Climate change hits villages first, through water stress, migration, failing harvests. A PDAG-Asar session argues Panchayats, empowered by the 73rd Amendment, are where real resilience gets built.

As COP30 reiterates the focus on local climate action, PDAG reflects on the Conference of Panchayats, an inverted-pyramid model, that channels women's and panchayat leadership into India's climate governance from the ground up.

Enacted in 2005 to guarantee rural employment, MGNREGS faces critical operational challenges from irregular funding, shrinking budgets, and payment delays. Improving efficacy requires expanding work scope, skill integration, and administrative transparency.

Despite promising social security, the BOCW scheme struggles to protect migrant construction workers due to contractor documentation hurdles, low renewal rates, underutilised funds, and target-driven registration loopholes that exclude vulnerable beneficiaries.

Despite its ambitious vision to reduce healthcare expenditure, Ayushman Bharat faces major structural flaws, leaving India's migrant workers, rural communities, the missing middle, and critical outpatient care needs largely underserved.

COP16 and COP29 set the global biodiversity and climate agenda — PDAG's Conference of Panchayats shows what it looks like when local communities and Indigenous knowledge drive that agenda from the ground up.

Rising climate fatalities in India highlight critical gaps in risk mapping and early warning systems. Building true resilience requires addressing structural inequalities and directing targeted, inclusive policies toward vulnerable populations.

Miya Muslims hail from Barpeta town of Assam and are part of the informal sector of waste-picking in Lucknow. They contribute positively to society, yet they are often isolated and treated like foreigners.

In this blog developed as an output to the IGC-funded research, the authors discuss how gender interacts with caste, political campaigns, and experience of discrimination, to shape state-level elections in Bihar.

Jharkhand's District Mineral Foundation, funded by mining royalties, has misallocated funds—prioritizing water and sanitation over health and nutrition—due to bureaucratic directives and lack of community consultation, despite dire health indicators.