Blocked drains and open minds : multiple accountability relationships and improved service delivery performance in an Indian city

How can public sector service providers deliver improved services to citizens within environments where inefficient and often corrupt service delivery is the norm? The following paper provides some answers to this question through examining the impact of a series of customer-focused service delivery reforms undertaken at the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Metro Water) in Hyderabad City, Andhra Pradesh state, Southern India at the end of the 1990s. The Metro Water case is interesting, as it shows how a semi-autonomous service provider can undertake organisational change and realise sustained improvements in service delivery performance. If this process is deepened over time there is a greater opportunity to attract, and provide security for, larger state or private sector investments that can impact water supply and sewerage service delivery over the long-term. This is the scenario that emerges in the following case. A key finding in this research is that multiple accountability relationships, operating between external actors and Metro Water staff, have collectively contributed to sustained organisational change and improved service delivery performance. The most critical of these relationships are those that triangulate between citizens, senior managers, and front-line workers. In the Metro Water case active citizen engagement through formal accountability mechanisms has been the key to the organisation s overall success in delivering improved services to citizens (both middle class and urban poor) throughout Hyderabad City

Neurodegenerative Disease and the NLRP3 Inflammasome.

The prevalence of neurodegenerative disease has increased significantly in recent years, and with a rapidly aging global population, this trend is expected to continue. These diseases are characterised by a progressive neuronal loss in the brain or peripheral nervous system, and generally involve protein aggregation, as well as metabolic abnormalities and immune dysregulation. Although the vast majority of neurodegeneration is idiopathic, there are many known genetic and environmental triggers. In the past decade, research exploring low-grade systemic inflammation and its impact on the development and progression of neurodegenerative disease has increased. A particular research focus has been whether systemic inflammation arises only as a secondary effect of disease or is also a cause of pathology. The inflammasomes, and more specifically the NLRP3 inflammasome, a crucial component of the innate immune system, is usually activated in response to infection or tissue damage. Dysregulation of the NLRP3 inflammasome has been implicated in the progression of several neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and prion diseases. This review aims to summarise current literature on the role of the NLRP3 inflammasome in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, and recent work investigating NLRP3 inflammasome inhibition as a potential future therapy

Bringing citizens back in : public sector reform, service delivery performance and accountability in an Indian state

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Changed Governance or Computerized Governance? Computerized Property Transfer Processes in Tamil Nadu, India

The government of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu is plagued by a bloated workforce, low levels of transparency and accountability, high levels of corruption, and poor quality of public services. Does e-government really meet such governance challenges? Tamil Nadu's first major e-government project, STAR, uses ICTs in the administrative processes relating to sale, mortgage, lease of real estate properties, providing title search reports, and allied services. This study of the objectives, implementation, and funding of the project and a survey of the impact on the stakeholders reveals that key policy choices, and not merely the technology employed, determine the impact of e-government projects. (c) 2007 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Site Seeing : Travel and Tourism in Contemporary Art

Discussing work by 15 international artists, three essayists examine the theme of tourism in contemporary art. Lee sets the stage for this artistic inquiry into the influence of the tourism industry. Higa writes on the motif of artist as traveller, and Casely questions colonial sites and the notion of souvenirs