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In the Indian economy, informal manufacturing enterprises play a pivotal role within the manufacturing sector, employing a vast workforce and significantly contributing to overall manufacturing output. While the number of these enterprises has risen over time, the exploration of CO₂ emissions from informal manufacturing enterprises is limited, especially in comparison to their formal counterparts. This chapter investigates the relationship between the growth status of informal manufacturing enterprises and their CO₂ emission intensity using the latest four rounds of quinquennial unit-level data from the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). The analysis converts expenditure on electricity and fuel and lubricants into quantities, which are then multiplied by respective emission factors to determine enterprise-level CO₂ emissions. Findings indicate an increase in the percentage share of expanding and other status enterprises from 2000–2001 to 2015–2016, with other status enterprises being the most CO₂ emission-intensive, followed by contracting, expanding and stagnant enterprises. Notably, newer enterprises exhibit lower energy efficiency. Regression analysis further underscores a positive, significant link between growth status and CO₂ emission intensity, attributed to outdated machinery and equipment. Urban enterprises, often engaged in subcontracting activities with formal manufacturing industries, show higher CO₂ emission intensity. Challenges such as power outages significantly contribute to increased CO₂ emissions, highlighting the need for reliable electricity access and a reduction in fossil fuel dependence. This chapter underscores the importance of addressing these issues to align with India's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 objectives.

This chapter conducts a comprehensive examination of the influence of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the manufacturing sector in India, with a particular focus on the informal manufacturing sector's growth and expansion through subcontracting mechanisms. This analysis employs a general equilibrium approach to explore the ramifications of FDI inflows on the dichotomous sectors of manufacturing: the formal and informal. The influx of FDI into the formal sector is identified as a catalyst that propels these firms to enhance production and adjust their factor utilization, which in turn leads to an escalation in contractual employment. However, this surge encounters resistance from labour unions, which compels formal sector firms to enter into subcontracting arrangements with entities within the informal manufacturing sector. This transition proves to be advantageous for the informal sector, witnessing an uplift in both output and employment levels, thereby contributing to a decrease in overall unemployment rates and a potential uptick in wages. Moreover, this pivot towards subcontracting practices is posited to result in reduced carbon emissions emanating from the larger entities within the formal manufacturing domain. This chapter elucidates the dynamic interrelation between India's formal and informal manufacturing sectors as significantly impacted by foreign capital influx, emphasizing the critical role of subcontracting in enhancing the productivity and output of the informal sector. It advocates for governmental policies to support and bolster this interconnection. It also paves the way for future empirical investigations into the intricate dynamics of FDI, subcontracting, and their broader socio-economic impacts on the Indian economy.

This research paper discusses how the tribal people in their everyday practices uphold the principles of green economy and sustainable development. The indigenous lifestyle may be far away from the modern amenities, but they are most close to nature. Unlike, in the name of modernism or post-modernism, they are very responsibly self-content and self-dependent. They follow the principle: contentment is the root of all happiness. Thereby without causing irreparable damage to the mother earth, they live a very sustainable life. They know how to devise out day-to-day necessities. They do not always depend on the industry products. Rather they innovate and produce many things through informal and indigenous manufacturing. This research study aims to critically analyze tribal community participation in informal manufacturing for sustainable development and a green economy, and identify areas of concern within this participation. This paper focused upon the particular examples from their household life which promotes sustainable development in its true spirit; and alongside, it follows the path of green economy. The method of this research work was readings in community-based exploration. Alongside indigenous people were interviewed, and their responses were analyzed critically. The researchers also adopted content analysis regarding the studies, statistics and research reports on the community participation of tribal people through informal manufacturing to earn their livelihood. This study highlights that tribal community life aligns well with sustainability and a green economy though some issues exist that can be addressed through strategic government policies and planning.

For the prosperity of both gender and for social justice, independence and empowerment of women is essential. Empowerment of women not only ensures her personal or household welfare but also spreads positivity throughout the community. This generation of positive externality by empowering women has actually attracted attention worldwide toward exploring the concept of women empowerment as well as analyzing their status. The present research focuses on comparative analysis of the status of women empowerment among the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries and side by side explores its relationship with the various macro-indicators related to growth and development. This study reveals that Maldives and Sri Lanka had a relatively better status of women empowerment as compared to other SAARC countries. Further, based on the panel data analysis, the authors have found that urbanization and globalization have a significant impact on women empowerment. Thus, this holistic approach of measuring women empowerment from a multidimensional perspective and detecting the influencing factors is inevitable for enhancing the status of women at the global level.

The early childhood years are a period of great opportunity but are also of great vulnerability. Responsive caring is important for children to live, learn, grow, and develop to their full potential. Being healthy at childhood is the crucial requirement for a nation to be healthy throughout. But children in developing countries are earmarked to be vulnerable to the adverse socioeconomic conditions. Without the availability of proper nutritional diet and immunization, children remain underweight, stunted, and wasted. In order to capture their condition, analyzing their health status is inevitable. Further, since discrimination based on gender in every sphere of life be it at home or outside is quite evident in a patriarchal nation like India, therefore, an analysis of the child health based on their gender gains momentum. Thus, the present study analyzes the status of child health in West Bengal from a multidimensional perspective and disaggregates it on the basis of their gender in order to catch the effect of discrimination persisting in society. In order to do so, we have considered the NFHS unit level data of the latest two rounds. The present study contributes to the existing literature from methodological perspective as well as by formulating a child deprivation index using a multidimensional approach. Together with that, we have unearthed the factors influencing the health status of the children based on their gender.

Unorganized manufacturing enterprises form a pivotal component of India's socio-economic framework, with the food and beverages micro enterprises (MMEs) standing out within this sector. Utilizing secondary data from the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) and comparing survey rounds from 2010–2011 to 2015–2016, this study assesses the unorganized food and beverages MMEs' growth dynamics among 25 industries. It examines their status in terms of enterprise numbers, employment share, and Gross Value Added (GVA), alongside estimating the Annual Average Growth Rate (AAGR) across major Indian states based on these parameters. The findings reveal a trend of expansion exceeding stagnation or contraction in both enterprise numbers and per enterprise GVA during the periods studied. Additionally, labor productivity appears to positively correlate with enterprise growth, with establishments and urban-based enterprises showing a higher tendency toward expansion. This analysis demonstrates a significant growth trajectory in the unorganized micro food and beverages sector from 2010–2011 to 2015–2016, marked by increased enterprise numbers, employment generation, and output across major states. This chapterconcludes by underscoring the sector's vital contribution to employment and output generation, offering insights for policymakers and stakeholders focused on fostering this sector's development. This growth trend not only showcases the sector's resilience but also its potential as a driver of socio-economic progress during the observed periods.

World economies including India have been moving toward recession. To combat this recession more employment generation through investment is required in a highly populated economy like India. Since unorganized manufacturing enterprises (UMEs) provide employment to a huge mass in India, therefore its growth and productivity is a matter of concern in the Indian economy. The present study analyzes the growth and productivity of UMEs on the basis of the latest two rounds of NSSO unit level data incorporating all states and union territories (UTs) of India. It reveals that the growth of UMEs, employment, gross value added (GVA) and fixed assets widely varied across states/UTs, and these growth rates were substantially high in a number of states during 2010–11 and 2015–16. In most of the states/UTs the labor productivity of UMEs has increased significantly but not the capital productivity. Our analysis supports the theoretical relationship among growth of employment, GVA, and labor productivity. Therefore, the government has to make deliberate attempts to increase the growth of UMEs on one side and raise productivities of UMEs through skill developments on the other side to overcome the problem of unemployment in particular and expedite the growth of the Indian economy in general to combat the global economic recession.

Kerala reported the first COVID-19 case on January 30. In order to stop the disease's spread in a heavily populated nation like India, the government declared a lockdown on 25 March 2020. Unexpected lockout caused wages for workers in the unorganised sector to stagnate, which led to reverse migration in India. During the first round of lockdowns organised by COVID-19, 43.3 million interstate migrants working in the informal manufacturing sector actually went back to their homes. This background encourages us to investigate how the COVID-19 epidemic affected male labour employment, with a primary focus on the unorganised manufacturing sector. The study takes into account the employment situation of male CWS in rural, urban and overall India. To investigate the aforementioned objectives, Poirier's Spline function approach has been used in the study. Relying on secondary data aggregated from ‘The Periodic Labour Force Survey’, Annual Report (2018–2019), (2019–2020), (2020–2021), the research comes to the conclusion that the work scenario for male CWS is more negatively impacted by pandemic in urban than rural areas. The paper ends with appropriate policy recommendations.

The unorganised manufacturing sector contributes one third share of overall manufacturing employment and one fifth share of gross value added of the manufacturing sector. Despite its important role in large-scale employment generation, this sector is neglected by the researchers as well as by the policy makers as compared to the focus given on the organised manufacturing sector. The issues of energy intensity, environment emissions and growth of unorganised manufacturing enterprises (UMEs) remain unexplored. The present chapter attempts to estimate the CO₂ emission and emission intensity (EI) across UMEs on the basis of NSSO Unit Level data of 62nd, 67th and 73rd rounds. It also analyses the growth of UMEs in relation to CO₂ emission and EI. The nature of the sector is very much dispersed. Our study reveals that a portion of unorganised enterprises did not use any energy in their production activities and used manually operated instruments like – handlooms, weaving machines, hand-operated oil and rice mills, etc. The main energy inputs of UMEs are electricity and fuel & lubricants. The CO₂ emission is relatively less in UMEs compared to organised manufacturing enterprises. Across the unorganised manufacturing industries, the higher CO₂ emission are observed in manufacturing of food product industry and other non-metallic mineral industry. The study found that CO₂ EI of UMEs depends on firm-level characteristics like perennial nature, establishment type, urban location and expanding growth status. However, capital intensive UMEs are more polluting.