Risk, uncertainty and technology in India

Julia Day

This project explored how different groups in India deal with risks and uncertainties related to advances in science and technology. It ran from 2006-2011.

Pharmaceuticals, vaccines, crop biotechnology and nanotechnology are all areas where rapid developments in science and technology are seen as key to economic growth, nationally and in the global economy. But as new technologies are delivered in diverse settings, with different local needs and policy priorities, a range of risks and regulatory challenges arise.

This project has explored the different ways that corporations, state agencies, scientific institutions, farmers and consumers understand and seek to respond to such risks in the context of the new ‘knowledge economy’.

This project was made possible with funding by UKIERI, the UK-India Education Research Initiative, and has involved a series of workshops, exchanges and capacity building activities.

STEPS members working on this project:

Project partners:

Project activities:

Book: India’s Risks

India’s Risks: Democratizing the Management of Threats to Environment, Health, and Values

Published by Oxford University Press India
June 2014

edited by Raphaelle Moor and M.V. Rajeev Gowda

This edited volume draws together insights presented at the 2011 Innovation, Sustainability and Development conference at NISTADS in India, revised and updated for publication as a book.

The Knowledge Society Debates:

The Innovation, Sustainability and Development Conference

Held at NISTADS in Delhi in June 2011, and coordinated by UKIERI network partner Dinesh Abrol, the conference was linked to the STEPS Centre’s ‘New Manifesto’ and was supported by UKIERI

The findings of the conference were presented at the 2011 Globelics event

And in 2012 at the Planet under Pressure conference:

The India at Risk conference and book

Find out more on the conference website.

The Biotechnology in Bangalore seminar

The Risk, Competitiveness and Sustainability Conference

Find out more on our Conference overview page. Funded by UKIERI

Project films

Bangalore: From Garden City to Garbage City, by Jake Cornwall Scoones (2013). Bangalore is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. With a population approaching 9 million, it produces around 4000 tonnes of solid waste each day. Most of this is dumped in land fill sites near villages on the city’s outskirts. But is this the best way of dealing with the waste problem? Are there other solutions less damaging to both people and the environment? This film is about what happens to Bangalore’s waste, the controversies that it has provoked, and some of the potential solutions. 

Bangalore: Living in a Global City, by Jake Cornwall Scoones (2012). A film exploring the positive and negative effects of rapid urbanisation in Banglalore, once a ‘pensioner’s paradise’, now a global information technology hotspot, home to Infosys and Wipro, and one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. What tensions and inequalities are simmering underneath the glossy surface of the city?

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