Guest blogger
Dr. V. Kurian Baby is WASH sector expert formerly from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). He was IRC's India Country Director and Senior Programme Office within IRC South Asia Regional Programme. Having significant WASH sector experience, both at Policy and programme levels in India and abroad, he has worked for national/sub-national governments, NGOs, public corporate and donors (UNDP, World Bank, EU and JICA). He was Managing Director at the Kerala Water Board and Executive Director of the Kerala Rural Water Supply & Sanitation Agency (World Bank). He has a first class Masters in Economics, a Ph.D in Regulatory Economics and specialisation in project management (IIM-Ahmadabad), Environmental Economics & Development Policy (WBI-USA). He has a number of publications to his credit and is a reviewer for international journals.
The unprecedented flood of August 2018 has put Kerala on the spot. Integrated water resources management will have to be a key pillar in managing the recurrent floods and droughts. Read more...
The 'climate industry' is big business, and the projects sometimes exacerbate the problems Read more...
A fair share of profits from globally shared resources needs to be harnessed to finance the Loss and Damage fund announced at COP27. Read more...
The Indian Government is now embarking on another ambitious 'Jal Jeevan Mission', promising piped water to every household in India by 2024. Read more...
What can civil society do to achieve the SDGs? Read more...
The SDG financing gap will be history, when natural infrastructure (NI) enters the economics and financing computations. Read more...
Big data analytics is a new window of opportunity for the Indian water sector. Read more...
We need to move beyond the easy option of coercion, humiliation and threats to stop open defecation. Read more...
The India WASH Summit focused on solutions for Swacch Bharat (Clean India mission), to find ways to meet the goal of making India Open Defecation Free by 2019. The Summit drew sector players, government, elected representatives, bilaterals, multilaterals, donors, INGOs, NGOs, academia and the... Read more...
IRC country director of India Kurian Baby on how to realise Mahatma Gandhi's dream of Clean India, and what he wishes for his country in 2015. Read more...
The Prime Minister has given a call for ‘Swachh Bharat’ (Clean India) as a mass movement to realise Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of a clean India. To make this campaign a success, it needs to become a bureaucratic priority in addition to a political priority. Read more...
As we approach near universal water supply coverage, India is facing the twin challenges of achieving last mile coverage and simultaneously addressing sustainability of the massive assets already created. Read more...
A passionate school teacher took the lead in making his school a model in sanitation. However, the ground in front of the school is an open defecation area. Read more...
India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi has deviated from convention and made sanitation a central theme of his Independence Day speech 2014. He has announced a programme of Clean India to make the country Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 2019. In that year India will celebrate the 150 th birth... Read more...
When it comes to cost-efficient water provision, evidence is suggesting the issues such as scale economies v small-scale schemes are complex. Read more...
Community rural water supply in India is being undermined by opposing strategies. Read more...
"Everyone forever" may be ahead of schedule in India, but where is the will to achieve it? Read more...
Independent state regulators will not be able to solve the deep-rooted water governance crisis in India, says India Country Director Dr. V. Kurian Baby. After a decade of failure, a new approach is needed: a bottom-up process of social and participatory regulation. There are enough successful... Read more...
This presentation was given during the Indian High-Level Roundtable on Sustainable Drinking Water Services last 13 March 2013 in New Delhi. Read more...
IRC and India's National Institute of Administrative Research (NIAR) are joining forces on capacity development and action research. Read more...