Politics

People-centred governance and decision-making, ensuring accountability and transparency

This section features initiatives and approaches towards people-centred governance and decision-making, with direct participation, and based on principles of social and environmental justice. This includes initiatives attempting to realize local non-hierarchical systems of decision-making in urban and rural areas, and linkages of these to each other at bio-cultural levels. This would also include collectives or communities that raise non-party political concerns at the local level and beyond, as well as initiatives that enhance accountability and transparency of political bodies. It will include alternative policy frameworks that are based on or promote the alternative economies featured elsewhere on this site, such as meaningful practices and concepts of well-being, instead of the mainstream development model which focuses on economic growth.

Condemn the violation of the rights of project-affected people of Ken-Betwa Interlinking

Cancel the project which will only benefit the political-contractor lobby, compensate the people, and implement decentralized alternatives to make Bundelkhand water-secure.

Statement of Concern and Support for Students Agitating for Accountability in the Education System

The government must initiate a consultative and transparent process for designing comprehensive reforms in our education system, including in the manner in which competitive exams are conducted.

From Nagaland to the World: How indigenous knowledge is shaping climate action, ecological justice

“We need to mandate spaces for women in governance and decision-making, starting at the grassroots village level and moving upward,” says Seno Tsuhah.

Institutional Memory of Vikalp Sangam: A Review of the Process in its First Decade

We documented Vikalp Sangam’s Institutional Memory, to capture the Vikalp Sangam process, the unique insights and learnings of the members along their journey.

How the hard ‘na’ insists on Marathi’s caste hierarchy

"This is what I call segregated sociability: the fracturing of a shared linguistic community along caste lines, so that even speakers of the same language cannot meet and be sociable with each other."

Regeneration in the Aravallis: communities bring back their forests

“It all started when Babuji [Kunjbihari] asked me to gather the women in the village,” says Suman devi, Manoharlal’s wife. “Lots of women came… nayi, gujar, jogi, brahmin, baniya, from all communities”

रेगिस्तान की लोकआस्था, प्रकृति और सांस्कृतिक चेतना का मौन संविधान: ओरण (In Hindi)

राज्य सरकार राजधर्म का अनुसरण करते हुए मरुस्थल के राष्ट्रीय भावनाओं से ओतप्रोत, सरहद की प्रहरी, कर्मठ और ईमानदार जनमानस की भावनाओं और पर्यावरण के प्रति कर्तव्य की भावना से ओरण भूमि को संरक्षण प्रदान करें

A Living Constitution Pachgaon

Pachgaon offers a unique example of community governance that began with the reclamation of forest rights. Through village meetings, shared responsibility and local knowledge, Pachgaon began to practice democracy in its most grounded form.

A 200-Metre Mural In Fort Kochi Puts Coastal Labour At The Centre Of Climate Justice

In Kochi, a community mural brought together local residents, mangrove workers, fishing communities, Indian Coast Guard personnel, and Fearless Foundation artists to share stories of ancestral knowledge, everyday risks, and the living with rising waters and pollution.