Author: cprindia

FULL VIDEO OF BOOK LAUNCH AND DISCUSSION CO-ORGANISED BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AND CPR
SOUTH ASIA INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

Watch the full video (above) of the launch of Zorawar Daulet Singh’s new book, ‘Power and Diplomacy: India’s Foreign Policies during the Cold War’, co-organised by Oxford University Press and CPR.

Hamid Ansari, former Vice President of India was the Guest of Honour.

The launch was followed by a panel discussion featuring Shivshankar Menon, former National Security Advisor of India, Suhasini Haidar, National Editor of The Hindu, Gautam Mukhopadhyay, Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR and author, Zorawar Daulet Singh, Fellow at CPR.

A curated list of reviews of the book can be found here.

About the Book

The notion that a monolithic idea of ‘nonalignment’ shaped India’s foreign policy since its inception is a popular view. In Power and Diplomacy, Zorawar Daulet Singh challenges conventional wisdom by unveiling another layer of India’s strategic culture. In a richly detailed narrative using new archival material, the author not only reconstructs the worldviews and strategies that underlay geopolitics during the Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi years, he also illuminates the significant transformation in Indian statecraft as policymakers redefined some of their fundamental precepts on India’s role in in the subcontinent and beyond. His contention is that those exertions of Indian policymakers are equally apposite and relevant today.

Whether it is about crafting a sustainable set of equations with competing great powers, formulating an intelligent Pakistan policy, managing India’s ties with its smaller neighbours, dealing with China’s rise and Sino-American tensions, or developing a sustainable Indian role in Asia, Power and Diplomacy strikes at the heart of contemporary debates on India’s unfolding foreign policies.

About the Author

Zorawar Daulet Singh is a Fellow at CPR, and is associated with the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. For the past decade, he has been a regular commentator and columnist on India’s foreign policy and various dimensions of India-China relations. His co-authored books include India-China Relations: The Border Issue and Beyond and Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch up with China? He holds a PhD in international relations from King’s College London, and an MA from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO
SECURITY POLITICS INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

‘The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy’ edited by David M Malone, C Raja Mohan and Srinath Raghavan provides an extensive survey of India’s external relations, and was launched on 11 September. It addresses factors in Indian foreign policy flowing from both history and geography, and also discusses key relationships, issues and multilateral forums through which the country’s international relations are refracted.

BY THE ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE
BUDGET FISCAL DEVOLUTION SOCIAL SECTOR SCHEMES

BUREAUCRACY
The Accountability Initiative (AI) at the Centre for Policy Research has come out with its budget brief series for 2015-2016, analysing government allocation and expenditure in key social sector schemes, launched on its brand new website.

This year, AI realigned its budget work to study state rather than union budgets in response to the Fourteenth Finance Commissions (FFC) recommendations to increase the fiscal autonomy of states. Through a study of 19 state budgets, AI analysed how this move toward fiscal devolution impacted the future of social sector investments. The full report, State of Social Sector Expenditure in 2015-2016 can be accessed here.

The research this year analysed union budgets in four schemes combining these with field surveys, and the individual budget briefs can be accessed here: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Integrated Child Development Services, Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) and National Health Mission.

Six out of the 19 states studied in the State of Social Sector Expenditure in 2015-2016 report can be accessed through individual state briefs here: Bihar, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

In the video (above) Yamini Aiyar, who leads the work at AI, explains what these briefs are and how they will be used to deepen the public debate, going forward.

INCREASING PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND INFORMING PUBLIC POLICY
URBAN SERVICES

The India Homeless Resource Network (IHRN) was launched on 20 April in the presence of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha

The IHRN website, which will curate research and learning on the issue, can be accessed here.

Five organisations have come together to form this knowledge hub with a view to informing policy makers, social workers, and the wider public, to increase the level of attention homelessness receives in urban policy.

Listen to the audio (above) to learn more about the issue and the need for IHRN.

IHRN combines unique strengths from each of the organisations working on a range of issues, such as health, livelihood, gender, and legal reforms, faced by people on the streets and shelters of India’s cities. To learn more, tune in to the audios describing the different organisations’ work, and visit their websites, listed below:

• The Banyan, Chennai: Listen to the audio here.
• Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi: Listen to the audio here.
• Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi: Listen to the audio here.
• Koshish-TISS, Mumbai: Listen to the audio here.
• Institute for Development Studies, Jaipur

A BLOG SERIES BY TR RAGHUNANDAN OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE AT CPR
BUREAUCRACY

The blog series below by TR Raghunandan, an advisor to the Accountability Initiative at CPR, sheds light on how senior IAS officers overcome challenges to do their work and create value for the communities they are responsible for:

Why the Bureaucracy Clicks, and Doesn’t recounts the experiences of V J Kurien, the Managing Director of the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), and how he was able to convince and win the trust of all stakeholders to develop Kochi International Airport. His credibility as someone who strived for consensus helped overcome the challenges of financing, providing gainful employment for thousands of people, and getting the support of a sceptical local administration. An Eye for Detail, further explores Kurien’s exceptional eye for detail and his ‘un-relenting desire to seek economy and efficiency’ that set him apart from most other bureaucrats.

A Bureaucrat’s Endeavours Bear Fruit explores how T Vijaykumar managed to secure tribal rights and increase livelihood for rural women in Andhra Pradesh. It looks back on Vijaykumar’s experience as Managing Director of the Girijan Cooperative Corporation and head of the Society for the Elimination of Rural Poverty, (SERP). The latter, a state-level society, cut through red tape and implemented the state’s ambitious poverty reduction mission thereby supporting 1.15 crore rural poor women in the state. The success of the Andhra Pradesh approach significantly contributed to the evolution of the national model – the National Rural Livelihoods Mission.

The Key to Success in the IAS reflects on the qualities that both Kurien and Vijaykumar exhibited, and how their personal experiences of interacting with the system shaped their professional vision such as dealing with political repercussions and jealousy of colleagues from within the bureaucracy. A Social Sector Crusader delves deeper into Vijaykumar’s career trajectory as a bureaucrat, including the time he was abducted and held for ransom by left wing extremists.

IN CONVERSATION WITH NEELANJAN SIRCAR
ELECTION STUDIES POLITICS

Neelanjan Sircar, Senior Fellow at CPR, provides a detailed data analysis of the Bihar election in 2015, and why the BJP performed poorly in Assessing Party Performance and Alliance Dynamics in the 2015 Bihar Election.

Drawing on key arguments from the Bihar analysis, he shares below the learning for the BJP for the upcoming state elections (Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Pondicherry) between April–May, 2016, with a special focus on Assam.

How do the upcoming state elections look for BJP in general?

The BJP is clearly not doing well in the state elections, and if they do not win one in 2016, they would have gone without having won a single state election for nearly two years, which is not good for any party. Four out of the five states slated for election between April and May are not in play for them at all. The only state in which the BJP may do well is Assam, and it is important for them to win this so that their base feels energised and the morale of the party workers is boosted.

What should the BJP learn from the Bihar outcome?

There are two big lessons for the BJP from Bihar:

1. They must figure out a way to work with the state outfits—this was a problem in Bihar. Unlike the Congress, which is really a collection of quite independent state level Congress parties, this avatar of the BJP is far more centralised. In Assam, the BJP state election is being led by a Congress defector, and it might prove tricky to lead a state election through a centralised campaign, which requires negotiating with an opposition party defector.

2. If there is one state where playing the Hindu cultural issues is likely to work, it is Assam, given its Muslim population and the Bangladeshi migrant issue, which are existing fault-lines. That being said, if that is the only card played, it will be hard to win. Tarun Gogoi is weighed down by anti-incumbency, but I always tell people that ‘anti-incumbency’ is an observation, not an explanation ; it only means that people are tired of the incumbent. The BJP needs to develop an explanation in order to appeal to the floating population of voters that may be swung in its favour. Issues like economic growth and infrastructure development tend to draw floating voters and expand vote share. The BJP failed to develop these sorts of narratives in Bihar, often focusing on cultural issues. It must be remembered, however, that such cultural issues can motivate the BJP’s core base of voters but are less effective in drawing the floating voters necessary to win an election.

To what extent will the current debate around ultra-nationalism be a factor in Assam?

It is an open question. As it appears, since a lot of state elections are not going well, the BJP’s return to power in 2019 is unlikely to happen through these state elections. As a result, they are creating this national narrative around nationalism, with the 2019 general elections as the goal.

Sircar and his team will be regularly sharing data analyses; positing trends; field notes; and detailed post-analyses from April through June for all state elections.

BY CPR-NAMATI ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

The CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program, with support from Duleep Matthai Nature Conservation Trust has prepared handouts on the legal mechanisms available in Human wildlife conflict in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Odisha and Karnataka. These handouts entail:

A brief overview of the present status of human wildlife conflict,
The measures taken by the Centre and states to tackle this, and,
The compensatory mechanisms available in case of human wildlife conflict.
The information in the handouts is based on publicly available information and discussions with partner organisations. It is available in Hindi, Gujarati, Odia and Kannada .

The Program also announced the release of material on the legal framework for conservation and protection areas. This material provides information on the legal provisions under which these areas are formed, the spaces available for the local communities, and the monitoring mechanisms. It is also available in Hindi, Odia, Gujarati and Kannada.