If done right, these forests can have massive benefits, but sticking the wrong trees in the wrong soils can prove to be equally harmful. Some reports claim that due to the rapid spread of this method in India, a majority of Miyawaki projects have been executed without the basic foundations. Another area of concern is lack of adequate space to create these urban forests.
Read MoreIn order to understand the gender equation of women in Urban Governance, we looked at the 100 cities under the Smart City mission. These 100 cities represent a diversity of region and size of cities across the country. Of the 100 smart cities, while as many as 35 city governments have women as mayors, only 14 have women as administrative head of the city government.
Read MoreAs Indian cities experience continued growth and associated urban challenges, such as air pollution, artificial flooding, and water scarcity, appropriate forest governance is vital. However, the mismatch between jurisdiction over and funding for forest management and the impacts of poor forest management leave cities at an impasse.
Read MoreAs we come up to the census year 2021, we looked at India's Census numbers from 2011, which are used to make policy decisions. We imagined, that if India were only a 100 people, how would we represent India's people?
Read MoreThe Constitution of India provided for special powers to certain regions to decide upon their local governance, according to their traditions and culture. The Constitution created two such categories through Article 234 under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules: Scheduled Areas and Tribal Areas respectively. While PESA was passed in 1996 and panchayats have been formed under it, MESA still has not been passed. Yet, municipal governments have been formed in Scheduled areas. The conflict that municipal governance faces in Scheduled Areas is because of this lack of legislative protections.
Urbanisation is inevitable and is taking place in tribal dominated areas as well. Urban areas need governance systems which are geared towards their particular needs.
Read MoreAccording to the Census done in 2011, there are 4041 cities or towns in India that are governed by an urban local body or city government. Wikipedia has pages for approximately 2,539 cities and towns across the country. About 2/3rd of India’s 4041 cities have a Wikipedia page but 90% percent of those pages have very little information. Through Nagarpedia, Nagrika has been creating knowledge that can enable citizens across small cities with the belief that augmenting knowledge regarding small cities enables not just policy makers and businesses but also citizens, by providing a fuller representation of all the dimensions of a city.
Read MoreWe are still a long way in India to making public libraries central to our urban existence. According to the 2011 census, India has only 4,580 libraries in urban areas, which roughly translates to one urban library for over 80,000 people. When you break down the types of libraries by sizes of towns, the picture is even more jarring. For our largest cities this number is dismal - one public library for almost 22 lakh people! The smallest of our towns which have the highest density of public libraries also have only one library for every 25000 people. As per the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) standards, there should be one public library for every 3,000 people.
Read MoreIn the past decades, various indices have emerged examining multiple dimensions of city living such as the real estate, mobility, sustainability among others. We analysed twenty-one popular global city indices to understand their origin, their focus, how Indian cities fare and which Indian cities appear in these indices. While many of them compare cities on the basis of their current standing on a set of parameters, there are others which rank cities based on their future potential such as ability to attract human resources, capital or HNWIs. With India opening up its economy in early 1990s, Indian cities have also become centres of attraction for global capital. As a result, Indian cities have started figuring in many such indices. This Nagrika Speaks article analyses some such rankings in which Indian cities have featured.
Read MoreOn 30th and 31st July 2020, we heard multiple perspectives at Arthan’s Tomorrow’s Liveable Cities which Nagrika help organize in partnership with BORDA. The conference brought to the fore the role of organisations in bringing all hands together and creating Tomorrow’s Liveable Cities. Based on the discussions and perspectives of the diverse practitioners from across various disciplines, we felt that three key themes emerged - Making people central to the cities, Using knowledge to improve our cities, and Enabling Organizations to serve citizens.
Read MoreIt is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts” says Sherlock Holmes. The present article also is an allusion to the importance of facts before findings - the historical link between data and decision making in cantonment towns.
Read MoreIt is necessary for city governments to be enabled to take on more and ensure the health of their residents. It is also imperative that the role played by our city governments builds on their competitive advantage of being the closest to citizens. Being the country with the largest number of locally elected representatives in the world, India has the opportunity to utilise this competitive advantage to make governance more localised. This would be aided by the relatively larger trust that the citizens place in local representatives as compared to other government agents like state level officials and police.
Read MoreUrban research has been disproportionately focused on big cities. Consequently, the knowledge that informs the thinking and decisions for the future of urban India is also largely derived from larger cities. How can the information deficit on small cities and towns be bridged?
Read MoreCitizen participation is a crucial factor in the Swachh Survekshan. It takes into account how aware and active the citizens are in their city. The objective of citizens validation is to motivate the local governments and the citizens to collectively be responsible for keeping the city clean. The sample flyer created by #nagrika provides information related to the direct questions asked to the citizens.
Read MoreInnovative city solutions based on their context while also incorporating the common good practices such as enforcement of rules, imposing fines, creating awareness and building capacity of their human resources. Vengurla created a statement by converting its dump yard into a park to show the level of commitment towards cleaning the city. Allappuzha utilised a mix of technological innovation and community mobilisation and produced successful models of low cost household and community composting solutions. Ambikapur nurtured women-led SHGs and made them key to the waste management process. Through their waste management programs, small cities and towns across the country show us how collaboration, innovation, and addressing the context can create lasting change in our communities.
Read MoreAn increased focus on sanitation in urban development and its role in public health have thrown the lack of adequate public toilet facilities into the limelight. Public Toilets are undergoing an evolution, where their role is being redefined to enable outcomes of dignity, empowerment, health and hygiene, business and tourism and good governance. Individual household toilets as well as community sanitary complexes (CSCs) were part of union government funding under previous schemes. Public toilets and Urinals which were not under the purview of such assistance earlier, are now included in the Central share under Swachh Bharat Mission’s (SBM) urban component.
Read MoreIndia presently uses multiple definitions to classify its urban centers. The first and most prominent definition is the one by the Census of India. It classifies towns in two categories, one based on legal statute and other on a mix of population size and economic functions. All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee are termed as statutory towns. All other places with a minimum population of 5,000, at least 75 per cent of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits and a density of population of at least 400 persons per sq. km are termed as census towns.
Read MoreNot all cities are equal. Cities have different structures, different demographic make-up, different competitive advantages, and different sizes. Yet, the salient features of these cities – a system of production, distribution and consumption, infrastructure for connecting people, resources and markets, and economies of scale they create, may be similar. All cities provide a reason for people to be in that city but the reasons are different. To make meaningful policy decisions, then, it is important to classify these cities in a way that can allow for such varying reasons to be recognized as well as the ability of the government to provide for these reasons and needs. Having a logical classification of cities then can also help better design or modify policy to best suit the purposes and needs of a group of cities.
Read MorePolicy makers in India started discussing cities and urbanisation as a coherent strategy in last two decades with most discussions aiming at addressing the problems seen in its bigger cities. Our nightmares from these big cities such as traffic snarls, alarming pollution levels, parking woes, slums, and sprawl have been the driver of our policy actions for our small cities as well.
Read MoreOur work has ensured that smaller cities become part of policy agendas of urban policy making. With an extremely small and talented team, we have been putting our best efforts to produce this knowledge. We continue striving to create quality and reliable publicly available knowledge that can can empower decisions of citizens and city governments.
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