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Bharti Mishra Nath- Report Published

Bharti Mishra Nath is a print-media journalist of over 17 years who has worked in leading Indian English dailies including The Times of India, The New Indian Express and Deccan Herald. Her core research interests include urban governance and civic administration. She is the winner of the Chairman’s award in The New Indian Express, Bangalore, and has been a visiting lecturer at the All India Institute of Local Self Government, Goa.

Bharti Mishra Nath is a print-media journalist of over 17 years who has worked in leading Indian English dailies including The Times of India,The New Indian Express and Deccan Herald . At the Deccan Herald , she also wrote editorials in addition to her role as a news editor. She is the winner of the Chairman’s award in The New Indian Express , Bangalore, and has been a visiting lecturer at the All India Institute of Local Self Government, Goa.

Bharti’s experience as a journalist with exposure to urban administration in multiple cities, coupled with her understanding of the Indian Constitution as a law graduate (Delhi University), gave her an insight into the perennial civic issues that cities face due to lack of good governance.

As a Chevening UK South Asia Journalism Scholar between April and May, 2013, she studied the comparative working of civic administration systems of London and Bangalore focussing on how a large and historical city like London manages urban challenges to provide quality living to its citizens. She interacted with different local authorities responsible for London’s administration to understand how they approach the challenges of constantly renewing the city to keep London efficient and modern.

At The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, her research focusses on the crisis of urban governance in Indian cities - a subject which is more relevant in today’s rapidly urbanising India - as the challenges go far beyond the issue of financial constraints on the urban local bodies. She will be examining the present constitutional framework of urban governance (74th Constitutional Amendment) in the context of its practice in cities.

Research :

As a Public Policy Scholar, Bharti will study the devolution of powers to the urban local government as envisaged in the 74th Constitutional Amendment. Her research will explore key questions, such as those pertaining to the adequacy of the Amendment for effective local self- government in urban centres; are the major political parties in the country open to undertaking a review of the existing constitutional/legal arrangement on urban governance? Will the ruling party at the Centre be open to devolving more financial powers to the States, and States to urban local bodies? Will the State governments be open to the idea of participating in any deliberation on giving up their authority? Does the effectiveness of the urban local body vary depending on the mode of the election of the Mayor? Are the urban local bodies in which Mayors are directly elected, as in a city like Chennai, relatively successful vis-a-vis the urban local bodies in which the Mayors are indirectly elected with shorter tenure, as in Bangalore?

Read Policy Report No. 10 here:Crisis of Urban Governance in India.

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