Whose sustainability? Discovering civic agency for the future Indian city

The UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Bruntland Commission, defined sustainable development in 1987 as development “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The ‘future generations’ are key stakeholders in the process of achieving sustainability but it is […]

The city and the right to work

We have all been seeing how the city is being transformed over the last thirty years from a place to work and live in, to one that is a site for investment and profit-making. Two major aspects of this transformation are the shift from manufacturing to services, and the privatisation of services. The NSO data […]

Heritage Conservation in the Emerging Indian City – I : The Future of 20th Century architecture in Indian Cities – (Un)Learning from Chandigarh, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai

This session will straddle the apparent contradiction of UNESCO World Heritage designations versus the demolition of iconic buildings in India’s recent history. For example, the Chandigarh Capitol Complex, designed by Le Corbusier was inscribed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016. The Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai – a collection of 19th-century […]

Business of Sanitation

Reinventing urban sanitation through innovation Over half the world currently does not have access to safe sanitation, meaning they have a dirty unsafe toilet or no toilet at all, waste is left exposed and untreated, and disease can run rampant. Sanitation systems have been considered a costly public responsibility; however, this is strongly linked to […]

People’s Participation in City Planning: Bottom-up planning; Participatory Design; Consultative Practice – How do we generate inclusive and people-centric cities?

Delhi Development Authority is in the process of preparing the new master plan which will be applicable for a 20 year period from 2021- 41. As of March 2021,  Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has organized very limited online public consultations where citizens, CSOs, and campaigns could raise their voices. These public consultations are a great […]

15th Finance Commission : Urban Local Bodies

Empowering Local Government? One of the important provisions of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments was mandating Central Finance Commission to look into the financial needs of rural and urban local bodies and to provide financial assistance to the consolidated funds of the States from the Union Government to help rural and urban local bodies. […]