SPRF
Introduction Urban waste management is one of the most urgent challenges confronting India’s fast-growing metropolises, and Delhi represents the depth of this crisis. According to a recent life‑cycle assessment of Delhi’s solid waste management system, the city collects around 11,352 tonnes per day of domestic and commercial garbage, which in the absence of adequate segregation and […]
Abstract Over the past decade, efforts to rejuvenate the Yamuna river have been marked by ambitious plans, significant public expenditure, and highly visible interventions along the floodplains. This paper argues that the persistent gaps in the efforts stem from a fragmented and largely cosmetic approach. Drawing on the data from the forestry interventions and the […]
1. Introduction Public Policy, most laconically, is defined as “whatever governments choose to do or not to do” (Chakravarty & Sanyal, 2017, p. 4). The recently released draft national labour and employment policy, the Shram Shakti Niti, makes for an interesting case study on why “not doing something” is an equally, if not more important […]
Abstract India’s rapid renewable energy (RE) transition, including the focus on solar and wind energy, is widely celebrated as a pathway toward low-carbon growth and energy security. The wind sector in India holds enormous untapped potential for energy transition. As government policies now focus on this growth potential, some challenges and constraints need to be […]
1. Introduction As India witnessed another major general strike in July, allegedly consisting of 25 crore workers, called by the leading central trade unions in pursuance of a number of demands against the central and state governments, a concern over their ‘presence’, and more so of the efficacy of their ‘tactics’ is renewed (The Wire […]
Introduction Crimes against women have always been and remain a pressing societal and policy concern in India, cutting across domestic, public, and digital spaces. Despite legislative reforms and institutional mechanisms, women continue to face violence in multiple forms—domestic abuse, sexual assault, trafficking, cyber harassment, and workplace exploitation—shaped by structural inequalities and gaps in enforcement. Recent […]
Introduction Time-use patterns provide a crucial lens to assess how workers divide their time between paid work, unpaid responsibilities, education, and leisure. It can tell us something beyond wages, and help us understand the worker not merely as the seller of labour. It can give cues to situate the worker beyond an entity of the […]
Introduction Ever since independence, from the time of partition till the Kargil War in 1999, India has had to fight several wars. Safeguarding our borders from the ‘two-front threat’—that of Pakistan and China—compelled the erstwhile governments to equip the forces with the modern arms that matched in quality and quantity with the arms that America […]
Introduction In the May of 1990 when Montek Singh Ahluwalia delivered his seminal paper, “Towards a Restructuring of Industrial, Trade and Fiscal Policies” for an internal discussion in the government, a reservation on the question of labour was made for a later date, saying, “Reforms relating to labour legislation are also necessary. However, this is […]
Introduction Throughout India’s history, both pre- and post-independence, Maharashtra and West Bengal have been leaders in advancing social reforms for women. Maharashtra’s contributions include the pioneering efforts of Jyotiba Phule and his wife Savitribai Phule, who broke societal barriers by establishing the first school for girls in Pune. Reformers like Dhondo Keshav Karve further pushed […]
While the Female Labour Force Participation in the country is seeing a steady growth over the past few years, the number of women moving out of the workforce for multiple reasons including domestic and caregiving duties is considerably high.
Unfortunately, around 800,000 of these abortions are unsafe, contributing significantly to maternal mortality, despite the legal framework established by the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act. This highlights the persistent barriers rural women face in accessing safe sexual health services, particularly due to inadequate healthcare infrastructure compared to urban areas. This indicator is a critical measure of gender equality and women’s empowerment, particularly in the context of sexual and reproductive health rights .
Background The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a remote archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, are renowned for their pristine beaches, rich biodiversity and vibrant indigenous cultures. Much of the rich biodiversity has remained undiscovered in parts of the islands, and the fragile ecosystem faces significant environmental challenges. The island of Great Nicobar, a part of […]
The National Human Trafficking Awareness Day 2024 raises the slogan ‘Freedom’s not for sale; fight modern slavery.’ Human Trafficking affects more than 27.6 million people worldwide, according to the International Labour Organisation (Blinken, 2023), also estimating that in 2022, 3.3 million children were being trafficked for sexual and labour exploitation at any given time.