Urban Governance

Fragmented authority, weak municipal finances and limited devolution continue to hamper service delivery, prompting fresh calls to strengthen city governments across India

Today's opinions examine the G7 summit, a changing US Federal Reserve, Karnataka's development priorities, India's infrastructure model and Indira Jaising's constitutional journey

Today's Opinion page examines fertiliser subsidy reform, urban governance failures, market regulation, industrial financing and antibiotic resistance through the lens of institutional accountability

Today's Opinion page examines AI-driven market exuberance, Dharmendra Pradhan's political prospects, the growing importance of E-E-A-T, and India's deepening urban governance challenge

India must overhaul urban governance, planning, and finance to support rapid urbanisation and achieve Viksit Bharat by 2047, says NITI Aayog's Rajiv Gauba

While our cities need investment, they also need something harder to build and easier to ignore to become truly livable

A new GDP base year, US-Israel strikes on Iran, India's urban planning crisis, and artificial intelligence's impact on the IT sector dominate today's Opinion page

India is economically urban but not productively so. The Economic Survey flags how weak institutions, not density itself, are holding back cities from realising agglomeration gains

India isn't short of ideas, expertise or funds. Our cities are struggling because they are treated as outposts of an empire: administered by unaccountable viceroys

The Economic Survey 2025-26 says India's cities drive growth but suffer from daily stress due to poor planning, overuse of private transport and fragmented governance

From Vodafone Idea's AGR moratorium and concerns over telecom duopoly to urban governance failures, global trade disruptions and India's openness to capital, here is today's opinion newsletter

Cities are crumbling, but the local bodies that govern them remain powerless

A new study has found that 61 per cent of urban local governments in 17 states saw delayed polls in recent years, citing disempowered state election panels and undefined electoral timelines

The conference was organised by the National Institute of Urban Affairs, under the aegis of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA)

Earlier tourism haven Cape Town and now, IT hub Bangalore. Both show how urban governance management is to key to solving key crises like water. > >

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a USD 400 million loan to support the Indian government's urban reform agenda for creating high-quality urban infrastructure and efficient governance systems. The programme also envisages integrated urban planning reforms to control urban sprawls and foster systemic and planned urbanisation through enhancing the entire ecosystem of legal, regulatory, and institutional reforms along with capacity building of ULBs and community awareness, ADB said. "The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a USD 400 million policy-based loan to India for Sub-programme 2 of the Sustainable Urban Development and Service Delivery Programme. "The programme aims to support the government's urban reform agenda for improving the quality of urban life through the creation of high-quality urban infrastructure, assured public services, and efficient governance systems," ADB said. While Subprogramme 1, approved in 2021, established national-level policies and .

Property tax is one of the major sources of revenue for local governments/Urban Local Bodies (ULBs)

The PM and CMs are also expected to devote considerable time to agriculture and related subjects, including measures to lower import dependency on several food items

Municipal bonds can help push local development

Indian cities could hardly score above 5, with Pune barely touching the 5.1 margin, compared to global megacities such as New York and London, which scored 8.8 each