Gender

This paper published in the Economic and Political Weekly describes the case of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development (SRD) project, an urban mega-project in Ahmedabad, which has been proclaimed as a case based on “flexible governing” of the residents of the riverfront informal settlements. Flexible governing has been claimed to have allowed state authorities to negotiate grass-roots opposition and mobilisation, modify the project to gentrify the riverfront further, and even officially represent the project as inclusive.Read More

This paper published in the Integral Leadership Review discusses the Tamil concept of 'koodam' as a possible tool to transform bureaucratic structures into more non hierarchical and people friendly structures. The paper argues that hierarchy and bureaucracy are two of the most common features of governance systems that play a determining role in shaping the organisational culture, systemic response and human relations that prevail in government institutions.

Thus, the more rigid and formal the hierarchy, the greater is the consciousness of status and authority that in turn creates closed human relations systems dominated by feelings of suspicion, formalism and a discomfort with anything ‘personal’. Bureaucracy, or rule boundedness, determines how open the organisation is, not just vis-à-vis the outside world, but even inside the government system itself, encompassing relations between and amongst different sub-systems or departments.Read More

This report by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India, is the outcome of the deliberations conducted by the committee on slum statistics/census constituted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation in the context of the realisation that there continues to be a considerable lack of information and paucity of data on not only the living conditions of the slum populations, but also on the magnitude and the dispersion of the slum population.Read More

This article published in the Indian Journal of Public Health highlights the importance of sanitation as hygienic means of dealing with health of populations and presents the history and the definition of sanitation and highlights the sanitation situation in the context of India.  India stands second among the worst places in the world for sanitation after China. Millions of Indians currently lack access to adequate sanitation and are forced to dispose off their excreta in unimproved and unsanitary conditions. Those who suffer from lack of this basic need, also tend to be victims of poverty, ill health and an overall poor quality of life.Read More