Archives: Journal Articles

This paper analyses residential segregation over time in Indian cities. We examine the change in caste-based segregation longitudinally, while exploring how caste dynamics manifest differently across city size and region. The paper uses successive rounds of decennial census data, from 2001 and 2011. Contrary to expectations, we find residential segregation by caste/tribe persisting or worsening in 60 per cent of cities in our all-India sample, with differences by region and city size. For example, in the states of Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, a majority of cities experienced decreasing levels of residential segregation by caste/tribe, while in Maharashtra and Gujarat, 34 and 29 per cent of cities, respectively, experienced an increase. A greater proportion of small cities (population 20,000–49,999) than large cities (100,000–999,999) experienced an increase in residential segregation between 2001 and 2011. Across all city-size categories, the dominant trend has been no improvement in residential segregation by caste/tribe over time.

The fundamental right to water in rural areas is well-established in India, but the actual content of this right has not been elaborated upon in judicial decisions. There is no general drinking water legislation that would provide this missing content. This analysis of various initiatives taken by the government for rural drinking water supply finds that these initiatives do not amount to a comprehensive binding legal framework covering all the main aspects of the fundamental right to water.

The J&K polls have not gone according to plan. Politics has been re-energised, the BJP had a mixed outcome in Jammu & the voters of Kashmir have shown their anger. But will the DDC model now be extended to all of India in order to undermine state governments?

The power of public interest litigation in India lies in its freedom from the constraints of traditional judicial proceedings. The ability of public-spirited individuals to use the Supreme Court as a fulcrum to leverage public policy is perceived as a testament to Indian democracy. But public interest environmental litigation raises important issues concerning access, participation, effectiveness and sustainability in the sense of the durability of the solutions reached. These questions are explored and assessed based on a detailed consideration of two leading environmental cases, the Delhi Vehicle Pollution case and the Municipal Solid Waste Case. Analysis is based both on the actual decisions themselves and interviews with the key actors involved, and other interests affected by the outcomes. In both cases, judicial oversight stimulated slumbering institutions and changes in policy. But the Court has over time developed into a policy evolution forum, with political, social and economic questions, not usually determined by judges in other countries, being decided as a matter of course by the Indian Supreme Court. Yet despite best intentions, the Court may have set in motion processes that were less than participatory, and which arguably led to solutions that were therefore less than fair, just and impartial to all stake-holders. These concerns, real and perceived, reveal a certain disaffection with the judicial process that needs to be addressed if public interest litigation is to be both effective and equitable.

For investments to translate into improved public service delivery, having a strong public finance management (PFM) system that lays out the rules, institutions and processes by which public funds are managed is critical.

To enable a better understanding of the nutrition financial landscape, this paper seeks to determine whether the current PFM system in India allows for capturing required nutrition data.

This article examines the role of the Army in India in internal security duties during the inter-war years. It contends that the army’s approach was much more pragmatic and nuanced than hitherto assumed. Evidence is presented to show that the army’s internal security doctrine underwent far-reaching changes after the massacre in Amritsar in 1919. Thenceforth, minimum force became the central imperative and the other doctrinal principles served to reinforce it. The army also evolved a tactical drill which closely adhered to this doctrine. The article argues that the changing attitudes towards use of force are evident in the role of technology in internal security duties. Lastly, it examines the system of training which played a crucial role in ensuring compliance with the army’s evolving approach to internal security.

The political thrust given to integrating southwestern China with the extended regional eco-nomy marks the latest shift in the country’s regional development policy. China’s develop-mental priorities have swung from a focus on inland development during the Mao years to Deng’s coast-led strategy and most recently back again to the inland provinces under the Western development programme. Noteworthy in this context are the imperatives driving China’s sub-regional initiatives in the region, particularly the Kunming Initiative, which seeks to strengthen regional economic cooperation between the contiguous regions of India’s Northeast, China’s Southwest, Myanmar and Bangladesh. There is clearly a strong case for fully exploring potential for trans-border linkages in trade, tourism and transport within this quadrant. Further, China’s southern thrust coincides with India’s own domestic impera-tive of strengthening the external orientation of the Northeast. These developments present opportunities as also challenges to India while it is willing to engage China bilaterally but not sub-regionally.

This article analyses two new proposed central water laws, the Draft National Water Framework Bill, 2013 and the Draft River Basin Management Bill, 2012. Each of them reflect a centralising paradigm of water law that sits uneasily with the decentralised framework found in the Constitution and with recent proposals by the Planning Commission for a coordinating union framework and with the progressive recognition of the need to move away from state control over water, first initiated by the Supreme Court in the mid-1990s.

The 2011 Census highlighted the enormous growth of census towns, which contributed more than one-third of the urban growth during 2001–11. Since the rural–urban identification process in India is ex ante, using past census data, the number of CTs that will be identified in 2019 for the 2021 Census are estimated. The present study finds that the importance of CTs will be maintained in the urban structure, and a significant share of urban population will continue to grow beyond municipal limits. The influence of large towns on the growth of CTs will be persistent in the future, but a more localised form of urbanisation is also evident where the effect of agglomeration is less. Such a pattern may be stable because these places are relatively more prosperous than their rural counterparts.

The more human rights-based approaches have been mainstreamed, the more we expect legislation to provide means for the implementation of rights framed at a generic level in constitutions or by the higher judiciary. India is no exception, having been at the forefront of the broadening of the gamut of fundamental rights, in particular through an expansive reading of the right to life, for instance, to include a human right to sanitation. Surprisingly, there is no legislation that takes forward the mandate laid out by the courts. Yet, given the increasing policy and political importance of sanitation, the Union government has been pro-active in trying to ensure every person gets access to toilets at home. In rural areas, interventions of the Union government have been through administrative directions that are adopted by the executive and regularly modified over time according to changing policy and political priorities. None of the instruments that have guided the sector over time refer to the right to sanitation. While the link is not made directly, these interventions are in effect the mechanism through which the right is at least in part realised. This is confirmed from two different perspectives on the ground. In rural areas, people make no difference between legislation and administrative directions. What the government implements is de facto the law and is seen as such both by the rights holders and by local government officials. This raises multiple questions in the current context of a very strong push towards ensuring the country is open defecation free by 2019. Right holders are known as beneficiaries and thus not in a position to hold the state accountable for its actions or inactions. Increasingly, rights holders are becoming duty holders, indeed in some cases they are required to build toilets. Further, the realisation of the right includes strong arm measures, such as naming and shaming campaigns at the local level and fines for open defecation. This article explores the multiple issues arising from a fast-evolving context where the clear recognition of human rights is not matched by implementation measures that follow the same logic. This must be looked at both from the point of view of the state and the individuals and communities that are at the receiving end of interventions that are meant to be in their favour.