Author: cprindia

WATCH A SHORT FILM
LAND PLANNING HOUSING

The Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi under its initiative ‘Scaling City Institutions for India: Land Planning and Housing (SCI-FI: LPH)’ is pleased to announce the signing of a MOU on September 28, 2020 with the Housing & Urban Development Department, Government of Odisha.

Through this ground breaking partnership, SCI-FI: LPH aims to support the JAGA Mission in its second phase to integrate the urban poor settlements into the city fabric by upgradation of basic facilities and services. This will in turn lead towards progressive realisation of the JAGA Mission’s broader vision of a Liveable Habitat for all.

SCI-FI: LPH at CPR will be the knowledge partner to help with systematic planning for “slum freeing” and “slum proofing” and will collaborate to undertake pilots and support the scaling up of this programme. While supporting HUDD and the JAGA Mission in transforming the slums into liveable habitat, it will endeavour to document the learnings from the entire process for other states and cities across the country. This project is supported by the Omidyar Network India.

As a first step under this MoU, a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has been prepared by SCI-FI: LPH for Slum Upgradation and Delisting. The SOP is formally launched via videoconferencing with remarks by the Honourable Chief Minister, Government of Odisha on Monday, September 28, 2020.

STATE LEVEL LAUNCHING OF SLUM UPGRADATION PROGRAMME FOR ACHIEVING SLUM FREE CITIES THROUGH VIDEO CONFERENCING (Date: 28.09.2020 Timing: 11.30 AM)

11.30 AM – Welcome address by Principal Secretary to Government, H&UD Department.

11.33 AM – Screening of video on ‘Parichaya’ and dedication of 116 Parichaya (Multi-Purpose Community Centres) in 116 Slums in 30 ULBs by Hon’ble Chief Minister.

11.37 AM – Screening of video on slum upgradation programme.

11.40 AM – Release of SoP document on commencement of slum upgradation programme by Hon’ble Chief Minister.

11.42 AM – Signing of MOU between Housing & Urban Development Department and Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi for supporting the Slum upgradation programme as Knowledge Partner.

11.45 AM – Address by Hon’ble Minister, Housing & Urban Development from Balasore Collectorate V.C. Hall.

11.48 AM – Commencement of distribution of 1,05,000 LEC by Hon’ble Chief Minister.

11.51 AM – Address by Hon’ble Chief Minister.

11.55 AM – Vote of thanks by Joint Mission Director, Jaga Mission.

By adopting this SOP the Government of Odisha, has bridged a key gap in national and state policy on housing options for the urban poor, by introducing “slum upgrading”, i.e. statewide upgradation of basic infrastructure in slums to bring the slum neighbourhood infrastructure at par with the rest of the city. The land rights and entitlement exercise along with the slum upgradation exercise will allow the delisting of slums in the city and bring the poorer neighbourhoods within the city planning and governance process, statewide.

Watch the short movie demonstrating the continuous efforts of the Government of Odisha in ushering growth-oriented and inclusive reforms in diverse socio-economic spheres. Through this SOP, the government aims to lay down the integral steps to fostering community participation, by involving slum residents in urban planning and local development process promoting decentralised decision-making at various levels of urban governance. This SOP document will lay the foundation for further affirmative actions with respect to improved tenure security, housing and adequate access to basic services, thereby promoting the over-arching objective of achieving slum-free and slum-proof cities in Odisha.

CREMATION AT LODHI ROAD ELECTRIC CREMATORIUM ON FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2015 AT 4.30. PM
OBITUARIES

It is with profound grief and sadness that we announce the passing away of Mr K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, Chairman, Centre for Policy Research. The cremation will take place at Lodhi Road Electric Crematorium on Friday, May 29, 2015 at 4.30. pm. This is an immeasurable loss to CPR and the wider community. We can take some consolation from his extraordinary achievement in so many fields and we know he will be lighting up heaven as he lit up this earth.

A REMEMBRANCE
OBITUARIES

K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, IAS, chairman of the Centre for Policy Research, passed away on May 28. His life surpassed all measures of excellence, achievement and character. A conventional biography would be impressive enough: An IAS officer who exemplified the best that the service was meant to be, in knowledge, dedication and integrity. He served in various positions: chief executive, Calcutta Metropolitan Authority, secretary in the ministries of commerce and urban affairs. After retirement, he embarked on a career as a scholar, publishing a dozen significant books and reports, mainly on urbanisation, which would be the envy of any scholar. But this biography does not do justice to his achievement.

KCS, as he was known, was the kind of individual indispensable to the foundations of modern India. His integrity and thoroughness as a civil servant were exemplary. But unlike the encrusted reputation of civil servants (which he made fun of in a characteristically humorous and self-deprecating book, The Enduring Babu), his conduct as a civil servant was to facilitate and enable, rather than block and slow down things. In a disposition that he carried over to scholarly life, he never presumed to know and always insisted on learning more. But, most importantly, it is hard to think of a modern scholar or civil servant whose career was so insistently bound up with the fundamental architecture of Indian democracy; an architecture we have waylaid at our peril.

In his work and life, that architecture of democracy had four pillars. The first, unusual among civil servants, was an unremitting faith in the primacy of representative democracy. He did probably the most laborious and outstanding work on delimitation, to ensure that the idea of equal representation was not lost. The second pillar was a farsighted belief in the power of decentralisation and the role of local bodies. He was one of the architects of the 73rd and 74th Amendments, and his passion for local government informed almost everything he did. He published numerous books on the subject including, most recently, Courts, Panchayats and Nagarpalikas, which examined the ways in which courts have shaped the architecture of local governance. In his most recent work on mega-city governance, he candidly acknowledged the ways in which a moth-eaten 74th Amendment had stymied the future of urban governance. He argued for democracy over bureaucracy, participation over exclusion, and the fitness of administrative structures to the task at hand with rare depth, knowledge and precision.

The third pillar of a democratic future was cities. He was one of the earliest articulators of a vision for city governance, beginning with his work in developing industrial townships like Durgapur and Asansol, through to his work in rehabilitating refugees during the 1971 war in Calcutta.

Although his work focused much on the legal forms and administrative structures of cities, every single report and book of his is informed by a profound sense of the dynamism of cities and their complex social and economic structures. His most recent work on mega cities (including chairing the commission for a new capital for Andhra Pradesh) highlighted the complex dynamic unfolding in the relations between regions and cities, and was prescient in recognising the kinds of tensions brewing around our cities.

The fourth pillar of his work on democracy was profoundly infused with his personality. Behind his baritone voice and towering presence was a truly democratic personality, infused with the lightness, joy and diversity only a democratic personality could conjure. He had a killer sense of humour that had the power to dissolve conflict rather than exacerbate it. He was fiercely independent, deferring to no authority or threat, and nurtured that quality in institutions he shepherded. He had strong views. But he never imposed them, and often nurtured a kind of agonal difference. He cared about everyone he encountered. He combined in his persona the dream liberal arts sensibility we talk about but rarely achieve — the knowledge of several languages, a deep and cultured interest in art and music, a passion for knowledge ranging from law to economics, a sense of civic duty and dialogue across generations. Democracy for him was the affirmation of life.

He may also have been the last of the great Nehruvians. He chided Nehru for ignoring local government. But he had a commitment to building a modern state, a deep interest in institutions, an interest in modernity, made richer by a sense of the past, a sense of India above region, religion and caste, and a concern for a civilisational linkage that could perhaps one day, again, transcend the barriers Partition created. He left too soon. And the only explanation can be that God needed an exemplary civil servant for himself, since modern India seems to no longer have any use for this kind.

– Pratap Bhanu Mehta, writing in the Indian Express on 29 May 2015

DATA ANALYSIS BY NEELANJAN SIRCAR (SENIOR FELLOW, CPR), ROSHAN KISHORE (HINDUSTAN TIMES) & HOW INDIA LIVES
ELECTION STUDIES

A last-minute blitz by Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) surge ahead of the ruling Congress in Karnataka assembly elections, but it fell just short of the magic figure.

A mapping of election results on top of data that characterises the socio-economic make up of constituencies throws up interesting details on how certain sections of voters clinched it for the winners. Here are three voting patterns seen in Karnataka.

Urban seats 35/71

There are 71 constituencies where more than 35% of the population was living in urban areas. The BJP won 15 such seats in 2013. In 2018, it increased its count to 35. Meanwhile, the Congress saw its tally in such seatsshrink from 42 to 30 seats.

Dalit seats: 31/82

There are 82 constituencies where Dalits comprised over 20% of the population. In 2013, the BJP won only 9 of these seats. This time, they won 31, mostly at the expense of the Congress, whose tally fell from 49 to 34.The JD (S) saw its count in such seats fall from 17 to 15.

Minority seats: 36/78

There are 78 constituencies in Karnataka where the share of minorities in the population was above 17%. The BJP increased its haul in such seats from 19 to 36. The Congress went from 45 to 35—a decline but not of the same level as in Dalit and urban seats.

Irrespective of who forms the government, the results are a boost for the BJP as it has managed to get more seats than the Congress and bury the ghosts of the defeat it suffered in the 2013 assembly elections. Three factors can explain this success.

The announced alliance between the Congress, JD(S), has left the BJP seething. But this kind of an alliance would never been necessary had there been a pre-electoral understanding between these two parties. While the JD(S) wins many seats in South Karnataka, it often plays spoiler outside of the region.

We defined JD(S) as a spoiler when it finished third or lower but had a greater vote share difference between the Congress’ and BJP vote share. In effect, these are the seats the JD(S) has no chance of winning but has enough votes to push the second place party over top. Thirty-one of the 43 seats in which JD(S) plays spoilers are in Bombay, Central, or Hyderabad Karnataka – areas with heavy Lingayat populations that came back to the BJP this time. There was little bias in whose fortunes the JD(S) spoiled. Of the 43 seats in which JD(S) was spoiler, the Congress won 23 and BJP bagged 20. (Graphic text: Neelanjan Sircar)

Blow to incumbents

The Congress got fewer seats than the BJP though its vote share was nearly two percentage points higher than the saffron party’s. A look at seats where incumbents lost, which may have hurt the Congress more than the BJP because the former had 122 seats.

Sixteen ministers from the Siddaramaiah government failed to secure a win from their constituencies

The Siddaramaiah government’s decision in March to grant the status of a minority religion to the Lingayat community backfired with the Congress emerging as the biggest loser. The Congress had banked on the support of the influential mutts (monasteries) of the community to back its decision and help sway a significant chunk of Lingayat votes in its favour. But it managed to win just 39 of the 104 seats in the Mumbai-Karnataka, Hyderabad-Karnataka and Central Karnataka regions where the community is dominant, a significant reduction from the 67 seats it won in 2013.

BJP dominates India and how

The Karnataka assembly election results reconfirm the dominance of Narendra Modi-Amit Shah leadership in national politics.

The data analysis has been carried out by Neelanjan Sircar, Senior Fellow, CPR, Roshan Kishore from Hindustan Times and How India Lives. The original article appeared in Hindustan Times.

FULL VIDEO OF DISCUSSION
RIGHTS POLITICS

Watch the full video (above) of the discussion on ‘Key Findings of the Status of Policing in India Report – A Study of Performance and Perceptions’, featuring Dr Vipul Mudgal and Prof Sanjay Kumar.

The Police is the most visible face of the State. Indian police forces are riddled with problems of corruption and misuse of authority, and are often seen as stooges of the parties in power. The idea of police reforms in India remain a distant reality as no action has been taken despite 12 years having passed since the landmark Supreme Court judgment of Prakash Singh vs Union of India. The police and paramilitary forces often seem to work as private armies of politicians and political parties in power across the ideological spectrum. Their writ seems to run everything from arrests to acquittals and from appointments to transfer and postings, irrespective of court orders and constitutional provisions.

The Status of Policing in India Report (SPIR) 2018- A Study of Performance and Perceptions is one of the first attempts to scientifically study police performance and its interaction with the public. It is a rigorous study of the performance and perception of the police in India. It covers close to 16000 respondents in 22 states on parameters like citizens’ trust and satisfaction levels, discrimination against the vulnerable, police excesses, infrastructure, diversity in forces, state of prisons and disposal of cases etc.

Dr Vipul Mudgal is an activist, journalist and a media scholar. He is the Director and Chief Executive of Common Cause and also heads the Inclusive Media for Change. Prof Sanjay Kumar is currently the Director of The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).

FULL VIDEO OF VALEDICTORY METAMORPHOSES SESSION
TECHNOLOGY

Watch the full video (above) of the valedictory session on ‘Information Technologies – Computing, Communications and Machine Intelligence: The Next Twenty Five Years’, featuring Arogyaswami Paulraj, as part of the ‘Metamorphoses-Talking Technology’ series.

We are at the dawn of a new era in Information Technologies, driven by the recent breakthroughs in Machine Intelligence, and supported by impressive advances in Computing and Communications. This talk outlined the history of Information Technology and its likely evolution in the near future. And, more importantly, discussed the potential societal impact of these technologies. The talk surveyed India’s record in developing Information Technologies and the opportunities for the country to become a significant innovator in this vital domain.

Opening remarks were made by Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog and Yamini Aiyar, President and Chief Executive, Centre for Policy Research.

The session was chaired by Ambassador Shyam Saran, Life Trustee, India International Centre.

Arogyaswami Paulraj is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, USA.

The audience feedback of the session can be accessed here.

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).

Access the other Metamorphoses sessions below:

Metamorphoses: Keynote
Metamorphoses: Second Panel Discussion on ‘Future of Governance’
Metamorphoses: Special Interaction on ‘Leading Digital Transformation and Innovation’
Metamorphoses: Third Panel Discussion on ‘Vocabulary of the Digital’
Metamorphoses: Special Interaction on ‘Beyond Techno-Narcissism- Self and Other in the Internet Public Realm’
Metamorphoses: Fourth Panel Discussion on ‘Technology, Social Divides and Diversity’
Metamorphoses: Fifth Panel Discussion on ‘Unpacking Media – Digital & Traditional’
Metamorphoses: Sixth Panel Discussion on ‘Automation, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Jobs’
Metamorphoses: Seventh Panel Discussion on ‘Solutions to Technology Pessimism’
Metamorphoses: Eighth Panel Discussion on ‘Cyber Security’

FULL VIDEO OF PANEL DISCUSSION
RIGHTS TECHNOLOGY

Watch the full video (above) of the first part of the panel discussion on ‘Informational Privacy and Important Tradeoffs’ as part of the session on ‘Informational Privacy in India: An Emerging Discourse’ featuring Ananth Padmanabhan, Anjali Bhardwaj, Bhavin Patel and Amber Sinha.

In the light of important recent developments on informational privacy, data protection and data governance in India, and their widespread ramifications on India’s strategic relations with other nations as well as for doing business in India’s digital economy, the Technology and Society Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research organised a discussion on these themes. This discussion engaged with representatives from embassies, chambers of commerce and research funding organisations located in India.

The last few years have seen a formalisation of the right to informational privacy within India’s constitutional framework. While the context to this – the challenge to the validity of the Aadhaar project – has entailed broader issues on delivery of public goods and services, the response to whether an individual can assert control over key informational aspects of her life has become a critical part of our rights jurisprudence. The Supreme Court verdict in Justice Puttaswamy’s case (2017) unequivocally affirmed this right despite leaving open several important aspects including the permissibility of restrictions on this right, and the level of scrutiny which the judiciary could exercise to safeguard them. What was particularly striking was the judicial reliance on considerable scholarship emerging from India and Indian scholars on important themes pertaining to this right: the differing conceptions of privacy and the role for each of them within India’s constitutional framework; the impact of privacy erosion on citizen-State relationship and private transactions in the commercial realm; surveillance tools and technologies in India; the need for an indigenous data protection law, and much more. The court has picked up on this thread in the second Puttaswamy verdict upholding the constitutional validity of Aadhaar with some important caveats and exceptions.

Recently, the Expert Committee headed by retired Justice Srikrishna also convened to come out with a draft personal data protection bill. The centrality of data to both commercial activity and governance purposes has found recognition in this bill. While the present legal regime to regulate data in India can be considered chequered at best with divergent regulations across finance, healthcare, telecom, mobility etc., the new bill aims to create a ‘big data-ready’ framework. It impacts any private enterprise handling personal data by stipulating new internal procedures and strong penalties. The major themes in the bill are new user rights for data principals (individuals) who share their data with data fiduciaries (technology companies); data localisation and cross-border data flows; data protection authority (DPA) and its powers; data fiduciaries and new compliance requirements; and exceptions including law enforcement. Each of these carries major implications for data-driven solutions. During the deliberations of the Committee too, substantial Indian scholarship on the themes listed above have been referenced and relied upon. This is truly a breakout moment for privacy and data protection in India. It is changing the terrain of institutional responses to personal data, technology architectures, and digital trade.

The second part of the discussion on ‘Personal Data Protection in India’ featuring Arjun Sinha, Nehaa Chaudhari, Rahul Sharma, Rishab Bailey and Amba Kak can be accessed here.

READ THE PAPER BY MANJU MENON
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

In 2000, the central government declared Northeast India as India’s hydropower hub. Over 165 large dam projects were proposed to come up in the region. These projects were held as crucial to India’s energy and environmental security as well as the economic development of the country’s marginalised northeastern borderlands. However, nearly two decades on, this proposal to regulate the region’s water resources remains unimplemented. In addition, the projects have generated a lot of public opposition in Arunachal Pradesh where most of these dams are supposed to be situated, and in the downstream Brahmaputra valley of Assam. This article will look into the government’s hype and failure to construct hydropower dams in the Northeast region. It points to the need for a reflexive political decision on water resource management from the BJP-led governments in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and at the Centre.

With innovation in the genetic engineering now being rewarded in the form of intellectual property rights, there are new things that are beginning to count as property and as objects of human invention – plant varieties, seeds, germplasm, genetic sequences, DNA and so on. While these are revealed through practices of biotechnology, law translates it into a capacity for monopolistic appropriation for biotech innovators. What instrumentalities of technology and law co-produce biotic property? These instrumentalities are examined in a two paper series by Rajshree Chandra. While the first paper seeks to lay out the work of technology in the creation of new biological artefacts, and consequently new economic spaces and property claims, the second paper seeks to examine the role of law in translating inventive claims as property claims.