New project on Social Security in India

The Long Road to Social Security: Assessing and Monitoring the Implementation of Social Security for the Working Poor in India's Informal Economy is a knowledge project on social security provisions for workers in the informal sector of the economy in India. This project is a cooperation between the Amsterdam School for Social science Research, the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum, India, and Hivos. The project focuses on monitoring the implementation of minimal welfare provision...

KP “Smallholders Agency” goes Asia

After having visited Latin America and East Africa, the initiating team of “Smallholders Agency” (from Hivos, IIED and Mainumby) went to India from 1-7 February to focus on the Asian continent. The objectives were to identify Asian members for the KP’s Learning Network, to find out how the knowledge program may become embedded in India and to initiate the multi-stakeholder exploration of key topics for the knowledge programme.

State must be secular so that society can be religious

In many parts of the world religion is on an upsurge. Religious revivalism and emergent forms of fundamentalisms challenge the capacity of the state to deal with religious diversity. The Hivos-Kosmopolis conference 'Rethinking secularism' (25-26 May, Utrecht, NL) brought together academics, activists, legal experts and policy makers from various parts of the world to debate the future of secularism. Among them: Sudanese thinker and activist Abdullahi An-Na'im and Justice Aftab Alam, sitting...