In India, the gold and jewellery market, already valued at USD 44 billion in 2023, is expected to streak ahead at a faster pace than other sectors of the economy to reach USD 134 billion by 2030 (Maximise Market Research 2024). As this volume shows, the gold sector remains largely dominated by small and medium-sized businesses. This is as true of trade as it is of industrial production.

Although it is difficult to estimate the number of jewel and gold traders in India due to the sector's fragmented and unregistered nature, trade groups estimate there to be 500,000–600,000 units, of which, according to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, 86,000 are registered for tax purposes (WGC 2022). But in many cases in the gold economy, production and trade are hard to distinguish in practice: gold traders may themselves be producers or directly in control of production, or they may commission production from others, and the gold sector remains dominated by small, independent shops and workshops. Many of the latter are ‘unorganised’ and not registered with the state, though they may be known to local business associations. In West Bengal alone, for instance, a knowledgeable member of the Swarna Shilpo Bachao Committee, a local trade association for goldsmiths and gold jewellery merchants, reported that the association had approximately 10,000 members. Gold ornament trading is going through rapid differentiation, however. A World Gold Council (WGC) study published in 2022 showed that while in 2017 fewer than 10 per cent of retail stores operated as registered, organised and large-scale facilities, by 2022 they had grown rapidly to 15–20 per cent (WGC 2022).

The chapter looks at fin-de-siècle Vienna, and reviews its cultural politics, the impact of its city life on writing and artistic expression and, above all, the new attention to language that was absorbed into literature and poetry emanating from French Symbolism. The dangers of lapsing into an aestheticism that denied political reality is discussed, and there is a focus on the importance of the indirect impact such perceived changes in expression and the value of poetic language had on Schoenberg, and indeed on Berg and Webern. Key figures included here include Rilke, Schnitzler and, above, all Hofmannsthal and Stephen George, taken here as writing in crucially different modernist modes, but both directly influential.

Composed between 1906 and 1908, Webern’s Dehmel songs have turned into something of a playground for scholars keen to unravel the origins of atonality. Drawing on hitherto unexamined sketches, this chapter offers new insights into the harmonic strategies and devices through which Webern interpreted Dehmel’s poetry. Analytical focal points to be considered include Webern’s use of modal mixture, common-tone tonality, and the SLIDE transformation. In particular, it is argued that, in these songs, voice leading is roped into the business of, quite literally, ‘envoicing’ absence. Extending the scope of these considerations, the chapter concludes with a discussion of Webern’s George setting Entflieht auf leichten Kähnen, completed in 1908, with a focus on the way the choir renders the poem’s semantic juxtaposition of ‘sorrow’ and ‘spring’ in terms of a double-bind. In this way, this chapter provides fresh glimpses into the complex relationship between poetological and harmonic ideas in Webern’s compositional imagination.

In this chapter, we rely upon two experiments to demonstrate that the public withdraws acceptance of executive actions implemented through contravention – over the objection of a court – but only if that court has a high level of judicial independence. But, if executives contravene a low independence court, it is as if the court had not acted: there is no difference in the public’s level of acceptance. Additionally, we find no evidence in any of our quartet of countries that judicial approval improves the public’s acceptance of an executive’s policy. Contrary to fears that citizens may blindly follow courts and adjust their opinions based on a court’s ruling, we find no evidence that even widely-respected courts are able to increase citizens’ support for an executive action by endorsing it.

Bombay's cotton mills and their relation to the city's emergence over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as India's prime metropolis have been extensively studied from various perspectives, and this is a wide and ever-expanding area of critical scholarship. Within this rich corpus of literature, the development of public education in the city of Bombay and its place in the wider imagination of the emerging industrial city remain a virtually uncharted area. The diverse historical trajectories of state-funded education in the city point to how education discursively constructed the ‘public’ in Bombay in the early part of the twentieth century.

This chapter attempts to trace these developments in the mill district of colonial Bombay (now Mumbai). It provides a descriptive and thematic account of the expansion of education through the implementation of free and compulsory primary education (FCPE) in Girangaon, literally ‘the village of the mills’. The wards that make up the Girangaon area were selectively chosen for the FCPE when it became operational in the city in 1925. Girangaon covers the administrative wards of F and G, as well as parts of E ward, although this was not included in the initial scheme. With the caveat that the archive we have had to work with is largely limited to official records,1 we look at debates on FCPE in the city and attempt to chart the contexts within which policies on primary education in the Girangaon area were being discussed and enacted. The chapter aims to move away from colonial and nationalist narratives of well-known elite educational institutions in Bombay to interrogating the contexts within which children of the working classes were intended to be educated.

This chapter examines the intersection of environmental justice, circular economies, and green living, examining how these frameworks can address the disproportionate environmental burdens on marginalised communities. Environmental justice is defined as the fair treatment and involvement of all people, regardless of race, income, or nationality, in environmental protection policies. Historically, low-income and minority populations have faced higher exposure to environmental hazards, such as pollution and waste, contributing to health inequalities. The chapter explores how transitioning to a circular economy, which emphasises reducing waste, reusing resources, and recycling, can provide solutions to these injustices. By adopting circular economy practices, cities can foster environmental sustainability and social equity, helping to alleviate the disproportionate environmental burdens faced by disadvantaged communities. The chapter highlights two case studies: Amsterdam’s adoption of the Doughnut Model to drive its circular economy goals, and Glasgow’s efforts to transition to a carbon-neutral, circular economy. These illustrate how cities can integrate circular economy principles to reduce waste, improve resource management, and enhance public health outcomes while simultaneously promoting environmental justice. Ultimately, the chapter argues that environmental justice can be achieved through a circular economy, improving both the environment and the quality of life for all communities, especially the most vulnerable.

Stand-up comedy is one of the simplest theatre forms in existence. The comedian stands on a (usually) bare stage, talking straight to the audience in the hope of getting laughs. Yet it has never been more popular, with national scenes developing across every continent except Antarctica. In this insightful and accessibly written volume, diverse chapters explore the subject from many angles, ranging from national scenes, live venues, and recordings to politics, race, sexuality, and the question of offensiveness. Chapters also consider the performance dynamics of stand-up in detail, examining audience, persona, and trauma. Interspersed throughout the chapters are a series of originally commissioned interviews with comedians from nine different countries, including Maria Bamford, Jo Brand, Aditi Mittal, and Rod Quantock, providing rare insights into their craft.

The Archidamian War was in Thucydides’ view caused mainly by Sparta wanting to ‘take down’ the power of Athens, while its course was shaped largely by Sparta’s reliance on conventional tactics and limited resources, compounded by its ‘slowness’ to act. This notion of a mismatch between highly ambitious strategic objectives and deeply inadequate tactical means remains pervasive in scholarship on the war. However, Thucydides’ record of Spartan actions is open to a different interpretation: Sparta’s main strategic goal was merely to preserve its hegemony over its allies, and accordingly it needed to support the military ambitions of the latter, especially Corinth and Thebes on whose military resources Sparta was dependent. Sparta initially did the minimum necessary to keep Corinth and Thebes onside but, in the face of Athens’ refusal to compromise, gradually developed more ambitious strategic goals of its own. When Sparta applied conventional tactics and limited resources it was in pursuit of specific, restricted strategic aims, but when Sparta pursued more ambitious strategies it developed new, complex and often daring tactics to match. Their ultimate lack of success was largely the result of Sparta having to make concessions to the mutually incompatible strategic interests of Corinth and Thebes.

This chapter explores how Schoenberg, after fleeing the Nazis in 1933, established himself as a composer, conductor, teacher and writer in Los Angeles, his hometown for the last seventeen years of his life. Light is shed on how he privately and professionally came to terms with his Jewish and Austro-German identities while also developing an American identity. In Los Angeles he built new international circles of friends and colleagues, engaged in political activism, created a diverse body of Jewish-, German- and American-inspired compositions, taught hundreds of students and wrote important books and articles, greatly advancing the reception of his music and ideas in the US.

In this chapter will focus on surface water – notably the water that is in lakes and reservoirs, rather than rivers and groundwater. This is the water that remains directly on land and represents a significant reservoir for the water cycle. The storage of such water drives many water management applications, as we shall see later, such as reservoir and flood management (chapter 8), irrigation (chapter 9). Here, we will overview the various remote sensing techniques that can be used to detect if a land is covered with water and if so, what is the extent. Later in the chapter we will learn how two successive satellite overpasses can help us estimate storage change a water body may have experience. This storage change can be a crucial component for various water management applications as it helps us understand how much water lakes or reservoirs are storing, losing (to diversion or evaporation) or releasing.

NDE-like phenomena have been reported in human societies all over the world. NDE narratives are often embedded in people’s cultural and religious backgrounds. In Europe, the earliest NDE reports were published in the eighteenth century. With the publication of Moody’s book (1975), NDEs became part of a popular esoteric culture in the USA. Even professionals in the medical field such as physicians, psychiatrists, and psychologists adopted Moody’s view about NDEs as evidence of a temporary separation of non-material consciousness/mind/soul from the material body/brain. This belief in paranormal explanations of NDEs then spread to other Western countries.