Archives: Project

This long-running workshop series, planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi, and the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), seeks to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and tries to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society and politics.

CPR-CWC Dialogue Forum is a collaborative activity between CPR and the Central Water Commission (CWC), pursued under the MoU between the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) and the CPR to establish the MoJS Research Chair – Water Conflicts and Governance at CPR.

CPR-CWC Dialogue Forum is a forum where CPR’s research interests and CWC’s practitioner perspectives converge to discuss, debate and critically engage with contemporary water policy governance challenges. It has particular interests in interstate river water disputes and transboundary river water governance.

The Forum is also a space to network and engage with wider groups of stakeholders for a vibrant policy discourse. It hosts distinguished scholars, practitioners and civic society actors to share their research and experiences. These interactions are organized as talks, targeted consultations (focused on specific issues), and dissemination workshops.

The talk series organized by the Forum are promoted as TREAD Talks, after the program that the MoJS Research Chair leads: TREADs (Transboundary Rivers, Ecologies and Development studies). TREAD Talks have so far addressed variety of issues and themes. We welcome interests to share your work in this forum.

The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) collaborated with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) to complete a research study titled ‘Getting it together: institutional arrangements for coordination and stakeholder engagement in climate finance’. The study, complemented by in-depth case studies with relevant insights from the experiences of Colombia, India, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, and Zambia, identifies good practices and options for strengthening these arrangements, based on our understanding of what drives existing arrangements for coordination around climate change related policy and climate finance in different countries. CPR has also released a paper titled ‘Coordination of climate finance in India’, which looks at the institutional arrangements that have emerged around climate finance at the country level; how public finance for climate related purposes is being managed and programmed; and the roles that these institutions are playing in incorporating climate change into wider investment planning and priorities.

The constitutional right to property project is reviewing the chequered trajectory of the right to property in the Indian Constitution, from its inclusion as a fundamental right in 1950, through numerous amendments and ultimately its abolition as a fundamental right, and inclusion as a constitutional right in 1978.

The overall objective of the project was to examine contesting water rights, specifically between water for irrigation and drinking water, and the capacity of the legal framework as it stands for dispute resolution, in the context of a case study of the Rajsamand Lake in the State of Rajasthan, India. Based on fieldwork for collection of information from various stakeholders and analysis of secondary material, a report was prepared covering both the theoretical and case-study dimensions of the study.

The Community of Research and Practice (CORP) seminar series is planned by the Scaling City Institution for India: Sanitation (SCI-FI: Sanitation) initiative. It aims to provide a platform for discussing the experiences of researchers and practitioners on urban sanitation. Through these discussions, the sanitation initiative intends to build a stronger evidence base for developing policies, programmes and implementation of plans for achieving sanitized cities.

“Clearing our air needs sustained, long term efforts. This project at the CPR Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment aims to inform and advance the discussion on Indian air quality regulation and governance. Our research and policy engagement activities aim to provide a clearer grasp of the regulations and institutions involved, the implications of scientific research on policy questions, and the priority actions needed to tackle India’s air pollution. Our research focusses on three key areas:

– Framing the problem: Air pollution is a nationwide, year-round public health crisis. Four in five Indians are exposed to air more polluted than national standards. Air pollution can be addressed only by cutting emissions at source.
– Mapping legal, regulatory and institutional opportunities in the governance framework: Any policy response to air pollution needs to be proactive and executive-led. Efforts have largely been Delhi-centric and over-reliant on the judiciary. With emissions transcending boundaries, coordinated actions across centre, state and local governments are essential.
– Identifying priorities for sectoral action: Each of the major sources need to be tackled in parallel. Sources fall under multiple government agencies, and require different policy approaches. Political economy and implementation capacity need to be central to identifying sectoral priority measures.”

As India urbanizes, cities are becoming critical sites of development and climate action. Forming appropriate plans for urban futures requires an understanding of a city’s multiple objectives: energy access; infrastructure services; inclusion; healthy local environments; and economic growth; amongst others. Climate change mitigation and adaptation are also increasingly relevant concerns. Using a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis framework, CPR is informing multi-objective based urban and climate policy in the cities of Rajkot, Gujarat and Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. We are building on these city’s existing plans to structure deliberations and help city makers identify synergies and tradeoffs across their multiple objectives.

CPR collaborated with UNICEF India to understand the impact of social protection schemes and measures undertaken by the Government of India on womena and children migrants, particularly those engaged in seasonal and circular migration. Spread across five states (Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra and Gujarat), the study examined government responses in the wake of the COVID–19 pandemic and resulting migrant crisis, as well as studied measures to improve access to services and portability of social benefits, particularly children. The findings highlight the invisibility of women and children in a labour-centric migration discourse and the need to pay attention to service delivery in urban contexts. Further, it suggests how portability features for migrants could be strengthened within existing schemes and entitlements.