Author: cprindia

The Scaling City Institutions for India: Sanitation (SCI-FI) programme and the Accountability Initiative (AI) at the Centre for Policy Research organised a workshop and conference on Sustainable Sanitation: Evidence and Practice on 11-12 December, 2017 at India Habitat Centre, Delhi.

Held on 11 December as a closed door event, the workshop invited policymakers, practitioners, and government officials tasked with overseeing the daily implementation of government sanitation schemes (including both aspects of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) – rural and urban) for in-depth deliberation and debate on sanitation programmes in India.

The conference, held on 12 December as a discussion amongst a wider group, deliberated on the lessons from the previous day’s workshop, as well as a broader set of themes surrounding the conceptualisation, implementation, and future prospects of sanitation programmes in India. The conference included a special focus on sustainable waste management and Faecal Sludge Management (FSM).

The conference was divided into the following sessions:

• Part 1 (full video above)
  • Opening Session: Challenges and Opportunities for Community Approaches to Sanitation
  • Session 2: Current Understandings of Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) implementation
• Part 2 (can be accessed at this link)
  • Session 3: Inclusive City-Wide Sanitation in Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) and AMRUT
  • Session 4: Panel Discussion on lessons from research and implementation experience

The conference report can be accessed here.

Listen to Barun Mitra (above) talk about the Forest Rights Act of 2006 as he shares his experiences of working with grassroots communities and civil society organisations working on the ground, contextualising his work within the larger framework of property rights.

The talk was organised by the Land Rights Initiative at Centre for Policy Research.

Despite the enactment of successful policy reforms, India is struggling to translate legislative successes into effective gains for citizen groups. Drawing on his extensive field research on forest and land rights, Prakash Kashwan argues about the importance of integrating external social, political and economic factors within the understanding of institutional change to ensure effective delivery.

Listen to the full talk (above) by Prakash Kashwan, and visit the event page for the full presentation.

Watch the full video recording (above), where Mike Raco discusses his paper on diversity planning in London, how it is conceptualised in urban policy frameworks, and its implications for citizens and policy priorities. He argues that diversity narratives are underpinned by radical ambiguities, and discusses both pros and cons.

To listen to the lively discussion that followed, tune in to the Q&A session here.

Watch the full video (above) of the fourth discussion in the series on the central features of populism and cronyism, and their consequences for economic and social development, featuring Michael Walton and James Crabtree.

Populism has emerged in various forms in many parts of the world in recent years. While it is typically associated with an anti-establishment and anti-elite narrative, it is striking how it often coincides with cronyism – favored  relations between the state and (some) big business.

The talk draws on both an ongoing comparative study of state-business relations in India, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa and secondary literature on the history and contemporary features of cronyism and populism.

Michael Walton teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School, and is a Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR. James Crabtree is a writer, journalist and author living in Singapore. He is currently an associate professor of practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School at the National University of Singapore, and a senior fellow at the school’s Centre on Asia and Globalisation.

The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.

About the CPR-TCPD Dialogues

This was the fourth event in the CPR-TCPD Dialogues on Indian Politics series, launched in a partnership between Centre for Policy Research and Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TPCD) at Ashoka University. This is a monthly event that brings together academicians, policy and political practitioners, and civil society actors to grapple with important social and political issues in India. It provides a forum for intellectually rigorous, non-partisan commentary to strengthen public discourse on politics in India. In these polarised times, debates on politics in India have tended to be increasingly noisy, blurring the lines between critical engagement and partisan endorsement. This dialogue series is an effort to carve out a space for critical, nuanced engagement to understand the changing dynamics of Indian political parties, the impact of new and emerging social movements and the use of new instruments of mobilisation in our polity.

Listen to the full audio recording (above) of the talk by Sheila Jasanoff, where she discusses the historical context of the contrasting stance of the US and the EU on the GM crops debate. Jasanoff elaborates on how the US policymakers dismiss the European reaction as based in scientifically ungrounded fears, while the European anti-GM forces view the US posture as founded on inadequate science.

Additionally, visit the event page to access the presentation.

Watch the full video (above) of the special talk featuring Prof Langdon Winner and Ambassador Vijay K Nambiar as part of the ‘Metamorphoses-Talking Technology’ series. Metamorphoses is a modest effort to try and bridge the gap between digital technologies, which are transforming our lives, and our understanding of their multiple dimensions. The series is a joint initiative between NITI Aayog (the Government of India’s think tank), India International Centre (IIC) and Centre for Policy Research (CPR).

The talk aims to answer pertinent questions at a time when expectations that the Internet would provide a suitable place for the flourishing of democracy have encountered some grave setbacks. The rise of monopoly control within platforms of communication has greatly magnified the economic and political power of oligarchies. Techniques for harvesting personal data to fuel targeted ‘computational propaganda’ threaten to undermine the integrity of elections and to erode citizen confidence that their outcomes are fair. While both roots and possible remedies for these maladies exist within large institutions, the erosion of democracy may have origins closer to home – in the activities and experience of selfhood on the Net. After all, who are we on the Internet? Looking for connection and community, do we now encounter something entirely different?

Prof Langdon Winner is Thomas Phelan Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

Ambassador Vijay K Nambiar is former UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Myanmar.

Opening remarks were delivered by Air Marshal (Retd.) Naresh Verma, Director, IIC.

We are delighted to announce that the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS), Government of India, has appointed Dr Srinivas Chokkakula, MoJS Research Chair at CPR, as a Member of the Drafting Committee for revising National Water Policy.

The Drafting Committee is entrusted with the task of revisiting the National Water Policy to address new and emerging challenges of water governance. It was last reviewed in 2012. The ten-member committee includes Shashi Shekhar [Former Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWR)], A B Pandya (Former Chairman, Central Water Commission) and Dr R C Panda (Former Secretary, Government of India) among others as Members. The Committee is expected to submit its report within a period of six months from the date of its constitution.

The appointment strengthens CPR’s continued engagement with national policymaking.  In August 2018, The MoJS (formerly MoWR) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with CPR for establishing the ‘MoJS Research Chair – Water Conflicts and Governance’ at CPR. Srinivas Chokkakula took over as the Research Chair in October 2018. The Research Chair is mandated to pursue research in the broader area of water policy and governance with particular focus on transboundary river water governance, and extend advisory inputs to the Ministry.

Listen to the full CPR podcast ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Research Professor Bharat Karnad about his new book, Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and India’s Global Ambition.

The book analyses Prime Minister Modi’s foreign and military policies in the context of India’s evolving socio-political and economic milieu, global power politics featuring other strongmen-alpha male leaders (Trump, Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Shinzo Abe), and of Modi’s persona and style of governance, and offers a critical perspective that helps explain why India has not progressed much towards becoming a consequential power.

The book was released by Yashwant Sinha, former Minister of Finance under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and former Senior Leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

This was followed by a panel discussion between Yashwant Sinha, Admiral Arun Prakash, Jairam Ramesh, Shivshankar Menon and Bharat Karnad and was moderated by Ajai Shukla.

The full video of the panel discussion can be accessed here. The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.

Book reviews of Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and India’s Global Ambition can be accessed below:

‘Staggering Forward-Narendra Modi and India’s Global Ambition’ review: Foreign policy in a hurry by Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu

The Reality of Narendra Modi’s Foreign Policy Failures Laid Bare by Shivshankar Menon, The Wire