Incineration-based waste-to-energy technologies have recently emerged as the preferred policy option for managing the growing problem of waste in India. These technologies require a continuous supply of waste inputs of sufficient quantity and quality—high calorific value and low moisture content—to be viable. Government and industry proponents suggest that WtE and recycling are compatible systems of managing waste while their critics disagree.

A study of 360 safai karamcharis employed with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai suggests that policies aimed at uplifting conservancy work may actually be institutionalising caste-based occupations. This article describes the situation that keeps generations of safai karamcharis in this occupation, and recommends practical solutions to break the vicious cycle. - See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/13/perspectives/safai-karamcharis-aviciou...

India cannot, and must not, wait any longer to recognise the right to healthcare. (Editorial)

Utilising household-level data, this paper investigates the impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme on financial inclusion. Exploiting the staggered timing of the roll-out of the programme across districts, while controlling for its non-random implementation, it is found that MGNREGS improves financial access. This is confirmed in simple univariate tests as well as in multivariate regressions that take into account several district- and household-level controls.

Patients are being forced to buy high-priced drugs and medical devices from hospital pharmacies. With hospitals increasingly operating as for-profi t businesses, these pharmacies are an important revenue source for hospitals. In essence, the in-house pharmacy is a spatial monopoly within the premises of the hospital with the patients obliged to buy from it at prices dictated by the management.

The Tamirabarani river is a part of the ecological and cultural landscape, and traditions of the people of Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately, public resources like the river water are sold at throwaway prices to corporations, who in turn resell the water either in the form of packaged drinking water or as aerated beverages. The political economy of the river and the state’s industrial plans, require radical rethinking.

Why deny the reality that air pollution is killing millions in India, especially the poor? (Editorial)

The causes, conditions and consequences of poor water access in Bombay Hotel locality, a predominantly Muslim informal settlement located in Ahmedabad’s southern periphery, are studied through the lens of urban violence and conflict. This is done by tracing the dynamics of urban planning and governance that have produced two interlinked types of infrastructural violence in the locality—municipal water denial and violent articulations of infrastructure by informal water providers—and the experiences of everyday conflict and violence that emerge in residents’ lives as a consequence.

Rising focus on the increasing awareness of existing solar systems, ambitious plans announced on the amount of solar power generation over the next few years, cancellation of subsidies over a considerable period and their reintroduction, and of course, the “solar scam” are some of the issues at the forefront of green energy in India.

Recent evidence suggests that a significant number of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act workers are not paid at all for their work. An analysis of this phenomenon revealed that the increasing dependence on technology in the implementation of the act is creating new hurdles for wage payments.