Inclusive Governance, Gender and Local Self Governance
The Centre is involved in conceptualising and conducting Micro- Level Planning (MLP) in different Blocks of the Leh Distirct as a part of the Guyrja Project. A draft of the Planning Report evolved through the MLP process at the Block level was submitted to the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), after it got integrated at different tiers- hamlets, village and at Halqa Panchayats through a series of presentations, seminars, and review workshops. This process ensured, for the first time in Ladakh, a manifestation of the people’s needs and demands evolved through the bottom- up planning getting reflected in the district plan. The Centre has also brought out Reports on People Centred Initiatives in Leh and is in the process of bringing out a research report on Gender and decentralised governance. The Project Director for the MLP Leh initiative is Dr. B. Manjula. She is involved in bringing out the Expert Committee Report on Decentralised Planning for the Sixth Schedule Areas, which are not covered by Part IX and IX- A of the Constitution, appointed by Government of India. She is also involved in the process of finalising the programme guidelines for BRGF to Ministry of Panchayati Raj in the identified districts in India. It is designed to redress regional imbalances in development. The fund would provide financial resources for supplementing and converging existing developmental inflows into identified districts to strengthen participatory planning and to provide professional support to local bodies for planning, implementation and monitoring.

diverCities
diverCities: A Global Collaboration Space for Intercultural Dialogue is a collaborative UNESCO funded research project involving three cities and three institutions: Sydney (University of Western Sydney and the University of Sydney), Singapore (National University of Singapore) and Mumbai (CMCS, Tata Institute of Social Sciences). The three cities reflect three divergent corners of the broad diversity of the Asian region, and that there is value in bringing cities together which are not usually thought about as linked or interconnected. Each in their own way, these three cities are pre-eminent sites where diverse populations mix and have complex histories and local realities of intercommunal conflict and/or accommodation and cooperation.
diverCities is dedicated to the development of a web-based application that will function as an interactive repository for stories and resources on cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue in strategically selected world cities. It will be a site where the evolving cultural dynamics of cities around the world can be captured and shared through the input of narratives that tell stories about the experience of living together in diversity in the participating cities: the 'hybrid' identities of their citizens and inhabitants, the different groups and communities they have formed, their memories and histories of living with diversity, relevant major events that have become key signposts in a city's historical record, people's personal and political responses (including policies) to the challenges of living together in diversity, and so on. diverCities will operate as an open respository for all these stories, and will enable users not only to add their own stories, but also enter into dialogue with other users by sharing and exchanging experiences both within and across the participating cities.

Gender and Space
Shilpa Phadke’s forthcoming book Women and Risk on Mumbai’s Streets, co-written with Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade will be published by Penguin, India. The book examines women’s access to public space in relation to questions of citizenship, civic safety and sexual safety, risk and respectability. The book builds a complex set of arguments linking women’s everyday engagements with public space to issues such as dress codes, the ban on bar dancers, the rape of a college girl, the violence against women on local trains, religious fundamentalism, the demolition of slums, the attempts to clear spaces of hawkers, the proliferations of malls, and most significant the larger context of 21st century globalizing Mumbai. This book is based on three years (September 2003 to September 2006) of research conducted in Mumbai as a part of Gender & Space project at PUKAR funded by the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD).

Mediascapes
Dr. B. Manjula, Dr. Anjali Monteiro and Dr. K.P. Jayasankar are currently working on an edited volume based on the Mediascapes seminar held in 2006. The volume aims to look critically at the constantly shifting media spaces of contemporary India. The opening up of global markets and the changing role of the State offer new sites of contestation and negotiation, for media industries and audiences. The media is playing an increasingly important role in defining agendas and shaping public discourse. The assumption of a global industrial character by the media has significant ramifications for socio-political, economic and cultural spaces at global and local levels. Parallel to this, we also have a vibrant grass roots democracy, with social and cultural initiatives at the local level contesting and redefining hegemonic power relations. This volume also tries to capture these contradictory media flows in a globalised information economy, where information is inextricably linked to power.