Author: cprindia

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

The Governments of coastal states and union territories saw the CRZ review by Shailesh Nayak Committee as a window to slip through ‘development’ activities that side-step coastal conservation and traditional livelihoods.

This piece can also be accessed in: മലയാളം

Review of the CRZ Notification 2011

The CRZ Notification governs development on the Indian coastline. It demarcates the first 500 metres of land from the sea as Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) and divides it into ecologically sensitive areas, water areas, urban and rural areas. It also includes the area in the sea up to 12 nautical miles. Acknowledging the vulnerability of coastal ecosystems, it delineates the first 200 metres of the rural areas of CRZ as No Development Zone (NDZ).

In June 2014, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) directed a review of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2011.  To conduct this review, the ministry constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Dr Shailesh Nayak, the then director of the Ministry of Earth Sciences. The key mandate of the committee was to suggest measures to address the concerns of state governments regarding the notification, which had been given a limited role in project approvals and coastal planning in the existing Coastal Zone Notification of 2011 (see our report on CZMAs for more details). It held high-level meetings with the officials of the governments of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala in July and August 2014. It also met with representatives of governments of all coastal states and union territories in New Delhi in October 2014. Based on these meetings, the committee submitted its report to the MoEFCC in January, 2015. The MoEFCC did not make the report of the committee public until a Right to Information appeal reached the Central Information Commission (CIC) and the CIC ordered the Ministry to make the report available (Read details here).

Below is a summary of the representations made by the state governments as documented in the committee report. It indicates that the CRZ Review unleashed the aspirations of coastal state governments for development as well as their desire to have a bigger role in planning, approving and implementing projects on the coast. It sidestepped the conservation aspects of the Notification. The Review also consulted only the state governments instead of doing an objective assessment of the CRZ implementation process, which should have included the Coastal Zone Management Authorities – institutions responsible for the implementation of CRZ since 1996.

Changes in Zoning and NDZ Reduction

Karnataka demanded that like Kerala, CRZ limit for offshore islands in Karnataka should also be limited to 50 metres. It also suggested that all its ports and dense villages should be classified as urban areas. Urban areas in CRZ Notification have fewer restrictions compared to rural areas.

Maharashtra suggested that not all mangrove areas should be classified as ecologically sensitive. Criteria for notification of such areas should include the minimum area of mangrove patches. Currently, any area with mangroves qualifies to be notified as ecologically sensitive. It also suggested that Koliwadas (colonies of Kolis, the traditional fisherfolk) and Goathans (traditional village sites), which are currently categorised as rural areas should be recategorised as urban areas.

Karnataka and Kerala governments requested the committee to reduce the overall limit of the NDZ in the CRZ. While Karnataka recommended that the NDZ be reduced to 50 metres in all rural areas, Kerala suggested that the NDZ around the banks of water bodies should be limited to 50 metres.

Relaxations for local communities and fishery-related activities

Karnataka state government stated that the construction of houses, toilets and stores, which are not allowed in the NDZ, should be permitted since these are required for earning livelihood. It also suggested that dwelling units for local communities should be allowed after 50 metres from the sea in highly eroding rural areas and 10 metres from the sea in backwaters. Currently such constructions are allowed in rural areas only beyond a distance of 100 metres from the sea.

Many small union territories (names not provided) demanded that abandoned saltpans in the CRZ be allotted for fishery related activities. Karnataka sought that mechanised fishing, aquaculture and mariculture be allowed in water areas of CRZ, which is currently prohibited.

Relaxations for tourism activities

Karnataka demanded that temporary tourism structures be allowed on the seaward side of existing roads and buildings in the NDZ, while permanent tourism structures be allowed on the landward side in the NDZ. Currently, the CRZ Notification does not allow constructions in the NDZ except repair and reconstruction of existing houses. Karnataka also sought relaxation in CRZ norms for 23 of its beaches, which it planned to notify as ‘special tourism zones’.

Kerala stated that many tourist facilities fall within the NDZ, so NDZ should be reduced to 100 metres for beach stretches to allow for the construction of tourism structures. It also stated that CRZ norms for areas with tourism potential should be revisited. Further, it suggested that guidelines for building resorts and hotels in the CRZ should not be applicable for ‘urban’ areas under the CRZ. Currently, these guidelines include requirements like maintaining space between two structures to allow public access to beaches, and restriction on withdrawal of ground water within the first 200 metres of land from the sea to avoid saltwater intrusion in water aquifers.

Other state governments (names not provided) also sought relaxations for permitting tourism structures.

Relaxations for buildings in coastal towns and cities

Puducherry sought that existing town and country planning guidelines be applicable to urban areas of CRZ. Maharashtra made a similar demand for redevelopment of dilapidated buildings.

Maharashtra also sought that the new development plan for Mumbai be made applicable in urban CRZ areas as well. It would mean that provisions of the development plan take precedence over CRZ norms for those areas of Mumbai where both the laws apply.

Relaxation for Mining

The Government of Gujarat stated that the Gulf of Kutch and Saurashtra have vast limestone mining reserves. It shared that cement industries set up prior to 1991, need limestone but CRZ notification does not permit mining.  The state sought relaxation for mining of limestone outside of ESAs (ecologically sensitive areas) with subject to mitigation measures.

Besides these, state governments also sought changes in the CRZ clearance procedures to make them simpler with more powers provided to them; help in preparation of coastal zone management plans; and a clear revised list of activities permitted and prohibited in the CRZ.

Many of the suggestions given by the states such as relaxations for tourism projects and buildings in coastal cities and towns, and the width of the NDZ to be decided as per the density of population in an area, made it to the final recommendations of the Shailesh Nayak Committee. These suggestions disregarded the significance and sensitivity of marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of millions of traditional coastal communities dependent on those. They seem to be directed towards ensuring that coasts become available for unhindered ‘development’. If these suggestions make their way into the CRZ Notification, the Notification will only be doing lip service to its original objectives of coastal conservation, protection of coastal livelihoods, and sustainable development of the coast.

Ignored State Coastal Zone Management Authorities (CZMAs)

While the State governments were consulted at length, the state coastal zone management authorities, institutions responsible for implementation of the Notification at the state level, were not made part of the review. They have been the primary institutions for the enforcement of the provisions of the notification for almost 20 years now. On the CRZ review and the recommendations of the committee, Dr Antonio Mascarenhas, Scientist, National Institute of Oceanography, who was a member of the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority at that time (till July 2016), says:

Image: Dr Antonio Mascarenhas, Scientist, National Institute of Oceanography

‘Who reviewed the notification? For a long time, Goa CZMA had no news of it. The entire process was kept under wraps. The Ministry should have informed us of the review. The draft notification as suggested by the Shailesh Nayak Committee reeks of commercial activities. Its first part was fantastic! It was about the scientific and ecological importance of coasts. I am a scientist myself, so I appreciated that part. But the remaining three parts of the report watered down the arguments made in the first part.  The entire document mentions the word ‘mangrove’ some 140 times but ‘sand dunes’ is mentioned, say only 15 times. From an ecological point of view, sand dunes and beach systems are fragile ecosystems. A beach may not come back easily, mangroves can come back wherever a substrate is available. Conservation and restoration of these ecosystems is not stressed enough in the report.’

The other pieces in this series can be accessed below:

• Coastal commons for private tourism and entertainment?
• Is it the end of participatory coastal planning?
• Crucial aspects of proposed Marine Coastal Regulatory Zone Notification revealed
• In conversation with Dr Shailesh Nayak – the man who led the review of coastal regulation
• The proposed Marine Coastal Regulation Zone (MCRZ) Notification
• A tale of two reviews: How two governments amended a coastal land use law
• The Supreme Court’s guiding principles for coastal regulation
• Coastal Regulation Zone Disputes before the National Green Tribunal
• CRZ drives a wedge between communities in Mumbai

Listen to the audio recording (above) of a talk by Vipin Narang, Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT, analysing the nuclear acquisition strategies of states. Based on his research on typologies of acquisition strategies, he explores how states pursued the bomb as opposed to simply why, which has dominated scholarship thus far.

The place you live in has a huge impact on your life. Why are some places in the world, and indeed even within the same country, characterised by better social service provision and welfare outcomes than others? Why have Indian states remained worlds apart in their social development, especially if they started at a similar point in history, if their trajectories were to be traced, such as in the case of Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.

Drawing on a multi-method study, from the late nineteenth century to the present of the stark variations in educational and health outcomes within a large, federal, multi-ethnic developing country like India, Dr Prerna Singh’s book ‘How Solidarity Works for Welfare: Subnationalism and Social Development in India’ develops an argument for the power of collective identity, or subnationalism, as a driver of social welfare.

Singh discusses her book at CPR, explaining the central argument by comparing the different states of India, through:

• A podcast (above); and
• A talk, the audio recording of which can be accessed here.

Prerna Singh is Mahatma Gandhi Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies and Fellow at the Watson Institute, Brown University. Her book is a winner of the Woodrow Wilson Prize awarded by the American Political Science Association for the best book published in politics and international relations in 2015, and Barrington Moore prize awarded by the American Sociological Association for the best book published in comparative historical sociology in 2015.

Watch the full video (above) of the talk by Olga Chepelianskaia, where she discusses the potential of built heritage to address urban development challenges, through selected Asian cities’ cases, highlighting how these learnings could apply to the Indian context.

Indian cities face an unprecedented urbanisation pressure (50% of India’s population will reside in cities by 2050, UN), which reflects in a rapid and uncontrolled built infrastructure development. Such development often takes place at the expense of natural eco-systems, human scale and cultural distinctiveness, which in turn significantly compromises sustainability, resilience, social cohesion, inclusiveness and economic opportunities. Climate change and extreme weather events further exacerbate negative effects of this unsustainable urbanisation process and further deepen poverty and vulnerability in cities.

In this context, achieving the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda targets imperatively comes to reviving and harnessing on cities’ unique natural and cultural assets. Yet, the potential of built heritage to address urban development challenges in India has hardly been explored and tapped into.

Olga Chepelianskaia is an international sustainable urban development consultant, Founder of UNICITI and Program Manager of SEHER INTACH. She specialises in sustainable and climate resilient urban development in Asian cities, natural eco-systems and heritage revival, climate change and clean energy.

The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here. Find all available videos of previous workshops here.

The Regional Centre for Sanitation (RCS) hosted a regional conference in Sri Lanka to facilitate a knowledge sharing platform on Sustainable Sanitation Solutions. It was co-organized by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), the Freshwater Action Network South Asia (FANSA) and the Centre for Policy Research (CPR). The RCS invited professionals and researchers from the South Asian Countries to share their experiences and best practices at a three-day conference held from 21st to 23rd February 2019. Experts and practitioners from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Maldives enriched the conference by sharing their solutions and best practices which strengthen the knowledge and practice towards addressing the current and foreseeable challenges to achieve sustainable sanitation. Participants from India included Shubhagato Dasgupta, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research; Anil Mehta, Principal, VB Polytechnic, Udaipur; Arun Vyas, Additional Chief Engineer, Udaipur Municipal Corporation; Tanvi Tomar, Research Associate, Centre for Policy Research.

The conference had four thematic sessions. The first session held on the first day focused on ‘Improving Sectoral Governance through Policy and Program Monitoring, Reporting and Accountability Instruments’. Speakers from Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan threw light on the importance of aligning the policies to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and improving tracking mechanisms and accountability mechanisms required at all levels for better ownership. They further elaborated on integrating the policies to the practice through awareness and sensitisation programmes, the need for aligning the scalable solutions with government programmes and also the desired coordination and collaboration between implementing agencies. A total of eight speakers presented in the first session.

The second day covered the second and third thematic sessions followed by two panel discussions towards the end of each session. The second session was on ‘Scalable Faecal Sludge and Septage Management Solutions’ and covered pilot projects being implemented in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India. The presenters spoke about circular economy model, treatment of waste water, Faecal Sludge Treatment Plants (FSTPs), operations & maintenance (O&M) and capacity building needed to establish the FSTPs and business models of FSM (Faecal Sludge Management). Following this, the panel discussion revolved around best practice documentation and finding shareable models on reaching the poor, sanitation worker safety etc. along with RSC’s role as a sharing learning platform. The third session titled ‘Environmentally Sustainable and Climate Resilient Sanitation Solutions’, enabled the presenters to share views on increasing awareness on the need for climate resilient sanitation solutions and innovations such as solar bio energy using waste water and waste, GroSan toilets and climate change resilient waste water treatment.

The fourth session on the third day titled ‘Building Blocks for Achieving Inclusive and Equitable Sanitation’ focused on an inclusive approach to ensure sanitation for children in government schools and engaging them as ambassadors of sanitation. It also threw light on an integrated approach at the national level in Sri Lanka, addressing the issues of child faeces disposal and sanitation enterprise to respond to the sanitation needs of the urban poor.

Improving learning outcomes are the principal focus of contemporary education policy in India. There are numerous ways to achieve these outcomes, many of which were identified in the Right to Education Act (2009). With the implementation of the Right to Education, the inputs supplied to schools such as teachers, space, meals, and educational materials have increased. Yet, several concerns have been raised over efficiently allocating resources to improve access for students and quality teaching.

In the context of weak state capacity and limited resources, school consolidation has emerged as a policy tool with a view to improve the efficiency of school functioning. This refers to the ‘closure’ of one or more schools and integration with another, usually bigger school. Students and teachers are transferred to the consolidated school, if space permits. The schools that are closed no longer exist as independent administrative units.

School Consolidation in Rajasthan

While schools have been consolidated over the years across many countries including China, Canada, and the US, this policy tool is relatively new to India. Faced with poor learning outcomes, declining enrolment in government schools, and the proliferation of small schools with poor facilities, the Rajasthan government was one of the first Indian states to consolidate schools. At the same time, the Rajasthan government launched other programmes such as the State Initiative for Quality Education, and programme to create Adarsh schools with grades 1-12 or 1-10. Something similar to the latter has been mentioned in the hotly contested National Education Policy as well, which talks about the creation of school complexes or multiple schools together as a single administrative units. These Adarsh schools or complexes can be created by consolidating schools.

Around 19,500 government schools were consolidated between 2014 and 2018 in Rajasthan, and other states such as Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra followed suit. In 2018-19, the Accountability Initiative analysed secondary data to understand the implementation and short-term effects of consolidation in Rajasthan.

To create Adarsh schools or large schools, the bulk of consolidation, especially in 2014-15, typically involved the closure of elementary schools (grades 1 to 5, grades 1 to 8, or grades 6 to 8) and their consolidation with secondary schools (with any grades from 9 to 12). However, elementary schools were consolidated with other elementary schools as well, especially in 2016-17.

The reorganisation of schools in this manner can impact the education system in the long run – it can change the number of teachers available, administrative and monitoring structures, resource-use, etc. In short, at scale, school consolidation can shake things up. From our study, we found that schools were reorganised quite substantially, with the number of schools with all grades increasing significantly as can be seen in the graph below.

The RTE clearly states that schools need to be easily accessible. Specifically, primary schools need to be within 1 km radius of the child, and upper primary schools need to be within 3 kms. The Rajasthan government too followed this norm.

Therefore, we asked two primary questions. First, has consolidation changed the availability of teachers, school facilities, monitoring, etc.? Has it made the system smoother in any way, eventually benefitting children? Second, did this make a basic service guaranteed by law, inaccessible to certain people? Has it led to people having to drop out of government schools and shift to private schools which are more accessible for them?

The availability of teachers and facilities improved, but elementary schools lag behind

Before consolidation, the teacher-grade ratio (TGR) or the number of teachers divided by the number of grades was low (3 teachers for 5 grades, on average), despite a healthy pupil-teacher ratio. For example, in a school with 30 students, 5 grades, and 2 teachers, the pupil-teacher ratio is 15, well within norms. Yet, 2 teachers have to work with 5 different grades, which results in multi-grade teaching. Often, students of different grades are seated in the same class and taught together and students receive less attention and care than needed. Furthermore, 16 per cent of all government elementary schools in Rajasthan had only one teacher.

Ideally, a school with 5 grades should have at least 5 teachers, or a teacher-grade ratio of at least one. After consolidation, secondary schools had more teachers for every grade. We can see that for schools consolidated with elementary schools, the improvements were small. In fact, the TGR for these schools was around the state average, while secondary schools pulled ahead.

In terms of facilities like a playground or a boundary wall, access improved for students whose schools were consolidated with secondary schools. However, elementary schools lagged behind again.

Did school consolidation lead to dropouts?

We looked at the combined enrolment of schools prior to consolidation, and the enrolment after schools were consolidated. Enrolment in Rajasthan did not change much over the years, but enrolment declined in consolidated schools, across all social groups. Did enrolment decline due to consolidation? Were people excluded? Certain reports definitely argue that this is the case. However, since we looked at the short-term effects, further inquiry is merited to understand the specifics of this decline in enrolment.

Particularly hard hit were students with disabilities, likely due to increased distances to schools. When elementary schools were consolidated with secondary schools, the enrolment of students with disabilities declined far more than other groups. Did parents of other students feel that their children should go to secondary school with potentially more teachers and better facilities, even if further away? It is possible that increased distances for students were mitigated by the expectation of higher quality.

On the other hand, when schools were consolidated with elementary schools, the decline for all groups is the same. Perhaps elementary schools lagged behind, and an increase in school distance was not compensated by an increase in quality, explaining the decline in enrolment.

Given that enrolment declined, a natural question is – was the way these schools were chosen for consolidation a factor behind the drop? Broadly, the following process was followed.  Officials at blocks selected schools, which were aggregated at the district level, and verified by the state departments. Subsequently, after verification, the state passed orders to districts and blocks to consolidate schools. Teachers, parents or guardians, and local leaders were not consulted. Top-down or non-participatory planning is nothing new. However, the consolidation of schools was reversed in several instances due to various reasons, including high SC/ST enrolment in the schools shut, adequate enrolment in the schools shut, political pressure, and so on.

What next?

To the extent that more teachers are available, consolidation can set the stage for improvements in learnings. Nonetheless, it is too soon to say that consolidation improves teaching and learning practices. Questions of equity remain. School consolidation seems to have had a different effect across elementary and secondary schools, and students in the former could get left behind. At a time when over 40 per cent students in government schools in Rajasthan are enrolled in elementary schools, there is a need to improve teacher availability and facilities in these schools too. Consolidation has the potential to bring about substantial changes in the way the school system is organised and administered, but community participation, equity, and access to all should underpin any such transformation as we move forward.

This blog is based on Accountability Intiative’s working paper, ‘School Consolidation in Rajasthan: Implementation and Short Term Effects‘ by Mridusmita Bordoloi and Ritwik Shukla. Read the working paper here.