The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
“Stroke of the pen” reform is critical as in many cases policy is dastardly and change is laggardly. The essential element is to find that big-ticket item that can have impact on a scale and at a pace that is needed. I believe Union environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh’s …
IF THERE ever was living proof of how bizarre our country is, then this week was probably it. Gandhians became demagogues and a people’s movement took on the shades of a dictatorship. And a government riddled with charges of corruption, ended up strangely smiling, as the cast of characters pointing …
Anna Hazare's long career betrays a naivete that makes him easy to manipulate. Rana Ayyub profiles the man who started the storm Those who have seen glimpses of 73-year-old Anna Hazare’s naivete in the past were apprehensive when he went on his recent fast. His integrity and resolve had always …
The Union Cabinet's Committee on Infrastructure on Wednesday approved the rollout of the e-district mission mode project in all 640 districts of the country, including the 41 districts where pilot projects of the scheme have been initiated. The project is part of the national e-governance plan approved by the Centre …
Research universities are complex institutions with multiple academic and societal roles. They are both national institutions that contribute to culture, technology and society, and international institutions that link to global intellectual and scientific trends. There is widespread recognition of the importance of research universities but many countries do not recognise …
JAMMU, Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah on Thursday underlined the need for comprehensive and balanced development of twin capital cities and towns in the State keeping in view the challenges on account of sewerage, drainage, transport, parking, housing and commercial activities. Chairing a high level meeting to take brief about the …
The evidence of the Views from the Frontline 2011 study is that there is a growing gap between the UN’s ‘Hyogo Framework for Action’ and its implementation at the frontline where disasters impact. The framework aims to ‘build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters’. Much is being done …
The environmental problems confronting Indian cities today have arisen because millions of people have been forced to live in illegal settlements that lack adequate sanitation and other basic urban services. This is the result of two factors. The first is the legacy of the colonial city characterized by inequitable access …
This paper questions the accuracy and validity of the criticisms made by Ananya Roy regarding the approach to community development of a Mumbai-based NGO, SPARC, and its partner grassroots federations in Mumbai. This includes the suggestion that the focus on sanitation rather than on land tenure is an appeal to …
Ideas and ideologies, images and reports of events, both minor and cataclysmic, fly on the Internet, swirling through cyberspace, gathering resonance, metamorphosing and touching millions of lives in different ways. Many of the ideas—and visuals—could be banal (as they very often are), some dangerous, others bringing promise of change. Some …
As I write this piece, the finance minister has dispatched the Union Budget 2011. The press is busy reflecting the views of business and industry lobbies, as they quibble over duty exemptions, insist on financial stimulus and other incentives, and cry for big-ticket reform—foreign direct investment in retail and insurance. …
A seasoned politician, equally at ease with economic and political matters of state, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has sent out feelgood signals while charting an opaque course of action in a zero-sum budget. The politics is easily explained: four states are set to go to polls within three months. …
The responsibility of municipalities to provide crucial services is being increasingly passed on to the resident welfare associations located in middle and upper middle class areas in cities. Similar tools of intervention are absent in the slums and low-income neighbourhoods and even the local ward committees fail to represent their …
While the discussion on social democracy in western countries often puts the emphasis on its high costs and issues of incentives for work and enterprise, in India high inequality, massive poverty and a vast informal sector make the challenge of implementing social democracy extremely daunting as much as it is …
As an intellectual contribution to the preparations for the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, a.k.a. Rio +20), Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future convened a task force of experts to discuss the role of institutions in the actualization of a …
This paper explores notions of participation as located in ‘second generation’ or institutional reforms, particularly as articulated by prominent state-sponsored public-private partnerships such as the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) and the Tamilnadu Urban Development Fund (TNUDF). These ‘model’ partnerships provided key programmatic elements that became the basis of national …
Stakeholder Forum together with the Commonwealth Secretariat have produced a new book as part of of the sdg2012 programme entitled: "A Pocket Guide to Sustainable Development Governance". The guide was initiated by Stakeholder Forum and the Commonwealth Secretariat in response to the perceived ‘knowledge gap’ on the history and dynamics …
Climate change is an urgent concern in Nepal. In recent years, the country has faced more than its fair share of extreme weather patterns. Increases in temperature extremes, more intense rainfall, drier winters and delays in summer monsoons have become quite common and are expected to get worse. In fact, …
MUMBAI: A project on the use of geoinformatics in the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 in Maharashtra by the Tribal Research and Training Institute (TRTI), Pune has been given the National e-Governance award, 2010-11 (Silver) in Aurangabad on Thursday. Even though Maharashtra has a poor track record of …
