The Road to the India Land and Development Conference 2020: An Interview with Dr A. Narayana | Land Portal

The  4th India Land and Development Conference(link is external), set to start next week, invites a wide variety of individuals and institutions to engage in thought-provoking and interdisciplinary conversations and analyses.  More specifically, the Conference's theme Institutions, Innovations and Informations in Land Governance invites us all to think about us all to think about the role that information sharing can play in helping to ensure effective land governance.  It is with this in mind, that we had the chance to speak with a few of the ILDC attendees, in order to gather some pre-conference perspectives and food for thought.  

Dr. A. Narayana​ teaches Political Philosophy and Indian Politics, Law and Governance and Governance Challenges in India at Azim Pemji University.  Below are his perspectives on the upcoming Conference, as well as key issues which the Conference will cover.  


1) Could you please introduce yourself and your work? 

I am an associate professor at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India. I teach and research on public policy and governance. My research interests cover local governance, land governance and e-governance. My doctoral thesis is on the political economy of computerization of land records in India and I was also the Karnataka State Coordinator of the World Bank’s Land Governance Assessment Framework. At present I am involved in a study of land bureaucracy in India.

 

2) What is the scope of your involvement in the ILDC 2020? 

Azim Premji University is one of co-organizers of ILDC ever since its inception four years ago. For ILDC-2020, among other things, I have been working on a report called Land in India-2020 which seeks to give an update on developments in the land sector. This will be an annual publication to be brought out as part of ILDC from this year onwards. I am also going to moderate a session on emerging urban land tenure systems in India.

 

3) What is the need for such a Conference? 

ILDC brings together all stakeholders of India’s land sector in a single platform.  Mainly, it is the only platform which facilitates the interface between policy makers and academic researchers working on land issues. The need for conferences such as this kind, arise from the fact that it provides an opportunity to both the state functionaries and the researchers to get a quick overview of the problems and key issues in land sector, and the kind of policy and research attention that is required to address them. 

 

4) Are there particular sessions or subjects your are looking forward to discussing? 

The theme of the ILDC-2020 focuses on the institutional and informational dimensions of land governance in India. This happens to be my research area too. So, I am looking forward to almost all the sessions but the one I am really keen on learning from is: “25 years of land records’ digitization in India”. This session is based on a huge study conducted across the country by the National Council of Applied Economic Research to make sense of a quarter century of national experience of applying digital technology to set right land records in India.

Share this page