The absence of water supply infrastructure is a critical issue that affects the sustainability of cities in the developing world and the quality of life of millions of people living in these cities. Urban India has probably the largest concentration of people in the world lacking safe access to these infrastructures. This book is a unique study of the politics of water supply infrastructures in three metropolitan cities in contemporary India – Bangalore, Chennai and Kochi. It examines the process of change in water supply infrastructure initiated by notable Public Private Partnership’s efforts in these three cities to reveal the complexity of state-society relations in India at multiple levels – at the state, city and neighbourhood levels. Using a comparative methodology, the book develops as understanding of the changes in the production of reform water policy in contemporary India and its reception at the sub-national (state) level. It goes on to examine the governance of regimes of water supply in Bangalore, Chennai and Kochi, and evaluates the role of the partnerships in reforming water supply. The book is a useful contribution to studies on Urban Development and South Asian Politics.

Few people actively engaged in India's water sector would deny that the Indian subcontinent faces serious problems in the sustainable use and management of water resources. Water resources in India have been subjected to tremendous pressures from increasing population, urbanization, industrialization, and modern agricultural methods. The inadequate access to clean drinking water, increase in water related disasters such as floods and droughts, vulnerability to climate change and competition for the resource amongst different sectors and the region poses immense pressures for sustainability of water systems and humanity. Water Security in India addresses these issues head on, analyzing the challenges that contemporary India faces if it is to create a water-secure world, and providing a hopeful, though guarded, road-map to a future in which India's life-giving and life-sustaining fresh water resources are safe, clean, plentiful, and available to all, secured for the people in a peaceful and ecologically sustainable manner.

This book is a unique study of the politics of water supply infrastructures in three metropolitan cities in contemporary India – Bangalore, Chennai and Kochi. It examines the process of change in water supply infrastructure initiated by notable Public Private Partnership’s efforts in these three cities to reveal the complexity of state-society relations in India at multiple levels – at the state, city and neighbourhood levels.

In 2018, the city of Cape Town faced the prospect of reaching ‘day zero’, that is a combination of natural and human-made factors leading to the complete collapse of its municipal water supply. While the rains eventually fell and a major disaster was averted, the fear of running out of water looms large in the psyche of residents in many cities around the world. Water is a non-substitutable, essential, finite and fugitive resource. It is the lifeblood of human endeavour. Cities, through global processes such as Agenda 2030 and forums such as ICLEI exchange best practices for achieving water security. These forums also are collective social spaces occupied by civil society organizations who share strategies and tactics, and the private sector, who compete for markets and contracts, promoting patent-protected technologies. It is these groups – states, civil societies, private sectors – coming together who determine who gets what water, when, and where. It is the job of academics to understand the how and why, and of (academic-)activists to fight for equity of access and sustainability of use. Evidence drawn from around the world and over time consistently shows that water flows toward money and power. Outcomes are too-often socially inequitable, environmentally unsustainable and economically inefficient. How to shift existing processes toward improved practices is not clear, but positive outcomes do exist. In this collection, we compare and contrast the challenges and opportunities for achieving urban water security with a focus on 11 major world cities: Bangalore, Beijing, Cairo, Cape Town, Chennai, Istanbul, Jakarta, London, Melbourne, Sao Paulo and Tokyo. Through the theoretical, conceptual and practical insights provided in these case studies, our collection constructively contributes to a global conversation regarding the ways and means of ‘avoiding day zero’.

Through an international range of research, this volume examines how informal urban street markets facilitate the informal and formal economy not merely in terms of the traditional concerns of labor and consumption, but also in regards to cultural and spatial contingencies. In many places, street markets and their populace have been marginalized and devalued. At times, there are clear governance procedures that aim to prevent them, yet they continue to emerge in even in the most institutionalized societies. This book gives serious consideration to what these markets reveal about urban life in a time of globalized, rapid urbanization and flows of people, knowledge and goods.

Provides the answer to the enduring puzzle why India lags behind China in offering public goods to its people.