Blogs

As part of an initiative to test the climate-proofing of development plans in India, WRI and NABARD have been studying the impacts of changing weather patterns in Cuddalore, a coastal district in Tamil Nadu. As a premier development bank in India, NABARD has been instrumental in providing technical and financial support to various development initiatives throughout the country. In Tamil Nadu, the Bank has been particularly contributing to alleviate the state’s dire water needs, through the promotion of participatory water management scheme in collaboration with Government of Tamil Nadu....

The urgency and complexity of the climate change challenge has been globally recognised. As developing countries grapple with the adverse effects of unfavorable climatic stressors, the global community is negotiating to meet the increasing demand for climate finance. This shift in the global conscience has facilitated a conducive environment for mainstreaming climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts, and integrating them firmly into countries’ overall developmental and growth agendas. There is far greater emphasis now on ensuring the climate proofing of development.

To that...

The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) in May 2017 adopted the National Transit Oriented Development policy with the intention of providing a guiding document to states and cities that are adopting Transit Oriented Development (TOD) as an urban growth strategy. While Haryana, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Naya Raipur have TOD policies in place (refer to Table 1), states like Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, and cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Hubli-Dharwad, and Kochi are looking to adopt TOD as the growth strategy and...

From Bangalore to Bengaluru

In 1970, Bangalore had 1.6m people. Within the decade, the emergence and expansion of public sector institutions such as the Indian Space Research Organisation, Bharat Electrical Limited, and Hindustan Machine Tools caused a sudden growth spurt, followed quickly by more growth owing to the textile and information technology industries gaining a foothold in the city. By the 1980s, the population was growing at the rate of 45...

India’s power sector has ambitious targets. The Indian government has pledged to develop a renewable energy (RE) capacity of 175GW from the existing 57GW in the next five years, and promised electricity for all homes in the next two years, powering more than 300 million people. The realisation of these targets hinges heavily on a holistic electricity planning process.

At...

On Sunday, June 25th, Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, launched India’s first fully automated bicycle sharing system as part of its second anniversary of the much-talked-about Smart Cities program. This development comes just three weeks after Mysore launched the country’s first city level bicycle sharing project.

The Bhopal bicycle sharing system...

Karnataka is facing a water crisis. The adverse effects of climate variations experienced through fluctuations in temperature and precipitation have a significant bearing on the growth of the state economy. Farmers, in many parts of the state have faced loss of crops due to drought-like conditions owing to scarce rainfall and severe depletion of ground water.

Devendrappa, a farmer from Doddaballapur, a taluk in the Bangalore metropolitan area, says that people are now more aware of the impacts of climate change and what causes them than they were 20 years ago, when he took over...

Last year, WRI India launched India Vision Zero, a road safety forum to deliberate on the challenges, opportunities, and solutions towards reducing road traffic fatalities in India. The event brought together representatives from the national and state governments, as well as city authorities and other stakeholders to share ideas and strategies for road safety reform in the country. India currently tops the list with the highest number of road traffic deaths in the world. By contextualising...

Population growth and an increasing vulnerability to climate change means that India faces an uphill task in effectively and efficiently tackling its water problems. World Resources Institute (WRI) research has shown that almost 54 percent of India faces high to extremely high water stress, and resulting in heightened agrarian distress in the country.

India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, NABARD, launched a Water Campaign on 22nd March...

The real estate sector is one of the largest contributors to India’s GDP and touted to grow by 30 percent over the next decade. However, it is also considered the “most ambiguous sector to transact under”, with insufficient regulations leading to numerous cases of consumer-developer conflicts and project delays...