Women will soon occupy half the seats in urban local bodies with the Union cabinet on Thursday clearing a proposal for raising reservation for them in municipalities from 33% at present. This provision will apply to the total number of seats to be filled by direct election, offices of chairpersons and seats and offices of chairpersons reserved for SCs and STs. The increased representation of women is likely to have...

Energy security is a major objective of all countries. Some are proactive and aggressive in this pursuit, like China; others like India are slow and procrastinate on major decisions and allow hope to overtake realistic assessments. This makes energy security in the foreseeable future an uncertain goal for India. Any discussion of energy security must keep in mind the Indian realities. Although in overall terms of commercial energy use to...

THE ongoing negotiations with the World Bank provide an opportunity to urban policymakers to reinvent the present form of JNNURM (called v1.0). Thus far JNNURM v1.0 has focused on upgrading macro-level dimensions of city’s environment, ignoring the social and economic diversity (e.g., mixed uses and building types) prevailing in urban areas. The top-down urban ‘renewal’ model underlying the present version of JNNURM is largely founded on the planning practices of...

The recession is a promising moment to expand NREGA with greater emphasis on building social capital in a big way.  Soon after assuming office, the first UPA government took an impressive step for the alleviation of rural poverty by launching the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It was, indeed, a wise move to insulate the programme from the vicissitudes of electoral politics by enacting the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act...

Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh battled the fury of continued torrential rains and surging floodwaters Saturday, which claimed 194 lives and indundated vast swathes of land, rendering lakhs of people homeless. Rescue efforts were intensified, with troops backed by Indian Air Force helicopters shifting marooned people in both states to safer areas. While 161 people perished in the heavy rains that battered 15 districts of Karnataka, 33 people were killed in neighbouring Andhra...