Editorial

Governance is a holistic approach, involving all stakeholders, reflecting the needs, aspirations and ethos of the people concerned. The interlinkages among institutions, economic development and governance in a society are important to understand the reform process, nature of design and implementation of policies at different levels and the way the country deals with its neighbours. This issue covers articles on a range of subjects’ pertinent to governance and the related concerns and challenges.

A foreign policy of a country is a difficult phenomenon to be handled because of the constant change the world undergoes. The Neighbourhood First Policy (NFP), which accords primacy to nations in a country’s periphery, has always been the priority of Indian foreign policymakers. The policy seems to have gained more impetus and vigour after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India in 2014. Vinay Kaura and Meena Rani in their article, focusing on the period 2014–2019, analyse some intense engagements with neighbours: Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar. The authors caution of the external environment created by China’s unprecedented incursion into each of India’s neighbours. India will be able to focus on its primary tasks of socio-economic development only with a peaceful and prosperous periphery. Hence, India must accord the highest priority to closer political, economic and cultural ties with its neighbours and must be committed to building strong and enduring partnerships. India’s shift in diplomatic attention from South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) must vindicate that its new regional outreach is not merely aimed at isolating Pakistan but for enhancing connectivity and trade. The authors point out that BIMSTEC can be an effective conduit between South and Southeast Asian economies for reinforcing collaborative relations among them.

Pakistan is a highly diverse society in terms of its ethnic, linguistic and religious composition. Much of Pakistan’s ethno-national conflicts are rooted in the mismatch between its diversity and the political institutions. Veena Kukreja looks at Pakistan’s state response towards ethnic demands. The Pakistani elite in the pursuit of national unity stifled aspirations for regional autonomy and failed to accommodate them in the state structure. The policymakers from the beginning exhibited a tendency to assimilate (mostly by coercion) rather than accommodate ethnic groups not in power. The successful secession of Bangladesh was considered a resurgence of the regional and ethnic identities followed by the Pakhtun and Baluchi nationalist assertion in the 1970s, Sindhi nationalism in 1980s and Muhajir movement in 1990. The author gives a narrative of these movements and underlines that religious commonality alone cannot ensure political or even social and cultural homogeneity. Pakistan needs to restructure its system to accommodate the ethnicity for a viable national identity.

The notions of poverty and ‘deprivations’, generally, have dominated the development discourse. But, Devesh Vijay postulates collective hardships or ‘privations’ as a central concern of development planning and explores ways of tracking them for spatial and temporal comparisons and appropriate policy responses. The author elucidates the conceptualisation of ‘privations’ and its principal categories. ‘Privations’ are centred on risks to people’s health and safety, and the sorry state of public services calling urgent attention from the state and civil society. They need to be distinguished from the subjective terrain of personal suffering. It is difficult to track ‘privations’ across regions and index on a single scale. The author confines to mapping ‘privations’ concerning threats to safety and public health in two selected communities of the National Capital Region of Delhi. ‘Privations’ deserve serious attention in policy debates in view of the damage they bring to individual lives as well as the social fabric. The author recommends mapping and tracking of privations across the country. Such an exercise would facilitate comparison of trends in listed ‘privations’ in the country as a whole and it would not only enrich development theory and planning but also provides a record of different regimes in addressing them.

The rapid urbanisation has resulted in the processes of dispersive urban growth creating hybrid landscapes of fragmented urban and rural characteristics leading to ‘peri-urbanisation’. Chetna Singh deals with the debate on the governance of metropolitan regions for efficient, cost-effective and equitable provision of services and the way planning needs to be perceived for peri-urban areas. A metropolitan region holds different territorial and functional entities. The author has chosen the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA) as the study area and discusses issues pertaining to polycentric (multiplicity of political jurisdictions) versus monocentric metropolitan governance in relation to the existing institutional landscape. There can be several scales of service provision in a decentralised way either at the metropolitan level or by some arrangement of cooperation among the local governments. The author identifies gaps, conflicts and challenges in planning and service provision relating to CMA and emphasises on the need for clearly defined empowered subsystems that can work complementarily and cohesively facilitating equitable resources in the peri-urban areas.

Power sector reforms in India were initiated at a time when the sector was beset with commercial losses and growing subsidy burden. Nagendra Kumar Maurya gives an overview of the impact of power sector reforms on the operational and financial performance of the power sector utilities of Uttar Pradesh. Although the reforms sought to build the autonomy of the power sector utilities to enable them to function on commercial lines, they are still far from financial ease. The author avers that government interference has to be reduced and a competitive environment has to be nurtured in the generation, transmission and distribution of power to make power utilities financially and commercially effective. The weak financial status of power sector can adversely impact the fiscal health of the state government.

D.C. Nanjunda highlights in his article the importance of a decentralised healthcare system and considers the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) as a step in this direction. The article is an outcome of an empirical study of selected developed and backward districts of Karnataka, covering Public Health Institutes (PHIs) at different levels of panchayats. The data was collected from health officials and beneficiaries of NRHM. The author draws from the analysis that both PHIs and Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) are jointly responsible to provide equitable, affordable and quality healthcare to the rural population, especially the vulnerable groups. The transfer of PHIs to administrative control under the PRIs gives good results when elected representatives and PHI officers work in coordination. Community-owned, decentralised health delivery system with inter-sectoral convergence at all levels can ensure simultaneous action on a wide range of determinants of health such as water, sanitation, education, nutrition, social and gender equality. The author recommends the need to generate geographic and culture specific data for identifying such PRI delivery mechanisms for the sustainability of NRHM in a broader spectrum.

The article by Sangita Dhal contextualises the Digital India Mission in the pursuit of good governance with a special reference to the initiatives taken by the state of Odisha. It presents an account of many e-governance projects initiated by Odisha to promote Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-based (SMART) governance in different spheres of administration. Despite an increase in government efficiency, accountability and speedy delivery of services to people, some factors such as a low level of information technology awareness, low speed of internet and broadband connectivity create a digital divide and inhibit the success of the Digital India Mission. The author concludes that a firm commitment towards digital empowerment and a balanced approach for implementation of e-governance initiatives can ensure good governance. This necessitates strengthening the basic foundation of the digital economy and making the internet accessible, open and safe for all the citizens.

Besides the articles, the issue contains five book reviews and a note on Universal Health Coverage and National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 by Rumki Basu. The note underscores that NHP 2017 falls in line with the growing global emphasis to provide universal access to primary healthcare. The nudge model of intervention (positive reinforcement for mass behaviour change), addressing issues of access and affordability of healthcare and operational partnerships with the non-government sectors, within a framework of credible public system would help in realising desired outcomes.