Policy Briefs & Reports

A distinction between consultations to obtain a feedback of experiences and concerns around education and policy formulation needs to be made. The feedback from various civil society organisations of conducting consultations at the village and community levels highlight critical issues of represe...

The success of the Right to Education (RtE) Act depends largely on ensuring accountability at a decentralized level – closer to the people. However, while the Act includes certain provisions that could further this goal, there have been problems of implementation and lack of resources. Coupled wi...

Over the last two decades, civil society organizations, academics, and researchers have debated different methods for measuring and improving transparency, accountability and monitoring in development programs meant for the poor. In this area, Social Audits have emerged as a powerful method of ...

Phyto - Sanitary and Sanitary requirements are a major NonTariffBarrier (NTB) that restrict trade potential between India and South Asian nations at trading posts in India. A significant amount of trade between India and South Asian countries happen at overland border posts such as Attari, Benapo...

Planning for India’s energy future requires addressing multiple and simultaneous economic, social and environmental challenges. While there has been conceptual progress towards harnessing their synergies, there are limited methodologies available for operationalising a multiple objective framewor...

What should India put forward as the mitigation component of its climate contribution? India has dual interests in climate negotiations: safeguarding adequate energy for development, and promoting an effective international agreement to limit its climate vulnerability. To balance these interests,...

India is undergoing structural urban and economic transitions and has set ambitious policy targets to meet its rising energy needs for development. Expanding coal and renewables are two important pillars of this undertaking and, since 2008, climate protection is of increasing concern. India’s int...

This brief lays out a new approach to Indian climate governance. We suggest India’s institutional structure should be aimed at generating and adopting low-carbon development pathways. Doing so implies going beyond energy and emissions policies to also look at deeper economic structures such as pa...

Understanding India’s likely energy future is important for both development planning and climate policy. This review of seven national energy and climate modelling studies finds energy use will increase substantially in the absence of additional policies: coal use may increase by 2.5-3 times cur...

Economic recovery remains fragile on the back of a weak consumption demand. Sustained high growth will be achieved only with an upturn in the investment cycle. The government seems to have understood the importance of pump-priming the capex cycle directly through higher public capital expenditure...

This project is part of an effort to understand how institutions function and interface with the lives of ordinary citizens. It seeks to bridge the gap between law and life. Namati as an organisation is dedicated to researching and understanding how law can be a tool of empowerment and justice. H...

Coastal Zone Management Authorities (CZMAs) are one of the oldest environmental regulatory bodies in India. On the basis of an order of the Supreme Court in April 1996 (WP 664/1993) and under MoEF orders issued in 1998, these bodies were constituted in every coastal state and Union Territory and ...

India’s approach to climate policy is based on amplifying synergies between sustainable development and climate outcomes, or co-benefits. However, the evidence base for the magnitude of these synergies remains limited. This brief summarizes the result of global models, which provide strong eviden...

Bangladesh as a neihboring country holds crucial geostrategic and economic significance for India. It also serves well with India’s model of ‘South-South’ development cooperation and provides ample support to India’s ‘Act East Policy’. Importantly, stronger ties with Bangladesh helps India to pro...

Creating a framework of religion-state relations that would mollify tensions between religions, within religions, and between believers and non-believers, has been the bane of many a constitution-framer’s existence. And when issues pertaining to the ambit of religious freedom show up in the docke...

A central issue in the ongoing negotiations towards a new international climate change agreement this year in Paris is how the agreement will differentiate obligations among developed and developing countries. Differentiation among parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Cha...