Author: cprindia

Watch the full video (above) of the public lecture by David Armitage where he discusses the subject of his new book, ‘Civil Wars: A History in Ideas’. A well-respected historian, he is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History and former Chair of the Department of History at Harvard University,

Armitage begins the lecture, discussing how our age has normatively been referred to as ‘a long peace’ in terms of inter-state conflict, describing the 70 years since World War II, where we are said to have allegedly ‘won the war on war’ for the time-being.

He goes on to cite examples from the last few years of about 40 armed conflicts from Afghanistan to Yemen, excluding individual acts of terrorism, insurgency, and other forms of asymmetrical warfare, and talks about how, in the midst of this fragile ‘peace’, we are actually still at war.

This paper, authored as part of the New America US-India Public Interest Technologies Fellowship 2019, examines the privacy implications of drones in civilian airspaces. Though a technology with significant benefits, drones can also carry out extensive snooping and surveillance. As India transitions to a regulatory ecosystem supportive of drone technology, it is imperative that the attention of policy makers be directed to the various privacy harms that lie in store.

Here, the different kinds of harms are mapped into two: traditional privacy challenges arising from a spatial invasion by drones into private spaces, and big data risks on account of the business models that the drone industry has paved the path for. Dealing with the first category of risks, the paper argues that serious criminal enforcement, along the lines of what some States in the United States have pursued, is imperative to safeguard the private domain from the prying eyes of third parties. It also points out serious gaps in Indian constitutional jurisprudence when it comes to structural interventions like drone surveillance, and recommends an overall assessment of the impact on privacy baseline from such technologies when the judiciary evaluates their legality against the touchstone of the fundamental right to privacy. On the second kind of risk, the paper argues for privacy dashboards that help citizens evaluate the purpose of drone operations and assess whether equipments retrofitted alongside the drone are truly required to fulfil these purposes or merely meant to gather unrestricted amount of personal and community data.

The full working paper can be accessed here.

By Santosh Harish, Shibani Ghosh and Navroz K Dubash

The Big Challenge
Air pollution levels are unsafe across the country, all-year round. While pollution levels spike to dangerously high levels during the winter in north India, those in several parts of the country are poor or worse for large parts of the year. High pollution levels are not restricted to cities; several industrial areas along with rural areas across the Indo-Gangetic plain are also polluted. There are several kinds of pollutants in the air: particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, oxides of nitrogen and sulphur. Fine particulates (PM2.5) form a useful proxy indicator for air pollution. The population-weighted annual average concentration of PM2.5 across the country, estimated using satellite data, was 91 microgram/m3 in 2017 – more than twice the national standards.1

Air pollution is a public health emergency. The health impacts of poor air quality are staggering and of growing concern as we discover the full range and degree of its effects with new research. Air pollution is estimated to reduce the average life expectancy of a child born in India by 2.6 years.2 In 2017, air pollution is estimated to have contributed to one in eight deaths in India.3 Cardio-respiratory diseases and lung cancer in adults, and acute lower respiratory infections in children, are the more commonly known impacts of air pollution. In addition, new research indicates a much wider range of health impacts of air pollution such as on birth weight, child growth, obesity and bladder cancer. There is growing evidence on the adverse impacts of pollution on cognitive abilities in children.

Multiple sources contribute at different regional scales. Industries, power plants, vehicles, waste burning, road and construction dust, and household sources are significant sources of air pollutions. At the national level, household burning of polluting fuels for cooking and heating purposes form the single largest contributor to average PM2.5 exposure (in addition to the exposure to PM2.5 within these households themselves).4 Industries and power plants that burn coal are the second and third largest sources of exposure at the national level. Within cities, other sources like transportation, construction dust and waste burning play an important role. Because of these different geographical scales of influence, pollution control measures need to target different sources at appropriate levels. These different sources and scales make the role of the central government critical in framing policy at regional and national scales, coordinating implementation across states, and providing necessary financial and technical assistance.

The Existing Policy Framework
The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in January 2019, looms large over the newly elected government’s policy landscape. The NCAP identified 102 non-attainment cities – which have particulate matter levels that exceed the annual standards – and set a reduction target of 20-30% by 2024. However, in its approach, the NCAP is a status quo-its document, which adheres to city-specific templates from the past, and wholly misses addressing governance gaps. It reinforces India’s policy response to air pollution, which has largely been reactive and overly reliant on administrative solutions. The existing regulatory design has proved to be entirely inadequate to meet the scale of the problem, and the monitoring and enforcement capacity of government agencies (such as the pollution control boards) is insufficient, especially for dispersed sources of pollution like vehicles, stubble and waste burning. An effective air pollution control strategy must break away from the status quo, and instead strategically prioritize key, implementable actions.

Air pollution reduction needs greater commitment from the executive. So far, pollution control has largely been driven by the judiciary. The new government should assume leadership in crafting and implementing an effective national air pollution reduction strategy. This could take different forms. One important example is empowering and giving greater autonomy to pollution control boards (PCBs) to discharge their responsibilities and act against polluters. Currently, interference in the functioning of these boards is visible in multiple ways: (i) the boards are typically led by generalist bureaucrats despite court judgments that have backed domain experts for chairpersons and member secretaries;5 (ii) their funding is often dependent on grants-in-aid by the state governments; and (iii) routine administrative decisions like hiring need approval from the environment department. State PCBs also seem to be facing a trade-off between their functions of monitoring and enforcement, and promoting ‘ease of doing business’. All of these curtail their ability to discharge their statutory mandate effectively.

The new government should also enable resolution when there are complex political and economic factors contributing to a polluting activity. For instance, consider the case of stubble burning where Minimum Support Prices, groundwater management, farm mechanization, the agrarian crisis, and unfavourable meteorology all contribute to episodic peaks in pollution in north India. Banning burning or subsidizing technical solutions such as ‘Happy Seeders’ are unlikely to solve the problem, unless some of the structural factors mentioned above are tackled through political negotiation.

A New Policy Agenda
Strengthening the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP)
NCAP was a missed opportunity to outline a systematic strategy. Beyond the national outreach and the reduction targets, it is a compilation of ongoing efforts, and leaves the details of new efforts to future action plans. Specific gaps include:

NCAP is largely a continuation of the traditional policy approach of developing long lists of unprioritized action points. It does not put implementation capacity at the heart of designing our mitigation policies, thus risking non-implementation.
The programme is urban-centric, focusing on a limited group of cities, and following the National Capital Region template by relying on city action plans. However, air pollution is not restricted to cities, and air quality in cities is typically influenced significantly by sources from outside. Addressing this problem requires moving the conversation towards addressing pollution at regional ‘airshed’ levels, and having more flexible system boundaries for air pollution control. The NCAP does not outline a road map for defining these airsheds and developing processes that cut across jurisdictions and departments.
NCAP misses addressing governance gaps directly. It introduces new committees at the central and state levels, and declares that individual ministries will ‘institutionalise’ action points in their charge. However, it does not specify what institutionalizing entails, and who would be held responsible if targets are not met, and what legal or financial implications would follow.
To strengthen the NCAP, there is a need to focus efforts on a prioritized shortlist of solutions in the short term, improve the enforcement capacity of the PCBs while increasing their accountability, and begin extensive consultations about governance reforms needed in the longer term. We elaborate on these below.

Prioritizing concrete actions
Given the number of sources that contribute to the problem, and the many mitigation efforts needed (several of which are included within NCAP), how do we prioritize policy efforts? Prioritizing solutions needs active consideration of the implementation capacity needed to introduce measures and enforce them. In addition, we need to ensure that the programme does not adversely impact vulnerable groups.

In particular, with dispersed sources of pollution, such as transportation, households, waste burning and construction dust, administrative solutions that require monitoring and enforcement are likely to fail. Instead, enforcement could work better for policy changes targeted at higher, more centralized levels, where possible. For instance, with vehicles, although there is a pollution control mechanism in place, several issues inhibit inspections from being a reliable way to keep the on-road fleet within standards. These include low rates of compliance among vehicle owners in getting tested and compromised inspections (poor calibration of testing equipment and corrupted inspection results). Policy changes aimed higher up in the manufacturing process, such as the requirement to comply with Bharat Stage VI norms, are likely to be better implemented.

Keeping these factors in mind, three key priority areas within the NCAP are identified below.

Power plant emission norms
India’s formal regulatory infrastructure has traditionally focused on ‘point sources’, with good reason. Industries and power plants burning coal are the second and third largest sources in India (only behind the numerous but highly dispersed household sources of emissions), in terms of contributions to average national exposure to air pollution and the resultant burden of disease. Power plants are the largest source of sulphur dioxide and a major source of nitrogen oxide. Sulphur and nitrogen oxides are key precursors that react with other substances to produce secondary particulate matter. MoEFCC introduced new emissions standards for power plants in 2015, which required the installation of pollution control equipment. Although the power plants were required to comply with these standards by 2017, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) later announced that the compliance date had been pushed to 2022, as per a timeline prepared by the Central Electricity Authority. Ensuring that these standards are complied with, and the requisite control equipment installed by this revised timeline, if not at an accelerated rate, is critical.
Revamp Ujjwala to increase LPG use
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (Ujjwala) is an important initiative. While primarily an energy access programme, it has also tackled household solid fuel use, which is the largest contributor to pollution exposure in India. Ensuring universal continued usage of clean cooking fuels should therefore be a critical pillar of our air pollution control efforts. To facilitate continued usage of LPG, the government needs to ensure that prices are affordable for the beneficiaries, and in parallel, run campaigns to change behaviour and attitudes. This is unlikely to be a rapid transition, but some important first steps have been taken. ​
Invest in public transportation
Reducing transportation emissions would require a combination of ensuring easy access to affordable public and non-motorized transport, while simultaneously working on reducing emissions from the vehicles on the road. Investments in clean public transport can reduce transport emissions as well as make mobility easier and cheaper, thereby improving the quality of life in cities. Planning the public transit strategy for the long term is key.

Strengthening regulatory capacity
The formal air pollution regulatory architecture in India is built around the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and rules and notifications issued under these. As per existing law, the state PCBs have very limited flexibility to take action proportional to the polluting activity.7 Currently, they can send show cause notices, shut down industries through a closure notice or by shutting access to utilities, cancel regulatory consents, or initiate criminal prosecution by taking the industries to court. With court cases taking several years to reach any meaningful conclusion, PCBs rarely pursue this route, and restrict themselves to either a rap on the wrist through show cause notices, or shut down the industries – making enforcement expensive and ineffective.

Strengthening the ability of the PCBs to tackle point sources could provide a pathway to a broader reform process. In the long term, India needs a modern environment governance structure with teeth, nimbleness and resources to plan and drive a multi-sectoral strategy. NCAP is largely silent on how this structure could look, and on a road map for reforms. We outline below near-term and long-term milestones to strengthen regulatory capacity.

In the near term, PCBs must be resourced better, and in parallel, be made more accountable through disclosure efforts.
Increased resources of PCBs: Human resources currently available in PCBs are not sufficient to meet their mandate. There is a need to rapidly expand their capacity, particularly on the technical side. In the short term, existing vacancies in the CPCB need to be filled with qualified people. Working with CPCB and the states, filling up vacancies in the state PCBs should be another area of priority. Increased staff resources should translate to increased inspections and monitoring.
Increased accountability through public disclosure of regulatory data: The operations of the PCBs are extremely opaque, and it is unclear to the public where the big polluting sources are, and whether they are compliant with regulatory norms. Ensuring that PCBs release regulatory information (details of consents granted, inspections, online monitoring data, enforcement actions, etc.) into the public domain would make the industries and state PCBs more accountable to local communities, civil society and the media.
Longer-term reforms will require extensive dialogue; therefore, it is important for the government to start deliberations early. We outline below three broad elements for change that should be considered in the reforms process.

Remove legal barriers for effective enforcement: There is a need for statutorily empowering PCBs so that they can initiate systematic and proportional responses to polluting activities. Amending the law to allow for a more diverse regulatory toolbox, which includes both existing powers and additional ones such as levying financial penalties, would increase the flexibility of the PCBs and make them more responsive.
Institutionalized airshed-level management: Tackling air pollution effectively requires looking beyond administrative boundaries and focusing on reducing emissions across the ‘airshed’ over which pollutants disperse. This will need new modes of coordination across city and state administrations, and across line departments; it may also require the creation of new authorities with wider jurisdictions. Airshed level regulation will require a regulatory rethink and would involve extensive consultations which should commence on priority.
Development of a sector airshed approach: The long-term strategy will need a careful application of sectoral approaches at the airshed level, or the national or state level, which utilize an appropriate combination of administrative, technical, economic and behavioural solutions.
Concluding Remarks
Air pollution is a complex problem, with multiple sources operating at different regional scales, under the jurisdictions of disparate agencies, and requiring a variety of mitigation measures. We need to unambiguously acknowledge the terrible impacts of air pollution on our health, move beyond the urban-centric approach, and tackle each of the big sources with a sense of urgency. The policy for tackling air pollution needs to shift from the reactive approach we have taken so far to one that is more systematic: focusing on some efforts in the near term, and beginning the process to reform our environment institutions to make them better resourced as well as more nimble and effective in the longer term.

Other pieces as part of CPR’s policy document, ‘Policy Challenges – 2019-2024’ can be accessed below:

The Future is Federal: Why Indian Foreign Policy Needs to Leverage its Border States by Nimmi Kurian
Rethinking India’s Approach to International and Domestic Climate Policy by Navroz K Dubash and Lavanya Rajamani
India’s Foreign Policy in an Uncertain World by Shyam Saran
Need for a Comprehensive National Security Strategy by Shyam Saran
A Clarion Call for Just Jobs: Addressing the Nation’s Employment Crisis by Sabina Dewan
Time for Disruptive Foreign and National Security Policies by Bharat Karnad
Multiply Urban ‘Growth Engines’, Encourage Migration to Reboot Economy by Mukta Naik
Schooling is not Learning by Yamini Aiyar
Protecting Water while Providing Water to All: Need for Enabling Legislations by Philippe Cullet
1 Health Effects Institute, ‘State of Global Air 2019’, http://www.stateofglobalair.org/.
2 Ibid.
3 K. Balakrishnan et al., India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative Air Pollution Collaborators, ‘The Impact of Air Pollution on Deaths, Disease Burden, and Life Expectancy across the States of India: The Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, Lancet Planet Health 3: e26–e39 (2019).
4 S. Chowdhury et al., ‘Indian Annual Ambient Air Quality Standard is Achievable by Completely Mitigating Emissions from Household Sources’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116(22): 10711-10716 (2019).
5 See, for example, Techi Tagi Tara v Rajendra Bhandari & Ors (2018) 11 SCC 734.
6 GBD MAPS Working Group, ‘Burden of Disease Attributable to Major Air Pollution Sources in India’ (Health Effects Institute, 2018).
7 S. Ghosh, ‘Reforming the Liability Regime for Air Pollution in India’, Environmental Law and Practice Review 4 (2015): 125-146.

FULL VIDEO OF THE SEVENTH EVENT IN THE SERIES
AIR POLLUTION

Watch the full video (above) of Anumita Roychowdhury in conversation with Dr Navroz K Dubash examining the kinds of strategies that have been effective in improving Indian air quality regulation and governance. Anumita discusses the major turning points in the campaign for clean air and the challenges faced in implementing mitigation actions. While emphasising on the role of scientific evidence, the judiciary, and public awareness, as well as the need to mobilise key actors for change, Anumita shared lessons learnt along the way and stressed on the need to re-envision the policy challenge of air pollution in an integrated manner.

About the Panelists:

Anumita Roychowdhury is the Executive Director – Research and Advocacy, and Head of Air Pollution and Clean Transportation Programs at the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi. She co-authored the book ‘Slow Murder: The deadly story of vehicular pollution in India’ in 1996 that catalysed the Right to Clean Air campaign in India. She has written and spoken extensively on air pollution and issues relating to transport. Over the years she has participated in many global and national forums on environmental issues and is also associated with various regional networks on air pollution and transportation. In 2016 she was awarded the Haagen-Smit Clean Air Award for 2016 (in the category of International Air Pollution Policy) by the California Environmental Protection Agency.

Dr Navroz K Dubash is a senior fellow at CPR and coordinator of the Initiative on Climate, Energy, and Environment. His research and policy interests include climate change policy and governance, the political economy of energy and water, the regulatory state in the developing world and the role of civil society in global environmental governance. In 2015 he was conferred the 12th T N Khoshoo Memorial Award in recognition of the impact of his work on Indian climate change policy and the international discourse on global climate governance.

This is the seventh event in the Clearing the Air Seminar Series, organised by the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment (ICEE) at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR). The series aims to promote sustained and informed public understanding around the data, impacts, sources and policy challenges involved in clearing Delhi’s air. While it focuses on the context of Delhi, the series also reflects on the fact that the problem extends far beyond Delhi. The seminar series presents the work of experts in a range of areas to help promote informed public discussion about what changes are needed, what is possible, and how to get it done. Clearing the air in terms of knowledge and public information, we hope, will make a small contribution toward actually clearing Delhi’s air. Information about previous events held as part of the Series can be found here.

The question and answer session that followed the conversation between the panelists can be accessed here.

India approaches an important new phase in our engagement with global climate change. The decisions India makes in the coming years will define how successfully we are able to bring together development and low carbon futures, and our potential to signal leadership on this issue globally. How do we make these decisions evidence-based and consistent with both our long-term climate and development goals?

In a new policy brief titled Building a Climate-Ready Indian State, Navroz K. Dubash, Aditya Valiathan Pillai and Parth Bhatia lay out a plan to revitalize climate governance in India. They argue for a structure that addresses the governance challenges of coordination, building consensus around change, and setting strategic direction.

What would this look like?

At its core, they propose a non-executive and statutory body, the Low Carbon Development Commission, which combines stakeholder views and deep analytical capacity to lay out low-carbon development pathways. A development pathway approach implies going beyond core energy and emissions policies by considering deeper economic choices such as patterns of urbanisation, industrialisation, and job creation.
They bind the system together through procedural requirements that push ministries to set sectoral goals and report on them, and give Parliament and the public a greater role in overseeing national progress.
They give life to the system through new climate capacities layered across government.
This work is informed by an open-access academic paper on the evolution of Indian climate institutions by Aditya Valiathan Pillai and Navroz K. Dubash, which was recently published in the journal Environmental Politics.

Democratisation was front on centre as the need of the hour on Day 1 of the international symposium on ‘Reimagining Inclusive Cities in the COVID-19 Era’. The need to make residents of a city, especially those from the economically weaker sections and from slums, a critical part of the policy and decision making process, city planning as well as the implementation was repeatedly stressed by urban development experts and practitioners through the session.

Click here to know more about the symposium.

The first day of the virtual international symposium on September 20, 2021, started with a focused discussion on ‘Responsive urban planning framework towards building equitable and inclusive cities in the wake of COVID-19’.

“There is a new impetus to look at this issue both at the city level as well as the national level in South Asia, especially in India. On the other side there is the whole backlog this (pandemic) is going to create to global goals, to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)and to the New Urban Agenda (NUA). So, a rethinking of what universal services might look like in the post-COVID era was something we felt was very timely,” said Shubhagato Dasgupta, Senior Fellow and Director of the SCI-FI initiative at CPR, in his opening remarks.

The inaugural address to set the tone of the three-day international symposium was delivered by David Satterthwaite, Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London. He underscored the transformative nature of community involvement in the process of informal settlement and slum upgradation.

Satterthwaite drew on the experiences gained from the Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI) in multiple countries.He noted that hostility to information gathering evaporated when a member of their own community was involved in the process. Their involvement also led to greater trust and awareness and led to a comprehensive broad basing of the nature of information that could be gathered. This information would also be contextualised and could in turn be used to formulate relevant interventions in a timely manner.

Satterthwaite also said successful examples of slum and informal settlement upgrading usually include and depend on much better relations between informal settlement dwellers and local government. He said this engagement, when done right, could form the foundation from which other exclusions can be addressed.

The next session was an exploration of experiences from the Global South. Experts shared their experiences in carrying out the upgradation efforts in Brazil’s Sao Paulo, Kenya’s Nairobi and India’s Mumbai. The session was moderated by Anaclaudia Marinheiro Centeno Rossbach, Regional Manager LAC of the Cities Alliance.

Speaking of the learning from Sao Paulo, Fernando Mello Franco, the city’s former Secretary of Urban Planning, drew a picture of vulnerability that was concentrated away from major areas of government investment like roads and public transport.

He pressed the concept of stressed communities as key force multipliers in the context of responding to crises such as the pandemic. Suggesting the use of the term ‘physical distancing’ as a more suitable term over ‘social distancing’ in the context of the pandemic, Franco recalled examples from Sao Paulo where slums which had stronger community bonds had experienced lower death rates due to COVID, often lower than the municipal average that included more affluent areas.

Jane Weru, Executive Director of the Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT) from Nairobi lined out her experiences from interventions in Nairobi’s sprawling Mukuru area, which was declared as a Special Planning Area. She said the local government had promoted a sectoral approach and involved 46 organisations and community representatives in the upgradation of the slum.

In the context of the pandemic, she said there had been a paradigm shift in how health services need to be prioritised. “This has happened in Kenya, is an appreciation that public health interests far supersede the interests of private property. So therefore, in the face of the pandemic, regardless of the title interests of individual, the state should enter and provide basic services that will ward off present and future pandemics. I think that is another principle upon which the future reimagining of cities should be visited,” Weru said.

Vidyadhar Phatak, former head of the Planning Division of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) demonstrated that a top-down planning approach could lead to deeply entrenched systemic issues that could reduce the efficacy of slum clearance, rehabilitation or upgradation efforts.

Phatak outlined some unintended consequences of the decades-long reliance on private players as a part of the slum clearance efforts for below-par outcomes for residents. He shared examples where the construction of tightly-packed apartments to replace slums had led to houses that did not have enough light or ventilation and potentially led to higher incidence of diseases like tuberculosis. He said the reliance on private developers, who had profit considerations, continued to be looked on positively by the political class because they would not have to scramble to find dedicated budgetary allocations.

Phatak further said some of the present problems faced by slum upgradation efforts had their roots in restrictions that local governments came up with to control unregulated construction by slum residents. He said the easing of these restrictions were being used as incentives to the private developers.

“The apparent success of the SRA model (slum rehabilitation in Mumbai) depended on the supply side constraint, both natural and regulatory, which kept boosting the prices because of the scarcity of developments rights in the market. This scarcity of development is being attempted to be used as a solution to housing. First you create a constraint then you use a relaxation of these constraints as an incentive. This is not the optimal policy option in this case,” Phatak said.

These sessions were followed by a panel discussion of the evening on the creation of ‘Responsive urban planning frameworks in building equitable and inclusive cities in the time of pandemic’, moderated by Aparna Das, Senior Advisor at Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The discussion sought to address the meaning and nature of planned development and the need to bridge the intentions and implications of the actions of planners.

Sheela Patel, Founder-Director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), questioned the foundation of the planning process – data collection. “We are countries that have huge poverty and deficits which are not going to be solved by cute little tinkering of little plans. All the digitalisation that we are inheriting from global excitement of big data, we are not understanding the political value of data that should be in the hands of poor people” she said.

Patel spoke of the politics of knowledge and to whom it goes and what it does. She said only if the data is in the hands of the poor could they make relevant political decisions on what to do with it and what questions to ask. She said this was critical because an increasing component of planning is based on reliable data.

Hong Soo Lee, Senior Urban Specialist (Smart Cities) at the Urban Sector Group of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) spoke on the need for urban planners to take into account more than just one policy objective while drawing out master plans. He pointed to the need to stitch together the planning for civic services and transport alongside efforts at slum upgradation and regeneration, instead of dealing with these policy areas in isolation from each other.

The Brazilian model came up for examination again in the context of using data in the policy making process. Tereza Herling, Urban and Housing Specialist, Academic at Mackenzie University’s Architecture and Urbanism School and also former Joint Secretary for Urban Development of São Paulo pointed to social involvement as a prerequisite to effective urban planning.

Speaking of the existence of social movements in her country as well as the legislative framework recognising land having a social function, Herling said reliable streams of data were critical to decide the prioritisation in the deployment of financial resources. “I understand that social movement organisations are very important prerequisites to foster public policies to go forward… These social movements in Brazil were responsible in the important achievement of the legal framework of the city statutes,” she said. Herling added that it is important to bring planning data not just to the public at large, but also introduce them in schools so children can be made aware of their cities and the rights associated with it, as a mode of strengthening social movements.

The flip side of social mobilisation in the field of urban planning was presented by Georg Jahnsen, Project Manager, SUD-SC at GIZ. He spoke of the situation in Germany, where there would be little engagement by members of the community even when the process allowed for feedback and inputs. He said while the need to make planning processes democratic was critical, it was also incumbent on the planners to ensure that the community is not just made aware of these rights but also encouraged to participate.

Day 2:

The second day of the international symposium, September 22, will feature discussions on ‘Upgrading informal settlements to foster resilient cities against future pandemics’. The sessions will commence at 4:30 pm IST.

1 June 2016
Building Evidence for Justice – Groundtruthing Environmental Compliance
A WEBINAR BY KANCHI KOHLI
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Watch the full video (above) of the webinar on ‘Building Evidence for Justice – Groundtruthing Environmental Compliance’ by Kanchi Kohli, Research Director of the CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program.

The webinar explains how the groundtruthing exercise can lead to effective evidence to demonstrate levels of compliance to environmental and social regulatory mechanisms by projects (industrial, infrastructure, mining) to relevant authorities.

The webinar also presents CPR-Namati’s experience of using this method within its legal-empowerment-based environmental justice program in India.

FULL VIDEO OF CPR-CSH TALK
MIGRATION

Watch the full video (above) of the talk by Pragna Ragunanan, where she presents her paper reflecting four years of ethnographic field research on how new migrant communities (re)construct space and place in the suburb of Fordsburg, Johannesburg in South Africa.

It examines how people cope in the face of adversity and argues that communities are forged and contested within a tangled web of power relations and rank ordering of migrant groups. The paper draws on qualitative interviews with local South Africans as well as Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Malawian and Egyptian migrants and their understanding of the notions of community, belonging, and identity, within a social capital framework.

Pragna Rugunanan is Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Brown University International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI) at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Providence, United States, and the State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi, invites applications for a week-long workshop in Delhi from January 8-14th, 2020.

BIARI 2020 is an interdisciplinary residential workshop for early-career participants and rising scholars. It features lectures, seminars, and workshops with distinguished international faculty from Brown University, CPR, and partner institutions in Argentina, Columbia, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States of America. For details of previous workshops, please visit here.

The State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) is a new interdisciplinary research and practice programme focused on addressing the challenges of the 21st-century Indian state — its roles, federal structure, institutional design, organisational forms and culture, administrative reforms, the everyday life of local bureaucracies and frontline functionaries, knowledge resources, regulatory and fiscal capacity, and the complex and changing relations between society, politics, and state capacity.

BIARI 2020

BIARI 2020 will focus on contemporary challenges of state capacity in India and the broader methodological approaches to study the state, particularly at the frontline. Thematic focus areas will include:

Bureaucracy and administrative reforms
Federal structures with particular focus on local governments
Core welfare functions and emerging challenges facing the Indian state such as urbanisation, climate change/energy, and building regulatory institutions
Cultures, practices, and norms of the Indian state
Comparative exploration of state capacity in India is a key objective of BIARI 2020. The Watson Institute Global Partners will participate in the programme and on-going debates on state capacity in India will be explored within other country contexts. The program also aims to encourage a wider set of researchers to study the state collaboratively, and through this contribute to the currently thin body of empirical knowledge on how the Indian state works.

BIARI 2020 covers the full cost of tuition, meals, and accommodation for the duration of the programme. Travel expenses will be covered where needed.

Application Eligibility

Early career researchers who have completed their doctoral degrees in the last three years and are pursuing postdoctoral and teaching opportunities (including BIARI alumni). Preference will be given to those working with Indian institutions.
Advanced doctoral students undertaking research on state capacity related areas. All disciplines are welcome. Preference will be given to students at Indian Universities.
Researchers and practitioners with strong work experience and demonstrated research interest in state capacities and public system programmess in allied fields such as law, journalism, public policy, and development research and consulting. A minimum of a postgraduate degree and seven years of work experience on issues related to state capacities in India is required.
Application Requirements

Application form in the given template.
A one-page covering letter and a recent CV with a focus on academic and professional qualifications and experience relevant to state capacity in India.
A problem statement which systematically engages with a critical challenge related to state capacities in India (1000 words). This could be based on the applicant’s professional or academic work or a sustained area of interest. The applicant should explore the problem both conceptually and empirically.
Names and complete contact details of two referees. For doctoral candidates, one referee should be the doctoral supervisor.
Application Closing Date

Completed applications should be shared by November 8th, 2019 with Dr Priyadarshini Singh, Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, at statecapacity@cprindia.org. Shortlisted applicants will hear from us by November 30th, 2019.

Application Form Template

a. Full Name:

b. Gender:

c. DOB:

d. Address:

e. Phone Number:

f. Email ID:

g. Employer:

h. Years of work experience:

i. Summary of current job role (200 words):

Following questions only for PhD students:

j. Year of PhD:

k. Department (Within University):

l. Discipline(s):

m. Thesis title:

n. PhD research summary (200 words):

On 12 April 2018, the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment at the Centre for Policy Research organised a conversation between Anumita Roychowdhury (Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, and Head, Air Pollution and Clean Transportation Programs, at Centre for Science and Environment) and Dr. Navroz K Dubash, (Professor, CPR) on air quality governance and advocacy. The event was part of CPR’s Clearing the Air? Seminar Series.

Anumita Roychowdhury has been at the forefront of the clean air campaign in India for more than two decades. In this conversation, she discussed effective strategies to improve air quality regulation and governance, and reflected on some of the lessons learnt from shaping policy through deep government engagement and work with the courts. She also discussed the importance of strong institutions, evidence-based policy, and effective long-term implementation strategies to deal with poor air quality.

We have identified some key issues that came up during the conversation and presented them in the form of a Q&A below. The video of the complete conversation can be accessed here.

Videos and background information of other events in the Clearing the Air? Seminar Series can be accessed here.

How have you seen public understanding of air pollution shift over the years?

When we started our advocacy in 1996, there was very little awareness and conversation on air pollution. We faced the challenge of creating a value for clean air in society. Barely anyone was fully aware of the consequences of breathing toxic air. Health and air pollution science was weak and could not inform and drive the agenda adequately and effectively. This made official denial of the problem so easy. The problem could be easily dismissed as dust from Rajasthan. In order to deepen public understanding and draw attention to the problem, we had to inform, excite and provoke opinion and reaction, and shock people to react. It became necessary to mobilise key actors for change: primarily the judiciary and the media, and inform public opinion too. Even though public conversation was limited, the concern was growing.

When awareness level was so low, it was tough and challenging to fight push-back from lobbies that tried to obstruct and block action. This was most evident when the city was phasing in the CNG programme for public transport vehicles. Public understanding and awareness was simply not deep enough to resist and counter the push-back from the diesel industry, bus operators and even the governments. Thus, the CNG transition became enormously confrontational and deeply contested. The onus was on the civil society to prove and to fight disinformation. But this campaign affected everyone – the common citizens in the city. This helped people to connect with the problem of air pollution and its solutions, and become more aware of why such battles were being fought in the city. In fact, the initial success and the improvement in air quality eventually helped to improve participation and policy engagement. But the momentum of action could not be sustained after the initial phase of action. After 2006, there was a lull, and action slowed down while the problem escalated. However, debates and discussions continued and air pollution began to permeate deeper into public consciousness. This subsequently enabled the second wave of action 2015 onwards. Public awareness currently is far stronger than what it was 20 years ago. But there is still a barrier to translating awareness into strong public and political support for hard and difficult decisions especially those that require lifestyle changes.

What is the role of science in advocacy about air pollution?

While advocacy needs passion and anger to propel action, it also needs to stand firm on science and evidence to power change. When we started our air pollution campaign, scientific and health information in India was very limited. We relied on the powerful international studies (there was no reason to reinvent the wheel) and on our dialogue with the medical community to build public knowledge. The most powerful local evidence for us was the pictures of lungs that showed the deadly effect of air pollution. With that we tried to elicit a visceral reaction.

Scientific evidence is necessary to push action and decisions, and judicial orders. The judiciary has remained the key player and a propeller of action to combat air pollution in Delhi-NCR. The Supreme Court has been hearing the ongoing public interest litigation on air pollution since 1986. Judiciary has also created its own system of technical advisory by setting up the Environment Protection (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) to access scientific information and enable stakeholder consultations to make informed decisions, give directions and enable monitoring. This process has picked up after 1998. The Court also needs science and evidences to back decisions.

Today, air pollution science in India – still a growing body of knowledge – is better than what it used to be. More studies are available on air pollution, at least in some cities. People are now arming themselves with low-cost sensor-based air quality monitors to assess their own exposure. This citizen science has helped to improve awareness and public participation in the debate. Decision-makers are also better informed today in terms of the intricacies of air pollution, pollution sources, toxicity of different pollutants, and role of exposure which is important for the planning exercise. Only further deepening of this can counter policy denial.

The scientific community will also have to play a much stronger and responsible role today and participate in public conversation to help decode the complexities of translating science into common sense and give proper guidance on action – particularly fight misinformation. Politics of science and lack of transparency do more damage. There are often countless little details — what type of pollution? What are the sources? What does and does not work? But often politics of science creates more confusion and controversy than bring clarity. This is misused by the lobbies to block solutions. We have seen how source apportionment studies – an important air quality management tool — are used by lobbies, including the automobile industry, to belittle their respective role and contribution to the pollution pie and reduce their burden of action. The scientific community will have to be more strident to help governments fight and counter misinformation and misinterpretation of science, and guide the use of scientific evidence for policy making. Also, every time a solution is offered – like the CNG programme, or the odd and even scheme, or phasing-out of old vehicles, a study comes out arguing why it will not work. Currently, the scale of action is very limited compared to the magnitude of the problem. But that does not mean that the steps that are being taken are not important. Do more, and do all. There has to be much deeper policy and societal understanding of the scale, depth and stringency of action needed to improve air quality effectively.

How do we tell a story that the public will understand and be willing to act on?

Air pollution is a complex story to narrate. We need to bring out more human and personal health stories to help people connect and support action. There are multiple sources of pollution – there is a complex chemistry of pollutants with varied health effects, there are transboundary effects as pollution drifts, and there are many pieces in the jigsaw puzzle that need joining. The public often gets a partial and limited impression of the solutions, and sometimes a misleading understanding of the strategies being implemented. Discussion often gets narrowed down to debunking the inconvenient strategies, especially related to lifestyle changes like restraining personal car usage with a parking policy, or reapportioning road space to different road users. When it comes to translating awareness into support for lifestyle changes, that is when we lose support. Are people willing to pay more for parking, use public transport, or walk and cycle to reduce use of personal transport? Stop using charcoal for tandoor during smog episodes? Yet these are the same people who buy air purifiers and wear masks. We have to think about how to bridge that gap. There seems to be a fine difference between ‘to be informed’ and ‘to be deeply aware’ to support change.

There is also a limited understanding of emergency measures during smog episodes like odd and even scheme, or stopping trucks and construction to control peak pollution and exposures. These are not supposed to be permanent measures or silver bullets that can clean up the air immediately. People need to understand that when adverse meteorology traps pollution that has already been emitted, such emergency action helps prevent the pollution from getting worse and tapers off the peaks. The fundamental change will come from round-the-year systemic reforms. This is the combination that other countries follow.

Change also requires the power of negotiation and engagement with lobbies to build support for action. There is an interesting learning from the ongoing process of implementing the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP). Thousands of brick kilns had to be shut down as part of the winter GRAP, but many brick kiln owners came to the Supreme Court appointed committee EPCA asking for a way out to prevent closure. Through negotiations, many of them have voluntarily agreed to transition to a new technology, as that would prevent the closure of brick kilns. This is very encouraging, given that they are usually the most adamantly opposed to changes which affect their livelihood. This also shows that instead of focusing only on penal action, it is important to work with the stakeholders to implement solutions.

What has been the judiciary’s engagement with the issue of air pollution over the years?

From our two decades of experience, we have understood the critical role that the judiciary and a vigilant civil society play to catalyse change. Public interest litigation is an opportunity for civil society to drive policies when executive action remains weak. When people are desperate for solutions and relief, and executive action is weak, the courts uphold the constitutional provision of right to life and right to wholesome environment; and the tenets of our laws and evoke principles of preventive action and polluter pay to push action. Get government to do what they need to do.

Air pollution is a technically complex issue: it requires strong technical and scientific backup to arrive at definitive Judgments. In the late 1990s, when we started, the judiciary was already a key actor. The Supreme Court was already hearing the ongoing PIL by MC Mehta on air pollution. During the initial years, it took some time for action to pick up. Even for the PILs to be effective, they need mechanisms to source science, evidence and technical guidance. The judiciary responded to the emerging health science and evidence.

The first phase of action was dominated by the urgency to provide relief – air polluting industrial units were shifted, public transport was moved to CNG, emissions standards for petrol and diesel vehicles started to improve incrementally, and fifteen-year-old commercial vehicles were banned, among others. During the second phase, the Supreme Court adopted a more systemic approach. It called for attention to exposure, recognised that pollution does not follow political boundaries, which meant solutions could not remain confined only to Delhi and must include the National Capital Region; and noted that air quality improvement needed action on all key sources of air pollution. All of this meant that from 2015 onwards, decisions from the Supreme Court were for the entire National Capital Region and not just Delhi. Moreover, the new measures were meant to holistically address the problem. Today, the judiciary relies on science heavily — it is striking to see the judges look at the source attribution pie charts from the IIT Kanpur study, or lab studies on dirty fuels of petcoke and furnace oil, or real-time survey data of truck entry and other evidence to chart a roadmap for each source of air pollution. The constant pressure from the Court has helped to leapfrog some decisions when the executive process remained incremental and slow.

Can you tell us a little more about the GRAP and the CAP?

The Supreme Court accelerated action once again following the series of deadly smog episodes during the winter months of 2015 and 2016. When pollution levels spiked, the apex Court asked — given that we already measure air pollution, given that we have classified daily levels of pollution as good, bad and ugly, what is our emergency plan when pollution turns ugly? That led to the notification of Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) – a daily emergency response plan. Simultaneously, the Supreme Court said, we cannot always be on emergency mode; we also need a comprehensive action plan for more sustained and systemic reforms. That eventually got notified as the Comprehensive Action Plan (CAP) in 2018 to reduce pollution.

The GRAP is meant to be a temporary and emergency measure during smog episodes and during winter. With GRAP you try to contain the peak levels and prevent levels from further worsening. This was implemented for the first time during 2017 winter, and emergency measures included shutting-down of Badarpur power plant, brick kilns, stone crushers, and hot-mix plants in NCR. Severe episodes led to stopping of construction and trucks. While many people criticised several GRAP measures, such as the odd-even scheme, often what was missing was an understanding that these measures were deliberately temporary.

The key lesson from GRAP is that the scope and effectiveness of several daily emergency measures can remain limited if they are not backed by more enduring, systemic changes. For instance, a hike in parking charges or intensification of public transport services during smog episodes cannot be effective if the overall parking policy and public transport reforms are not already in place. A ban on generator sets cannot be extended to NCR if the quality and reliability of clean electricity supply is not ensured.

The CAP, on the other hand, happened because the Supreme Court recognised that only reactive and short-term emergency response was not enough. The judiciary asked for CAP to roll out short, medium and long-term efforts to mitigate pollution. The scale and magnitude of the problem is very big: Delhi needs to reduce PM 2.5 levels by at least 74 per cent to meet the national clean air standards. This creates a mandate for very stringent action. Of course, even with the goals set, the path forward is not easy. We must ask ourselves– what action needs to happen behind the scenes? What is required to push forward for every strategy we have? Often, there are serious barriers to implementation.

What are the challenges for air pollution advocacy today?

It is expected that people, as they get aware, begin to champion public good, and make change happen. Public discourse is more widespread today to actively engage on these issues. This has to work both ways – not only as top down efforts of court orders and rule of law but also as bottom-up engagement and pressure to demand change and ensure shared responsibility. Engagement and evidence-based conversation has become important to convince people, and this must never stop.

But the conversation on solutions today is far more complex than it used to be. It is easier to discuss the health effects of air pollution, but more difficult to talk about the strategy needed to meet the clean air standards. Every time a solution is implemented or proposed, studies crop up and lobby pressure builds up contesting and claiming that the solution has not worked or will not work. Polluters claim that they are only a small part of the problem and targeting them will not help. Targeted action gets lost in the name of comprehensiveness. Moving each piece of action is a challenge. When we act, we move towards a solution.

It is important to recognise that the focus of the new generation of advocacy has to be compliance and real-world change on ground. We now know what to do: we know whom to hold responsible for action, our policies have adopted the right principles, our laws are tough, Courts are cracking the whip, and we have a legal mandate for implementation of GRAP and CAP. But the next big challenge is implementation and enforcement on a large scale. We need institutional capacity and advocacy energy to push each and every strategy forward. While action plans need to be comprehensive to include all sectors, it is also very important to build public and policy support for high degree of stringency, compliance measures, and time-bound targets. Currently, abatement plans are not designed to meet air quality demands. But with GRAP and CAP, we have taken the first important steps towards creating a strategy. We must change the way we talk about solutions, both for the public and for politicians.

Finally, people often say that Delhi gets all the attention and other cities that are suffering more severe pollution are overlooked and neglected. That is true. There is no uniformity in policy action across the national landscape, because there is no clear national air quality planning strategy. Cities that have experienced stronger public opinion and bottom-up pressure have succeeded in moving action faster than the others. It is also encouraging to see that the action in Delhi in some ways has catalysed national action, and several pieces of regulation are leading to a nascent national clean air programme. Delhi has helped create policy stepping stones. This experience and action in Delhi and NCR is helping to create a template of an action plan for cross-learning between cities. Taking this forward is the new advocacy challenge.