the effects resulting from the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Bahrain has decreased subsidies and increased taxes on many products. Those measures seem, however, insufficient to mitigate the negative impacts on the economy. This paper presents a model based on a comparison between fast privatization and gradual privatization strategies undertaken in some Bahraini economic sectors. It shows that the contribution of privatization to economic restructuring is only as effective as the commitment of the government to maintain a high pace of privatization. This condition can provide needed revenues, and can particularly foster private investments and initiatives. Therefore, it may represent an appropriate context to elevate Bahrain out of the present equilibrium characterized by slow privatization and government dominance on the economy.

A crusade and the crowd of the dead: Understanding the logic of the U.S. right's attack's on public education

Recognizing that the American right, and specifically the Christian right, has achieved disproportionate power over shaping the landscape of education policy and political culture, the following engages in a twofold analysis of schooling in the United States. We consider the structural transformations that are being enacted as a result of the proliferation of (Christian) public charters and other privatization efforts as well as reactionary undertakings that have purposefully targeted the daily life of schools from administration to curriculum and pedagogy since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (for example: disruptions at school board meetings, threatening school officials, anti-LGBTQ and anti-anti-racism hysteria, among others). We put these minoritarian interjections in conversation with Elias Canetti's "crowd of the dead” and consider the effects of this political activity in producing civic and social death while seeking to destabilize public institutions and institutional arrangements that should safeguard against the manufacturing of (civic) death. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

A NEW REVERSAL OF FORTUNE? A COMMENTARY ON LABOR IN THE AGE OF FINANCE BY SANFORD M. JACOBY

Corporate governance reform is on the European Union's policy agenda following the publication of a study on "directors' duties and sustainable corporate governance" in July 20204 and a proposal for a directive on corporate sustainability reporting.5 Even the United Kingdom, which has arguably the most shareholder-centric regime of any developed economy, made a move in the same direction, amending its Corporate Governance Code in 2018 to nudge listed companies towards appointing a single worker director,6 although, characteristically for the United Kindgom's model of "gentlemanly capitalism," this remains optional in the final analysis.7 Towards the end of his account, Jacoby makes a reference to the Covid19 pandemic, which was presumably just beginning as the book went to press.8 As the pandemic has unfolded, it has indeed turned out to have implications for the governance of finance, and of labor. From the Enron and Worldcom "scandals," which triggered the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, through to the financial crisis of 2008 and the resulting Dodd-Frank Act, the response to systemic failure in the American corporate governance system was not just halfhearted, which it was in many respects, or beside the point, which it was in others. it was also counter-productive in advancing a supposed cure, shareholder empowerment, which would only exacerbate the disease.15 The British experience has been similar. In the 1960s, concerns over lagging economic competitiveness provided the background to the adoption of the city code on Takeovers and Mergers, which the then Labour government hoped would usher in the modernization of industry.16 In the 1970s, failures in the secondary banking sector prompted another Labour government to makes changes to companies legislation which increased the range of disclosures required of directors.17 In the early 1990s, the Cadbury report on corporate governance was triggered by the insolvencies of several large listed companies, which the system of reports and audits had entirely failed to see coming. During these years, legal and regulatory steps to empower shareholders were given various justifications: as a way of promoting corporate accountability;19 as a means of disciplining self-interested managers;20 and, relatedly, as a mechanism for reducing contracting costs.21 Then there were more ambitious claims: that enhancing shareholder protection would reduce the cost of capital, stimulate innovation, and more generally ensure the most productive use of a society's available resources.22 From the beginnings of the revival of shareholder power and influence in the 1970s, these ideas found intellectual justification in the linked disciplinary fields of corporate finance and the economic analysis of corporate law.

COVID-19 pandemic and resilience in the agricultural sector: a local strategy may solve the global challenges

Agriculture remains a major engine of growth among the majority of developing and underdeveloped countries throughout the globe. But the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has severely affected all sectors of agribusiness industries. In many parts of the world agriculture production became almost half due to the impact of this pandemic. But in two Himalayan regions of India, Darjeeling and Sikkim, mixed effects were observed during the pandemic period. Although a large number of marginal farmers were severely affected during the lockdown and even in the unlock phases, while a significant number of farmers also gained nominal to a large amount of profit;chiefly because of reliability on complete organic farming including producing organic manure and bio-pesticides by the farmers themselves, lack of competition with imported agricultural commodities into the local market due to the inter-state travel ban, marketization of the agricultural products to the consumers through Farmers Producers Organizations (FPOs), NGOs and Sikkim State Co-operative Supply and Marketing Federation ltd. (SIMFED) and above all creation of the Farmers' Helpline at district levels by the local government bodies to solve the problems of the farmers even in the remotest regions.

"Housing Is a Human Right”: Moms for Housing's Black Feminist Politics of Shelter

In the midst of the global SARS-CoV-2 epidemiological crisis unfolds another contagion: the eviction epidemic. This essay attends to the work of Moms for Housing, an organization of formerly homeless and marginally housed Black mothers in Oakland, California who have organized to confront dispossession, real-estate speculation, and the privatization of housing. Using Black feminist and queer of color intellectual frameworks as ciphers through which to interpret and properly attribute weight to the organization's activism, the essay argues that Moms for Housing not only offers potential flightlines toward a post-property future—one in which housing is positioned as a basic human right—but also a generative critique of the home as a site of racialized and gendered subject formation. Indeed, through their work, the reconception of kinship formation and territorial formation are understood to be mutually constitutive, abolitionist projects.

What influence the performance of banks? Evidence from public sector banks in India

PurposeEvery shock, starting from the banking sector reform in 1992 to the global crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic, affects the performance of banks. The shocks and transformations jeopardise the bank's performance. This study cover period of 30 years starting from 1992. So, the reason behind taking only public sector banks is that after 1991–92 many banking sector reforms took place, and many new private sector banks and foreign sector banks entered into competition due to the liberalization, privatization, globalization (LPG) policy. So, it has been difficult for public sector bank to manage their performance in a competitive market. So, the purpose of this study is to find out influencing factors of bank performance especially public sector bank, because, it has been vital to identify factors influencing their performance.Design/methodology/approachThe current study explores the determinant of the performance of public sector banks in India. Currently, in India, 12 banks are public sector banks, which capture 59.8% market share in the banking industry. After 1994 new licences were issued by Reserve Bank of India for many banks, and foreign sector banks entered the market as an effect of LPG policy, and market competition is one of the significant determinants of the performance of banks. Thus, the panel regression model is used to analyse the impact of various determinants on the performance of public sector banks (from 1992 to 2021). Return on equity and return on assets are used as indicators of performance, whereas influencing factors are divided into two parts, bank-specific factors, which include bank size, asset quality (AQ), liquidity, credit deposit ratio (CDR), capital adequacy, debt-equity ratio, employee's productivity and macroeconomic factors which include inflation rate, tax rate and gross domestic product (GDP).FindingsResults of the study show that bank size is not an essential factor for measuring bank performance because it is insignificant with both indicators of performance. AQ, liquidity ratio and CDR are significant in both models with negative impact. Macroeconomic factors like GDP are insignificant with both indicators with positive relations and tax rates are significant with a positive relationship. The inflation rate is significant but affects negatively to performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis study only focuses on public sector banks. So, the results for private and foreign sector banks might differ. Considering the larger market share compared to other sector banks, the authors are focusing on public sector banks only. Foreign banks and cooperative banks are not included current analysis because of huge numbers and different working environments.Originality/valueDetermining influencing factors of bank performance is crucial because it will help the bank take various policy implications and formulation. Since independence measuring bank performance are important area.

Unpacking the Black Box of China's State Capitalism

Much ink has been splashed on the ideological, conceptual, and practical challenges that China's state capitalism has posed to global trade rules. There is a growing perception that the current international trade rules are neither conceptually coherent nor practically effective in tackling China's state capitalism. This perception has not only led to the emergence of new trade rules in regional trade agreements, but also culminated in the US-China trade war, only further aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. This Article contributes to the debate of what trade rules may be needed to counteract China's state capitalism by unpacking the black box of China's state capitalism. Based on an analysis of the nature of China's state capitalism, this Article provides a preliminary evaluation of current trade rules taken to counteract China's state capitalism, in particular the new rules in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and explain why they are unlikely to be successful.

Análisis de las Apps Covid en la Unión Europea: entre la excepcionalidad y la protección de los derechos fundamentales

Los retos a los que se enfrenta la Unión Europea crean en ocasiones situaciones de tensión, en las que la organización debe responder al mismo tiempo a la protección y garantía de los derechos fundamentales de su ciudadanía, y a necesidades de índole global que excepcionalmente requieren la suspensión de esos mismos derechos por un bien mayor. Este fue el caso durante la pandemia de 2020, en el que la Unión Europea y los Estados miembros decretaron cuarentenas en contra de la libertad de movimiento, para restringir los contactos e intentar contener los contagios. En este contexto se produjo también una implementación de políticas digitales para afrontar la gestión de la crisis, en concreto nos referimos a las aplicaciones covid de rastreo y vigilancia de los contactos entre individuos. Estas aplicaciones estaban sujetas a los requisitos y garantías del marco legislativo comunitario, que hemos visto evolucionar en los últimos dos años, para hacer frente a la creciente digitalización de los servicios públicos. El caso de las aplicaciones covid es paradigmático para observar cómo se ha producido esa adaptación. La injerencia de los estados de forma excepcional durante la crisis, pero regulada hoy en instrumentos de coordinación comunitarios, ha creado nuevos marcos de navegación en internet. Los usuarios cuentan ahora con un nuevo nivel de protección de sus datos personales y su derecho a la privacidad, que si bien venía garantizada por el Reglamento de Protección de Datos (679/2016), ha dado un importante paso adelante con la aceleración de la digitalización de la administración durante la pandemia. Además, a través de una crítica desde la teoría contractual, podemos ver cómo la Unión Europea ha respondido a las dinámicas globales a nivel de normativa digital, priorizando hoy un sistema de contrapesos y límites tanto a las empresas como a las administraciones públicas, en su intercambio con los usuarios en internet. Las aplicaciones covid materializan esas limitaciones y garantías de protección de los usuarios (esencialmente de su privacidad y derechos fundamentales), que nos llevan a plantear la creación de un nuevo contrato social digital, igual que se ha transformado en otras ocasiones para responder a cuestiones como la clase, el género, la raza y la ecología.Alternate :The challenges facing the European Union (EU) can sometimes create tensions, in which the organization must answer both to the protection and guarantee of the fundamental rights of its citizens, and to global needs that exceptionally require the suspension of those same rights for the greater good. In its liberal political tradition that believes in the existence of a public and a private sphere, it has established systems of checks and balances, rule of law and stable institutions to protect the rights and freedoms of its citizens.Yet sometimes these must be suspended in cases of exceptionality for their own preservation. This was the case during the 2020 pandemic, when the European Union and its member States decreed quarantines against the consolidated and fundamental freedom of movement of persons, to restrict contacts and try to contain contagions. In this context, digital policies were also implemented to deal with crisis management, like Covid applications for tracing and monitoring contacts between individuals. This invasion of the private sphere of citizens had to be accompanied by a set of limitations and guarantees, to protect this inherent and private individual's right. These applications were subject to the requirements of the European legislative framework (the commonly known acquis communautaire), which included several legal instruments laid out by the EU to create a framework to guide the performance of its member-state Governments on this matter. Apart from the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, we underline the importance of Recommendation (EU) 2020/518 that connects health rights, health management and data protection;and also, the importance of Communication 2020/C 124 I/01 th t set a series of ideal elements to guide apps functions, and established the importance that it is Government agencies that manage digital apps, so there is a guarantee of the protection of citizens' rights. Through the comparative study of how apps were managed when they first appeared in 2020 throughout most of 2021, and how apps evolved (both in management and use) in 2021 and throughout 2022, we can address the evolution of EU policy on digital matters, which have meant to create new frameworks for internet navigation. At first, there were 24 different apps for the 24 out of 27 Member States who decided to create and promote the use of these instruments among their citizens. Most of them were managed by national authorities (except for Austria and Romania who were managed by Red Cross and a local NGO respectively), and were developed by a public-private collaboration, or only public agencies.At the end of the crisis, at least politically since societal weariness and the economic crisis rendered it difficult to keep up the restrictions introduced in the spring of 2020, in June 2021 the EU created its GreenPass or vaccination passport.This policy was implemented in most countries and even though 24 different national health services were still in place, they all used the EU passport, available to citizens via their national health websites or apps. Even though the exceptionality of the pandemic has ended, one of the outcomes has been the establishment of a system of data gathering, storage and management for public means, managed by National Authorities, which has technically created a digital contract where the State guarantees citizens' digital rights. This is even more important as we attend to an increase in the digitalization of public services, especially since 2020.The changes were thus promoted in a state of exception during the crisis to regulate Government interference in the citizen's private sphere but have laid a roadmap for the development of the digital framework, which may lead to the conclusion of a digital social contract. The social contract appears in the EU's liberal tradition as a metaphor of the relation between the State and the individual, it defines the notion of sovereignty as the set of rights possessed by the citizen that may be subject to special protection. Hence, the social contract serves as the basis for creating modern societies, yet it is not permanent and can (and will) change when societies change accordingly. Several critiques have been made to the original social contract, creating new and developed contracts, including the class critique (from worker's movements and Marxism during the 19th Century to Piketty's present denouncing of social inequalities), the gender critique (as Carole Pateman's Sexual Contract puts it, the social contract institutionalized patriarchy), the racial critique (where Charles W. Mills develops the gender critique from a racial point of view where the social contract created a system of domination by the Western world) and finally the environmental critique (where its advocates claim for an eco-social contract or a nature social contract that shifts the approach to a bio-centric system). Therefore, the contract serves as a theoretical framework that can be changed, and in this case, it challenges the evolution towards a digital social contract. The evolution of internet and tech structures that support the web and its processes has been marked by three stages: its birth in the 80s by the hand of the State and linked to military research;its deregulation during the 90s and the privatization of the main telecommunications enterprises (in the case of the EU, the digital policy followed this trend);and the consolidation of a digital sphere in the 21st century, where the EU has taken a step back and created a set of instruments to guarantee the protection and freedom of its citizens when they navigate the internet. We can see how the EU has responded to global dynamics at the level of digital regulation, prioritizing today a multistakeholder system with s veral actors, and counterweights and limits for both companies and public administrations in their exchange with users on the internet. With the emergence of new spaces for social relations such as in the digital sphere, new types of sovereignty must be considered in order to guarantee the rights and privacy of users (we must not forget the importance of the separation between spheres, as fear liberalism reminds us, and of limiting exceptionality to those circumstances that really appear as such). Once the foundations on which the model of digital guarantees can be developed have been laid, the next step can be the creation of a real digital contract between users and the state on the internet. However, the contract is but an idea of reason for understanding politics and institutions, which begs the question of what digital politics we aspire to as societies.

El profesorado en el punto de mira: estrategias de influencia de las empresas españolas en el sistema educativo

The Spanish educational system has traditionally been characterized by the presence of public-private partnerships in the education provision. However, in the expansive context of the Global Education Industry (GEI), emerging actors are now developing new influence strategies. This paper analyses the free educational programs offered through the foundations of four enterprises characterized by being located in Spain and having a business sector different from education. The selection of the programs seeks to identify in the context of the Spanish school system the presence and the influence actions of businesses actors which don't have an educational profile but that target their products to that sector, mainly teachers. The analysis of the educational products has been carried out through the three moments identified by Jessop within the Cultural Political Economy approach: variation, selection and retention. Results show the legitimation of the participation of private actors into the educational systems as the basis on which the programs operate, reflected on the absence of justificatory discourses;the focus of the educational products on school practices, specifically on curriculum elements (competencies, contents, teaching methodologies) and teachers training;and the use of economic rewards and technological compensations, courses and standardized teaching materials as main influence actions. As a whole, these actions seek to impact the educational system by placing teachers as recipients of their interventions, but at the same time they develop hybridization strategies through collaboration with public institutions. With their speeches and actions, companies build a system of market educational knowledge that emphasizes the utilitarian value of the education system and that has public institutions as collaboratorsAlternate abstract:El sistema educativo español se ha caracterizado históricamente por la colaboración entre iniciativas privadas y públicas en la provisión de educación. Sin embargo, en el contexto expansivo de la Industria Educativa Global (IEG) numerosos y diversos actores emergen con nuevas estrategias de influencia. En este artículo abordamos el estudio de los programas educativos ofrecidos de manera gratuita por las fundaciones de cuatro empresas (Samsung, Endesa, Mapfre, Repsol) que se caracterizan por tener su base en España y por no operar en el sector educativo como área de negocio. La selección de estos programas responde al objetivo de identificar en el contexto del sistema educativo español la presencia y las acciones de influencia de agentes empresariales que no tienen un perfil educativo, pero que dirigen sus productos a actores de dicho sector, especialmente al profesorado. El análisis de los productos educativos se ha desarrollado empleando los tres momentos identificados por Jessop desde el enfoque de la Economía Política Cultural: variación, selección y retención. Los resultados muestran la legitimación de la participación de agentes privados en el sistema educativo sobre la que se asientan los programas que se refleja en la ausencia de discursos justificativos de los programas;el foco de las propuestas formativas en las prácticas escolares, concretamente en elementos curriculares (competencias, contenidos, metodologías didácticas) y la formación de profesorado;y el empleo de premios económicos y compensaciones de carácter tecnológico, cursos y materiales didácticos estandarizados como principales acciones de influencia. En conjunto estas acciones buscan impactar en el sistema educativo situando al profesorado como destinatario de sus intervenciones. Las empresas construyen con sus discursos y acciones un régimen de conocimiento educativo de mercado que enfatiza el valor utilitario del sistema educativo y que tiene a las instituciones públicas como colaboradoras.

Biopolitics in the Twenty-first Century: India and the Pandemic

Swatie and Rashee Mehra discuss in their "Biopolitics in the Twenty-first Century: India and the Pandemic”, the rise of the biopolitical state in India in the 2020s. The article emphasizes the relevance of Michel Foucault's work on biopolitics for the pandemic in India. The biopolitical governmentality of the Indian state operates at several levels to politicize ‘life itself': racism (the notion that sections of the population are disposable), economics (the notion of privatization of care), and the logic of contagion (based on ideas of threat perception and risk). The article engages with biopolitics in the 21st century and looks at the relief work done by non-governmental actors such as NGOs, gurdwaras, unions, and individual citizen-volunteers, which points to the importance of community outreach. The authors use theoretical and media commentaries and the experiences of one of its authors in Delhi government relief work.

"ATMANIRBHAR BHARAT" (Redefining Financial Health and Greening Post COVID–19)

Covid-19 is global disaster for which the world was totally unprepared. But the world and India must draw some major lessons out of this unpleasant experience and turn it into a positive one. Doing more of the same after the lockdown is fully lifted is not at all an option. Let us hope that a new thinking process will lead to better policies that help us come out much stronger, with more resilient economies and health systems. The economy is not just numbers;real progress and social stability are needed-that is the biggest lesson from this Covid-19 disaster (Vinod Kumar, 2020) India has one of the youngest populations in world - almost 46% less than 24 years of age. Many of them are currently enrolled in education system and would be competing for jobs and employment in coming decade. Many of them are going to be working in jobs that do not exist today. Today, technology, industrial automation, robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are changing way industries work - making many of the jobs of today redundant. As a result, lot of working population would need to re-skill themselves to new jobs emerging from technology innovations. India's job market is undergoing these changes and there is need for fresh thinking to address current and emerging challenges. Education that many students receive today is not adequate for a world that is being transformed by scientific and technological advances (FICCI-EY, 2016). The paper highlights the growth and future propects of various sectors and dimensions during and post Covid 19 in relation to Atmanirhar bharat.