AN OVERVIEW OF RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS

The synergy between teaching, research, field action and extension has enabled the TISS to continue to shape planning,policy and programme  formulation, foster critical rethinking,and development of people-centred interventions.

• The Special Cell for Women and Children, a Field Action Project of TISS, which works towards empowering the survivors of domestic violence, is being taken over by the GoM to be replicated in police stations across and beyond Maharashtra, and in other states in the country.
• On the request of the Mumbai High Court, in 2005, the Rural Campus undertook a study of farmers’ suicides in Maharashtra. The Report has been appreciated by the Court, both for providing valuable insights into the rural livelihood crises and its policy recommendations. A long-term action research project on agrarian crisis has been initiated.
• The TISS is providing support to the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council in participatory and sustainable development planning and implementation over a five-year period, from 2005 to 2009.
• In the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, as a part of post-tsunami reconstruction, the TISS has embarked on an ambitious programme of capacity-building of local communities in sustainable development.
• The TISS is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a collaborating Centre for Health, Policy Research and Training. The UNAIDS Centre for Behavioural Research on HIV/AIDS is also located at TISS.
• The findings of a 2005 TISS report on the socioeconomic conditions of ‘manual scavengers’ in Maharashtra will feed into the State Government’s policies and programmes for the rehabilitation of ‘scavengers’. A similar study has also been conducted for the state of Gujarat.
• The TISS, in collaboration with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD, Kathmandu) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) established the first-ever inter-university Master’s Programme in Sustainable Mountain Development bringing together universities from across the Greater Himalayan region, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and China. The curriculum for this programme is being developed.
• With support from the UNICEF, the TISS is developing a State Resource Network on Micro-Planning to support and institutionalise peoples’ planning across Maharashtra through building capacities of communities and the state in micro-planning.
• The TISS has been engaged in working with the GoM to design an Outcome Budget covering 12 key government departments. The Outcome Budget initiative is an attempt to link public expenditure to definitive positive outcomes rather than mere outputs so as to establish the relationship between financial allocation, the actual expenditures, and the eventual outcomes of that expenditure.
• The TISS has established collaboration – for joint research, exchange of faculty and students, and publication – with 25 world class universities and institutions in the United States, Europe, Asia (Hindukush Himalayan Region Universities Consortium), Africa (Witts University, South Africa), and Latin America (University of Campinas, Brazil).
• The TISS is supporting Kabul University by participating in its Master of Public Administration programme.
• The three-year post-tsunami engagement in capacity building of local and indigenous tribal communities in sustainable development has graduated to establishing Community Resource Centre in the remote Nicobar Islands. This work will be carried out in partnership with the Andaman & Nicobar administration, which is in the process of setting up systems and structures for Rural Knowledge Centres.
• TISS is the Principal Recipient of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in a country-wide project for capacity-building of higher institutions of learning in HIV/AIDS Counselling. Along with the SNDT Women’s University (Mumbai), Lucknow University (Lucknow), Bangalore University (Bengaluru), Jamia Milia University (New Delhi), and the Regional Institute for Medical Sciences (Manipur), TISS will be conducting master training programmes and helping to build infrastructure to develop the capacities of 40 academic institutions all over the country, which, in turn, will provide supportive supervision and training to 12,000 counsellors working in the national HIV/AIDS counselling programme. TISS also continues to be involved in critical research in diverse areas such as education and literacy, family and children, women’s issues, HIV/AIDS, rural and urban development issues, displacement, youth and human development, and the rights of Dalits, indigenous peoples, minorities and other marginalised groups.

In recognition of these and other achievements, TISS was awarded a 5-Star rating by NAAC in 2002 and an A grade by NAAC in November 2009, indicating a 'High Level' of academic accomplishment.