Local Governance News

The country has created constitutionally-backed local governance institutions but these need to be empowered to make them effective and build ground-level governance capacity before the next crisis hits.

Centralized governance has shown no visible improvement in efficiency and effectiveness on the ground

’Gram sabhas’ have ceased to be vibrant spaces for popular participation and effective agencies to hold government functionaries to account

Panchayati raj institutions are simultaneously a remarkable success and a staggering failure

Governance improvement, at the level of the local administration, will improve savings and capital formation even as it makes a big difference to people’s quality of living

The J&K government has announced a panchayat budget and a host of steps that will make local bodies financially robust and more credit worthy

The reforms operate at multiple levelsfrom setting specific checkpoints to giving local governments freedom to innovate

Fundamental changes in the prevalent approach to economic growth need to be considered

Indian urban planners, architects, activists and thinkers are working on interesting, though not widely known, projects in different parts of the country

City leaders are being increasingly recognized as a transformative power in delivering solutions to urban problems