Citizens' Rights and Duties

Featured Articles
July 7, 2022 PMAY needs policy commitment to rehabilitate slums in small and medium cities of Gujarat
Need for legal framework for land rights in small and medium cities of Gujarat under PMAY (Image: Homes in the City)
December 6, 2019 A report by the India Rivers Forum highlights the need to focus further than the main stem of the Ganga river.
Distant snow clad mountains, the smaller hills and the Ganga river (Image: Srimoyee Banerjee, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
November 21, 2019 A report by NIUA brings to light the chinks in Jaipur's sewage system and suggests some solutions.
Routine check done by the sewage treatment plant staff in Delawas, Jaipur. The plant is part of the ADB best practices projects list. (Image: Asian Development Bank, Flickr Commons)
November 18, 2019 Bangalore's water utility is understaffed, under financed and unable to service the city's water needs.
Image credit: Citizen Matters
November 15, 2019 On World Toilet Day, we bring to light the labour of India’s sewer workers - those who do the unclean work that a Clean India relies on.
Photo credit: Sharada Prasad
Catering to the aspirations of frontline workers to ensure water security for rural India
Reimagining a blue future by bridging the ever increasing capacity gap in the sector. Posted on 01 Jul, 2020 06:26 PM

The Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced the need to create jobs locally. This intersects with the water sector's need for local management. How do we create meaningful opportunities to address the aspirations of the local talent pool and make them discoverable?

There is a significant demand for skilled human resources in the water sector (Image: Neil Palmer, IWMI Flickr Photos; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
NWP 2020: How is India’s youth reimagining its water future?
IYWN submits its recommendations to the NWP working committee in June 2020. Posted on 29 Jun, 2020 03:23 PM

Water, for India, has profound impacts on the health and wellbeing of our citizens; perhaps more so, considering how intertwined it is with various facets of our life, be they social, economic, gender-based, political, or even religious.

IYWN pushes for water equity and sustainability in NWP 2020 (Image: Barefoot Photographers of Tilonia, Flickr Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Boosting rural livelihoods using agriculture and MGNREGA amidst Covid-19
Strengthening farm and non-farm livelihoods can pave the way for food and nutritional security. Posted on 28 Jun, 2020 10:13 AM

As the Covid-19 pandemic was leaving deep scars around the globe, it forced governments to take measures to protect citizens and ensure food security for its people. In India, initially, it looked as if the remote rural areas would skirt the pandemic.

MGNREGA can play an important role in integration of migrant labour in the rural economy (Image: Ashutosh Nanda)
Flood threat looms amid Covid-19 in Bihar
Can Bihar deal with the double whammy of Covid-19 and the annual floods? Posted on 23 Jun, 2020 03:09 PM

Bihar’s annual floods are right around the corner and there is a fear that the flood hazard will collide with the Covid-19 pandemic and amplify it in a manner that emergency responses to both will get disrupted. The state’s strategy to mitigate the effects of flooding needs to be updated in light of the deadly pandemic.

An aerial view of flood affected areas in Kosi river, Bihar on August 28, 2008 (Image: Publi.Resource.Org; Flickr Commons (CC BY 2.0))
Elected women leaders of gram panchayats: Critical roles in Covid-19 response
Women leaders of gram panchayats have ideated and executed solutions innovatively and instinctively on dealing with Covid-19 pandemic. Posted on 17 Jun, 2020 01:33 PM

Radha Devi, the sarpanch of Bhadsiya, Nagaur tehsil, Rajasthan dissuaded the principal of the government school from forcing girl students to fetch water for mid-day meal preparation during school hours and sent these girls back to their classrooms.

Women are emerging as effective leaders who can play constructive roles in containing the Covid-19 spread (Image: UN Women/Gaganjit Singh; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Villagers in Rajasthan show resilience during national lockdown
Continuing to prepare rural communities for the most unprecedented events in Alwar. Posted on 16 Jun, 2020 09:40 AM

India’s national lockdown to curb the fast-expanding community transmission of coronavirus led to life coming to a standstill across the country. The long pause of over three months is starting to ease, and the new shift towards “normal” gives health and hygiene ultimate attention.

Repairing the school infrastructures before students return to their classrooms (Image: Sehgal Foundation)
Northeast fights Covid-19
While Northeast appears to be better off than the rest of India in the number of Covid cases, how are migrants from the North East coping? Posted on 09 Jun, 2020 11:34 PM

While Covid-19 has left many countries including India in the line of fire, the situation in India is now getting particularly alarming with the number of people infected by Covid-19 rising at a rapid pace.

Ration distribution to the migrants (Image Source: Sunbird Trust)
Lockdown puts citymakers at risk
The forced exodus of the migrants who built our cities indicates how they were shortchanged on every front. Posted on 28 May, 2020 01:22 PM

Suddenly thrown out of work by a nationwide lockdown, the migrants who built our cities and our economies were forced to take the torturous walk away from the cities to their homes in rural India.

A worker at a construction site (Image: ILO/ Joydeep Mukherjee; NC-ND 3.0 IGO License)
Technology to build knowledge and capacities beyond COVID
The time has come to utilize technology to build resilience of communities by training them to strive for better livelihood opportunities where they want to. Posted on 22 May, 2020 09:14 AM

The COVID-19 crisis has brought the world to a standstill. Government, civil society and volunteers are rallying to ensure that social and economic inequalities do not dictate how this crisis draws lines between the “haves” and “have-nots”. Nonetheless, the crisis seems to have deepened the existing divide.

Bringing the digital revolution to the hands of real India (Image: CXOToday.com)
Covid-19: Managing the disaster in rural India
There is a need to rethink our disaster management policies and the top-down approach that it follows. Posted on 17 May, 2020 09:45 PM

With an attempt to contain the spread of deadly Covid-19, Indian government had announced a complete nation-wide lockdown from March 25 onwards. For the first time, the provisions of the National Disaster Management Act, 2005, were invoked since the law came into being after the 2004 tsunami.

Drought in Marathwada (Image: Flickr Commons)
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