Policy Briefs & Reports

Smart Cities Mission (SCM) is Government of India’s (GoI’s) urban rejuvenation mission launched on 25 June 2015. The Mission was initiated with the objective of providing core infrastructure, and decent quality of life to its citizens, along with a clean and sustainable environment. The brief ...

Ayushman Bharat, under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), was launched by Government of India (GoI) on 23 September 2018. This brief uses government data to analyse the following components of the scheme: ■ Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJA...

National Health Mission (NHM) is Government of India’s (GoI’s) largest public health programme, which aims to achieve universal access to quality healthcare. It consists of two sub-missions: ■ National Rural Health Mission (NRHM); and ■ National Urban Health Mission (NUHM). This brief uses g...

Samagra Shiksha is Government of India’s (GoI’s) school education programme covering preprimary to higher-secondary levels. Launched in April 2018, the scheme is the primary vehicle to implement the provisions under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, and the g...

Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) is Government of India’s (GoI’s) rural drinking water programme to provide functional tap connections to every household for drinking, cooking, and other domestic needs on a sustainable basis by 2024. It subsumes the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP). Thi...

Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) is Government of India’s (GoI’s) flagship ‘Housing for All’ scheme. The scheme aims to provide monetary assistance for the construction of a pucca house with basic amenities to all rural houseless families and those living in dilapidated and kutcha ho...

The presence of digital technology within urban governance in India is not new. Computerization and the use of enterprise software was encouraged in municipalities through the 1990s, followed by varied e-governance reforms in the early 2000s. These ranged from centralized policies like the Nation...

Despite the government’s efforts on augmenting the supply of houses, recent estimates suggest that the housing shortage in urban areas have widened. It is a result of the mismatch between the housing needs of the urban poor and the typology of housing supply. The present study analyses and assess...

A study of democracy is incomplete without a study of one of its most fundamental components—political parties. In India, works on the country’s political parties so far have explored, among other things, the direct and indirect relationship between the nature and type of political parties and th...

This compendium of policy papers, initiated by Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Indonesia, seeks to explore the feasible means and approaches to mitigate, if not yet solving, Myanmar’s political stalemate and crisis. While it also seeks to explore ways on how the internationa...

More than 30 million urban households in India, including urban poor, depend on the rental housing market for their housing needs, out of which around 70 per cent rely on informal rental arrangements. According to the NSSO 76th round (2017-18), 19 million households, 64 per cent of the total rent...

In recent years, national climate governance instruments have been appearing rapidly around the world. However, these developments have rarely been discussed in terms of the requirements of climate responses in different political contexts. This brief addresses the role and potential of domestic ...

In continuation to the Government of Odisha’s landmark initiative of the Odisha Liveable Habitat Mission (OLHM), also known as the JAGA Mission, launched in 2018, along with the ongoing slum upgradation and delisting of tenable slums; relocation of slums on “objectionable” category of untenable l...

With approximately 23 per cent of people in the state of Odisha residing in slums in the capital city of Bhubaneswar, there is an estimated shortage of 80,000 housing units, specifically among low-income families. Intending to bridge this gap, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) has embar...

Community Participation in Urban WASH has been gaining prominence over the last few decades. Various civil society organisations are engaged in strengthening community-based organisations in urban poor settlements to improve access, usage and control over WASH infrastructure and services, leading...

Do manifestos of political parties play any meaningful role before, during and after elections? Are they powerful symbols of the ideas, vision and programmes offered by a party to citizens or are they merely symbolic? Since most voters don’t bother to read manifestos before casting their ballot, ...

Rarely in history does a nation go through directly contradictory impulses and emotions at the same time: exultation and horror; celebration and mourning. That sums up what happened with India 75 years ago when it won freedom from British rule but was also partitioned on religious lines as two na...

With the launch of Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act and Jaga Mission during 2017-18, the government has recognised the imminent need for improving the quality of life of the slum dwellers in the state. Continuing the Government of Odisha's landmark initiative of the Odisha Liveable Habitat...