The State of Cities – #CityConversations | A Special Lecture by Dr Tariq Thachil on Governance Challenges in India’s Small Towns
#IMPRI Center for Habitat, Urban and Regional Studies (CHURS), IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi invites you to a #WebPolicyTalk series –
The State of Cities – #CityConversations
A Special Lecture on
Governance Challenges in India’s Small Towns
Details of the #WebPolicyTalk:
Date: January 18, 2022
Time: 6:30 p.m. IST
Platform: Zoom and Facebook Live
Speaker:
Dr Tariq Thachil
Director, Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI);
Associate Professor of Political Science, and
Madan Lal Sobti Associate Professor for the Study of Contemporary India,
University of Pennsylvania
Dr Tariq Thachil is Director of the Center for Advanced Study of India (CASI), Associate Professor of Political Science, and Madan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study of Contemporary India at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on political parties and political behavior, identity politics, urbanization, and migration, with a regional focus on India.
His first book examines how elite parties can use social services to win mass support, through a study of Hindu nationalism in India, and was published by Cambridge University Press (Studies in Comparative Politics) in 2014. This project won the 2015 Gregory Luebbert Award for best book in comparative politics, and the 2015 Leon Epstein Award for best book on political parties, from the American Political Science Association.
Dr Thachil’s current research focuses on the political consequences of urbanization, and draws on extensive qualitative and quantitative research among poor migrants in Indian cities. This work has won the 2018 Heinz Eulau Prize for best article published in the American Political Science Review, and 2020 American Journal of Political Science Best Article Award.
His articles are published or forthcoming in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, World Politics, and other outlets. I have previously taught at Vanderbilt University and Yale University.
Discussants:
Dr Debapriya Chakrabarti
ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow,
SEED, University of Manchester
Sameer Unhale
Joint Commissioner,
Department of Municipal Administration,
Government of Maharashtra
Moderator:
Dr Soumyadip Chattopadhyay
Associate Professor, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan;
Visiting Senior Fellow, IMPRI, New Delhi
About the #WebPolicyTalk: Governance Challenges in India’s Small Towns
In India, as many people live in small towns as in major metropolitan cities. Yet while big cities like Delhi and Mumbai are heavily studied, little is known about how local governments work in small towns. Such knowledge is crucial: small towns governments are tasked with an increasing array of responsibilities, including establishing new systems of taxation and service delivery. Ensuring they do so efficiently is essential to India’s urban future. What governance challenges do small towns face? Are elected officials in these spaces sufficiently trained to undertake their responsibilities? How can small towns combat their struggles to raise tax revenues? And why do they often fail to spend the funds provided to them by central and state governments? This presentation will provide an overview of ongoing work addressing these questions, drawing on a range of qualitative and quantitative evidence from small towns in Rajasthan.
Facebook Live Event Video: https://www.facebook.com/impriindia/videos/2454845831313082
YouTube: https://youtu.be/lPEV5zAefx4
Anchor FM | Spotify | Google Podcasts
Organizer
IMPRI, a startup research think tank, is a platform for pro-active, independent, non-partisan and policy-based research. It contributes to debates and deliberations for action-based solutions to a host of strategic issues. IMPRI is committed to democracy, mobilization and community building.