Today, India’s education sector remains a victim of poor policies, restrictive regulations and orthodoxy. Despite being enrolled in schools, children are not learning adequately. Increasingly, parents are seeking alternatives through private inputs in school and tuition. Students are dropping out from secondary school in spite of high financial returns of secondary education, and those who do complete it have inferior conceptual knowledge. Higher education is over-regulated and under-governed, keeping away serious private providers and reputed global institutes. Graduates from high schools, colleges and universities are not readily employable, and few are willing to pay for skill development. Ironically, the Right to Education Act, if strictly enforced, will result in closure of thousands of non-state schools, and millions of poor children will be left without access to education. Eleventh in the series, India Infrastructure Report 2012 discusses challenges in the education sector — elementary, secondary, higher, and vocational — and explores strategies for constructive change and opportunities for the private sector. It suggests that immediate steps are required to reform the sector to reap the benefits from India’s ‘demographic dividend’ due to a rise in the working age population. Result of a collective effort led by the IDFC Foundation, this Report brings together a range of perspectives from academics, researchers and practitioners committed to enhancing educational practices. It will be an invaluable resource for policymakers, researchers and corporates.

Low Carbon Cities is a book for practitioners, students and scholars in architecture, urban planning and design. It features essays on ecologically sustainable cities by leading exponents of urban sustainability, case studies of the new directions low carbon cities might take and investigations of how we can mitigate urban heat stress in our cities’ microclimates. The book explores the underlying dimensions of how existing cities can be transformed into low carbon urban systems and describes the design of low carbon cities in theory and practice. It considers the connections between low carbon cities and sustainable design, social and individual values, public space, housing affordability, public transport and urban microclimates. Given the rapid urbanisation underway globally, and the need for all our cities to operate more sustainably, we need to think about how spatial planning and design can help transform urban systems to create low carbon cities, and this book provides key insights.

Building Global Infrastructure is the fourth in a series of volumes-Patterns of Potential Human Progress-that uses the International Futures (IFs) simulation model to explore prospects for human development: how development appears to be unfolding globally and locally, how we would like it to evolve, and how better to assure that we move it in desired directions. Earlier volumes addressed the reduction of global poverty, the advance of global education, and the improvement of global health. Volume 4 sets out to tell the story of the future of global infrastructure. The approach used in this book focuses on the question of whether individual societies will be able to meet future infrastructure demands. Related questions include the following: * What is the range of realistically conceivable futures for infrastructure, considering both demand and supply? * How are the demands for infrastructure balanced with the ability to meet these demands, thereby linking the physical and financial treatment of infrastructure? * What are the effects of providing for infrastructure on issues such as economic productivity and health?

The adverse environmental impacts from inefficient building construction increase if measures to reduce energy and resource use, through stringent building policies and efficient technology, are not implemented in developed and developing countries. To illustrate a holistic approach to reducing buildings’ energy and resources, the comparison of energy efficient and green buildings in terms of their technological aspects and their policy context in developed and developing countries, mainly in Europe, the USA and India, is presented together with a policy package recommendation for Nepal. A quality review of multiple literature sources, supported by various expert opinions, were the methods used for this in-depth analysis. It discusses that mandatory building standards, voluntary labels, information instruments and financial incentives are the most effective combination for the shift towards market transformation, that results in a higher share of energy efficient and green buildings. The lesson such as higher compliance with, and enforcement of, building energy standards can be seen in developed countries (e.g. Germany). Looking at a building’s life cycle perspective, it is not sufficient to focus solely on operational energy reduction in higher energy efficient buildings as this is achieved by the increased use of energy intensive materials. Green requirements must be considered in updating building energy standards and labels, particularly for developed countries. Green building certification will also become more effective when the stringency of energy standards is higher and when the whole building life cycle assessment is considered. Due to the increasing scarcity of energy and resources, many developing countries are forced to face up to the need for holistic green buildings. Although baseline standards are not as high as in most developed countries and national financial support is low, the gradual move towards making the standards more stringent and incorporating the wider scope of resource saving are positive developments in developing countries (e.g. India). However, to achieve significant success, strategies must include the establishment of a suitable funding environment, a political commitment and a strong government vision for long term and sustainable building construction. The challenges faced by Nepal are even greater due to the fast pace of urban growth and the absence of energy and resource efficient buildings policies, highlighting the need for an effective policy package. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates how energy efficient and green buildings are interlinked. Green buildings reinforced with higher levels of energy efficiency and energy efficient buildings incorporating green requirements are stepping-stones for achieving greater building energy and resource efficiencies. And a suitable policy package fosters its development. Nachteilige Umweltwirkungen eines ineffizienten Bausektors nehmen zu, wenn Maßnahmen zur Reduktion des Energie- und Ressourcenbedarfs in Form stringenter Gebäudepolitiken und effizienter Technologie in Industrieländer und Entwicklungsländer nicht umgesetzt werden. Um einen ganzheitlichen Ansatz zur Reduktion des Energie- und Ressourcenbedarfs von Gebäuden abzubilden, werden energieeffiziente und grüne Gebäude hinsichtlich technologischer Aspekte und ihres Politikkontextes in Industrie- und Entwicklungsländern verglichen. Die Analysen beziehen sich hauptsächlich auf Europa, die USA und Indien und werden ergänzt um Empfehlungen für ein Maßnahmenpaket für Nepal. Ein Review unterschiedlicher Literaturquellen, unterstützt durch diverse Expertenmeinungen, stellt die methodische Grundlage für diese detaillierte Analyse dar. Es diskutiert dass Bauvorschriften und -standards, freiwillige Label, Informationsinstrumente und finanzielle Anreize bilden die effektivste Kombination für die Einleitung einer Markttransformation, die schließlich zu einem höheren Anteil energieeffizienter und grüner Gebäude führt. Gute Beispiele einer höheren Beachtung von Gebäudeenergiestandards und deren Weiterentwicklung existieren in verschiedenen Industrieländern wie Deutschland. Unter Berücksichtigung des Lebenszyklus von Gebäuden ist es nicht ausreichend, nur die Reduktion des Energieverbrauchs in der Nutzungsphase der Gebäude zu beachten, weil diese den Einsatz von Materialien mit hohem Energieverbrauch in der Herstellung bedeuten kann. Grüne Anforderungen muss in der zukünftigen Entwicklung von Gebäudeenergiestandards und -labels berücksichtigt werden, insbesondere in Industrieländern. Die Zertifizierung grüner Gebäude wird auch effektiver werden, wenn Energiestandards verschärft werden und wenn vollständige Gebäude-Ökobilanzen berücksichtigt werden. Auf Grund steigender Knappheit von Energie und Ressourcen sind viele Entwicklungsländer gezwungen, sich der Notwendigkeit grüner Gebäude zu stellen. Obwohl das Niveau von Mindeststandards unterhalb dessen der meisten entwickelten Ländern liegt und die finanzielle Unterstützung gering ist, sind die schrittweise Verschärfung der Standards und die Einbeziehung der weiteren Perspektive der Ressourcenschonung positive Entwicklungen in Entwicklungsländer wie Indien. Um erfolgreich zu sein, müssen bestehende Strategien umfasst werden, an die Schaffung eines geeigneten Förderrahmens, die politische Bekenntnis und eine starke Regierungsvision für einen langfristigen und nachhaltigen Bausektor. Die Herausforderungen, mit denen Nepal konfrontiert wird, sind noch umfangreicher. Sie resultieren aus einem schnellen urbanen Wachstum und dem Fehlen von energie- und ressourceneffizienten Gebäudepolitiken. Die Erforderlichkeit eines effektiven Maßnahmenpakets für Nepal wird hierdurch unterstrichen. Insgesamt wird hierdurch der Zusammenhang zwischen energieeffizienten und grünen Gebäuden aufgezeigt. Die verstärkte Berücksichtigung von Energieeffizienz in grünen Gebäuden sowie von Nachhaltigkeitsanforderungen in energieeffizienten Gebäude sind Sprungbretter für die verbesserte Energie- und Ressourceneffizienz von Gebäuden. Eine solche Entwicklung wird durch ein geeignetes Maßnahmenpaket unterstützt.

The Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India is a bi-annual publication on regional economic growth, development and regional integration in Emerging Asia. It focuses on the economic conditions of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries: Brunei Darussalam ...

øThis multi-disciplinary book provides a comprehensive analysis of the EU_India relationship from 1950 to the present day, as a way of assessing whether a meaningful and sustainable relationship is emerging and whether it will play a role in the future

This book is a collection of fifteen contributions that undertake a detailed analysis of seven broad dimensions of India’s economy and society. All the contributions approach the problems in their respective areas empirically, while being theoretically informed. The book begins with a section containing detailed and empirically supported chapters on the recent crisis in India’s agricultural sector and the reforms in the agricultural markets. Another section is dedicated to the issue of infrastructure financing, and new ways of financing large infrastructural projects are critically examined. Other sections are related to innovations and technology impacts on industry; international trade; health and education; labor and employment; and the very important issue of gender. The selected discussion topics are both of contemporary importance and expected to remain so for some time. Most of the chapters introduce readers to data in addition to methods of analyzing this data, to arrive at policy-oriented conclusions. The rich collection carries learnings for researchers working on a wide range of topics related to development studies, as well as for policymakers and corporate watchers.