Nidhi Sadana Sabharwal

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at National University of Educational Planning and Administration

To mitigate the severe educational horizontal inequalities in India, affirmative action (AA) measures in higher education (HE) have been implemented for socially excluded groups, such as the Scheduled Castes (former “untouchables”), the scheduled tribes (whose status resembles indigenous groups in other countries), and other classes lower in the ca...

Racism, xenophobia, and discrimination are key determinants of health and equity and must be addressed for improved health outcomes. We conclude that far broader, deeper, transformative action is needed compared with current measures to tackle adverse effects of racism on health. To challenge the structural drivers of racism and xenophobia, anti-ra...

Intersectionality is a useful tool to address health inequalities, by helping us understand and respond to the individual and group effects of converging systems of power. Intersectionality rejects the notion of inequalities being the result of single, distinct factors, and instead focuses on the relationships between overlapping processes that cre...

This Series shows how racism, xenophobia, discrimination, and the structures that support them are detrimental to health. In this first Series paper, we describe the conceptual model used throughout the Series and the underlying principles and definitions. We explore concepts of epistemic injustice, biological experimentation, and misconceptions ab...

This study examines the emerging forms of social and spatial inequalities in access to higher education opportunities in India. Based on large-scale macro level data sets and field-based studies, the study reveals that expansion of higher education in India has improved the availability of higher education institutions, and access of the disadvanta...

In India, university students from scheduled castes (SCs) face a number of challenges that not only prevent them from graduating but also prevent them from being strong performers in universities and upon graduation. Utilizing the framework of social capital, this article draws upon life histories, secondary interviews, and document analysis to und...

Policies of affirmative action have played an influencing role in the massification of the higher education system in India and the creation of a diverse student body in campuses. Diversity in student composition is reflected in terms of their caste, ethnic, class, linguistic, regional, and religious backgrounds. In this backdrop, CPRHE carried out...

Background/Context Developing countries desire institutions ranked as “world-class,” and want to increase postsecondary participation. Limited public monies require decisions that usually augment the welfare of one objective at the expense of another. An additional conundrum concerns the need for quality assurances. Research needs to be rigorous; s...

With an enrollment of 34 million students and a gross enrollmentratio passing 24 percent in 2016, India is in a stage of massification. This article addresses challenges surrounding the issue of growing student diversity on higher education campuses.

With an enrollment of 34 million students and a gross enrollment ratio passing 24 percent in 2016, India is in a stage of massification. This article addresses challenges surrounding the issue of growing student diversity on higher education campuses.

Singular acts of academic corruption, such as cheating on an exam, occur in all institutions in all countries.Until recently, however, academic corruption that is systemic has been under-studied and under-theorized. This article focuses exclusively on monetary corruption.The authors focus on their forms and the individuals involved. The article inv...

p>Academic corruption occurs in all institutions and all countries. It is, however, an area of research that is often difficult to study. The intent here is to understand what systemic corruption is and how it is done in India. The authors find a broken culture which enable corrupt practices to occur throughout the system.</p

p>India is the world’s largest democracy, but does democratic governance ensure that academic freedom is the same regardless of geographic location? We review recent developments pertaining to academic freedom in India and consider the limitations being placed on faculty in the classroom, in their research, and with regard to extramural speech and...

Caste, Discrimination, and Exclusion in Modern India. Sage: New Delhi. pp. 377. The book has a comprehensive assessment of the broad issues that underpin social exclusion in India. This book posits the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) vis-à-vis their upper-caste Hindu peers and establishes how caste is a lived reality in everyday...

As the lowest in the caste hierarchy, Dalits in Indian society have historically suffered caste-based social exclusion from economic, civil, cultural, and political rights. Women from this community suffer from not only discrimination based on their gender but also caste identity and consequent economic deprivation. Dalit women constituted about 16...

Sukhadeo Thorat and Nidhi Sabharwal, Ed. 2014. Bridging the Social Gap: Perspectives on Dalit Empowerment. Sage: New Delhi. The book Bridging the Social Gap-Perspectives on Dalit Empowerment addresses four interrelated issues. It conceptualises exclusion-linked deprivation of excluded and indigenous groups in Indian society and elaborates the conce...

Women are under-represented in Indian parliament. A glance at women's participation in General Election shows steady growth in participation in voting and reduction of gender gap at voter level in electoral process. The current article is based on the election commission's report on electoral participation and representation of women from 1957 to t...

Examining who the beneficiaries are of the Integrated Child Development Services programme, an aspect that has been neglected, this paper presents econometric estimates regarding the relative strength of personal and household circumstances in determining the likelihood of utilising the programme's services. These estimates suggest that inter-group...

The people most likely to be left behind by development are those facing 'intersecting inequalities', or economic deficits intersecting with discrimination and exclusion on the grounds of identity and locational disadvantage. • The experience of seven countries (Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, India, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Nepal) shows that key ingredien...

The aim of this paper is to examine the inequality and poverty issues of rural households in India from the perspective of a household’s monthly per capita consumption expenditure using data on nearly 20,000 households. In examining these issues, the paper first sets out a model of a poverty–inequality trade-off whereby governments could choose the...

This study was part of a three country study (India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) on Women and Citizenship. In India, the study focused on the level of representation of Dalit Women in parliament both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha by caste background and political parties. The study also explored the educational, occupational and age and other background o...

The poor are not uniformly disadvantaged. Across most health indicators, the situation of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and Muslims is significantly worse than that of others. While nutritional status is closely linked with levels of income, education and public health services, the social belonging of persons also acts as an additional ag...

This article explores the differing health status of lower caste social groups in India, analyses the reasons for the differences and discusses some of the implications for policy. National Family Planning and Health Survey (NFH-3) data shows that children belonging to lower castes have worse nutrition, health and mortality indicators and poorer ac...

Age-old restrictions on access to capital by certain social groups continue to reflect themselves in the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes owning far fewer private enterprises than warranted by their share in the population in both rurual and urban India. Recent nationwide data also reveal that when they do run business establishments these are...