Type: Panel

IIHS-UC Berkeley Conference | Building Urban Infrastructure in India

The “urban” economy plays an increasingly vital role in India’s economic development. The joint two day conference hosted by IIHS and the University of California, Berkeley on 26th and 27th March, 2013, brought together leading scholars from India and globally to discuss the many critical questions relating to the effective and equitable functioning of the economy of Indian towns, cities and metros. Discussions focused on real estate markets, agglomeration economies, new modes of urbanization and structural problems of urban governance as well as ways to help promote sound policies for a developed urban infrastructure, growth in job creation, increased access to affordable housing, developing transparent mechanisms of governance, generating new sources of urban finance, and constructing viable social welfare systems for the urban poor.

Rohini Nilekani concluded the panel with a focus on water, advocating that we entirely reconceptualize our approach to water management and sanitation. Water, she said, was once an organizing principle for human settlement; now, water has to be brought to people at high energy costs. How can we imagine water supply for more than 6,000 towns? One approach is to recognize informal sector innovation that is already taking place. Such innovations do not fit into the imagination of planners, but are quite effective. She suggested that we build from these informal arrangements rather than imposing a master vision of water planning. She argued for a basic principle in water management: using local water first. She also suggested organizing rainwater supply at the community level rather than the household level, and integrating planning around wastewater and other water. Costs of water, and questions of who should pay them, also need to be addressed carefully. Finally, on the “demand side,” collective action needs greater thought: more civil society activism is urgently needed. Ms. Nilekani highlighted the gap between the lack of imagination of planners and what she called the overactive imagination of activists. Whose imagination, she asked, is playing out around water? Is it possible to work within existing structures at a small scale, while building up demand at a larger scale?

Connect The Dots: Water Matters

This is an edited version of Water Matters, an interactive panel discussion with Rohini Nilekani. The event, held at Max Mueller Bhavan on 22nd March 2013, World Water Day, was part of a campaign on sustainable water conservation in Bangalore run by The Alternative, a media platform on sustainable living.

Bangalore is running short of water. We require 1.3 billion liters every day, to satisfy our population’s consumption needs, however our lakes and rivers which are our sources of freshwater, are fast giving way to urban development. They are being encroached on and the ones that are remaining are also being polluted by the sewage that’s leaving our homes, which is the second biggest problem. We send 1.1 million litres of waste water out of our city every day. So it is time to take a holistic look at what we can do individually, to be a part of the solution rather than add to the problem.

We have seen other cities around the world that have cleaned up their water bodies, and revived their rivers. I see no reason why we can’t reimagine our city in the same way, with Bangalore returning to what it used to be — with glistening lakes and enough water for all. The middle and upper classes that have seceded from the public systems, preferring their own underground pumps, overhead tanks, or bore wells are not going to be protected from water scarcity in the near future. Whether we like it or not, we’re all in this together. The people who got ousted from Ejipura and the people who live in the fancy bungalows all around the city are going to face the same problem soon. Our destiny is common, which might be a good thing because it makes us sit up and take notice that we’re part of the same problem in Bangalore. It means we all have to get together and act.

At Arghyam, we are committed to this journey for a long time. The issue is not just with big cities like Bangalore, but also with the 7,500 towns all over the country, and how to instill a culture of managing our own water systems, using local resources, reducing our ecological footprint, and managing water responsibilities. Water is not a resource we are entitled to, but a resource we are responsible for, and one that we need to learn how to use properly. I think India needs to begin functioning as a low water economy and a low water society, if we expect every citizen in India to have basic water resources that are sustainable and safe. So while we celebrate World Water Day, we must recommit ourselves to envisioning solutions that we can all be a part of.

Fast Track Justice Needed

ET Exclusive with Yasmin Premji, Rohini Nilekani, Sudha Murthy “Fast Track justice needed”

 

Transcript

00:00 Speaker 1: By the time when India Inc. Is struggling to rope-in more women in the workforce and also ensure their safety, the first wives of the industry, Yathleen Praymti, Sutha Munthi, and Drogani Lilicani, spoke exclusively to Ithinaust Laranganauchan on the ongoing protests of a crime against women, and also, what solutions can be offered to make it a safer world for at least half the global population. We get you an excerpt.

00:23 Speaker 2: Rather than the quantum of punishment, I think it’s the immediacy. I think there should be a fast court summons. Instead of one month, I would say within two months action must be taken. I feel the punishment should be harsh and higher degree, so that people should get scared. Of course they will take care of their safety first. And in case somebody is like, you know, you find like that, he should be punished really severely.

00:46 Speaker 3: You know, I think some incidents have the power to galvanize society. And I think young people are very frustrated. They feel like the government is not doing it’s job well enough. And the response of government sometimes seems too little, too late.

01:02 Speaker 4: Lastly, the IT sector is ahead of the curve in terms of ensuring a lot of safety measures, because 50% of the workforce are women. So, are there lessons that the society can take?

01:13 S3: Technology is one aspect of it, but, there’s a lot of change that has to happen. As I was saying earlier, very patriarchal and feudal still in our society. Attitudes towards women have to change.

IIMB Round Table: Business and Development

Businesses now contribute to development through avenues other than the generation of employment and economic growth, such as corporate social responsibility initiatives, corporate accountability movements and alternative business models, using several partnership formats to deliver. A panel with representatives from leading corporations, NGOs, and a public sector bank discussed the changing nature of corporate power, responsibility and ownership, the greater congruence between the goals of business and society, and how their organisations responded to the changes and opportunities.

This round table provided a forum in which the practices of several businesses were examined concerning their impact on development. More specifically, the panel discussed whether different companies are likely to understand and contribute to growth in different ways, including alternatives to traditional business firms such as co-operatives and state-run enterprises. In this forum, the focus will not be primarily on the CSR practices of such firms but rather will extend to their core business activities (including their profit and investment strategies, their human resource policies and procedures and the sustainability of their production techniques) and, to a lesser extent, their governance practices.

Anchors: Ananya Mukherjee Reed and Darryl Reed
Panellists: Anant Nadkarni, Vice President, Group Corporate Sustainability, Tata Council for Community Initiatives. Gijs Spoor, Founding Director, Zameen Organic. N Narasa Reddy, General Manager, Priority Credit Wing, Canara Bank. Narayan P S, General Manager, Eco Eye, WiproTechnologies. Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Arghyam; Co-founder, Pratham Books.

PDF
Ananya Mukherjee Reed, Darryl Reed, Business and Development, IIMB Management Review, Volume 22, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 111-127, ISSN 0970-3896.