Course Structure

Each 16 week course will be structured around 12 modules that will be taught in a class where the teacher will introduce a topic, select students who will make presentations on the topic, followed by open discussions. Students are expected to read about 50 pages for each module and make a specified number of presentations and act as discussants to presentations by others. Students will be evaluated on the basis of attendance, participation and presentation in the class, short analytical written tests, tutorials and term papers. The medium of instruction and evaluation will be English. A detailed course schedule that includes reading packages for each of the 12 modules in the courses will be provided by the course team. This will include compulsory and additional readings that will be available in the University library.

Course Description

Core Courses

1. Ecology, Ecosystems and Biodiversity

This course will familiarize students with basic ecological principles, an understanding of ecosystems and evolution, and key ecological paradigms. Debates on Biodiversity are currently linked to issues of ecosystem stability and ecological sustainability. The belief is that biological diversity enables ecosystem resilience and also helps restore ecological processes after an extreme-disturbance event. The second aspect of the biodiversity debate concerns the question of the importance of maintaining genetic pools for developing biological products and services. In particular, in areas such as pharmaceutical research and medical cures there is need to maintain a vast number of in situ and ex situ collections. This module should familiarize students with the broad debate on these two subjects.

2. Development and Ecological Thought: Historical Perspectives

This course is aimed at providing the historical context of ideas that link issues of the environment to that of development. In particular, it will explore the early critiques of ideas of progress, improvement and modernity from an environmental standpoint. Centrally the ideas of Peter Kropotkin, M.K. Gandhi, Patrick Geddes and Lewis Mumford would be discussed as comprising the early dissenters. For the 1960s and 1970s, the notion of ‘Sustainable Development’ will be explored, notably the concerns of the Club of Rome and the debates around ecological limits, population pressures and technology choices.

3. Political and Social Thought on Environment

In this course the political shaping of the environmental critique / challenge will be discussed. Writings on formulations such as Political Ecology, Liberation Ecology, Socio-Biology and Green development (to name a few) will be explored. To illustrate the many-sided aspects of this debate and to work towards an empirical context as well, critical readings on the development / environment tension in India will be analyzed. In addition, this course will explore:

i.         Discussions on the varied political, social and gendered conceptualizations of Nature.

ii.       Formulations such as the ‘cultural constructedness’, the ‘Production’ and the ‘Feminization’ of Nature.

iii.      Environmental Policy, Law and Governance.

4. Environmental Policy, Law and Governance

This course reviews environmental policies that are currently being debated. It explores the role of various stakeholders in shaping environmental governance. It analyses regulatory and policy instruments and explores how blends of the two are increasingly employed in major areas of environmental policy. The course will provide an introduction to policy, law and governance; and approaches to making policies in India. It will emphasize on rights-based approaches and the role of law in environment-development debates. It will also explore the importance of institutions in local governance as well as institutions at the provincial, national and international level.

5. Contemporary Environmental Challenges

This course will explore some of the most current concerns of the environment ranging from forests, biodiversity, water, wet-lands, conservation, wildlife, protected areas, land and pollution in particular to the bourgeoning debates on climate change. The course will attempt to familiarize students with a range of terms such as Carbon Trading, Green House Gas Emission, Carbon Credits, Carbon offsets and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It will also explore some of the frameworks within which global warming has been conceptualized, notably the understandings and publications advanced by the Centre for Science Policy (New Delhi), World Resources Institute (USA) and the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change.

6. Environmental and Ecological Economics

This course will be aimed at familiarizing students with the existing debate between Environmental economists and Ecological economists. Environmental economists focus on market solutions for environmental problems, mainly through crafting techniques for valuation. The Ecological economists, on the other hand, attempt to displace the centrality of the market in sorting out environmental issues. They tend to concentrate on ethical and non-market based solutions. This course will discuss the ideas of several contemporary thinkers such as William Nordhaus, Richard Norgaard and Juan Martinez Alier.

7. Environmental Impact Assessment

This course provides an introduction to the theory and methods of environmental and social impact assessment and environmental management systems. It will provide an introduction to impact assessment methodologies. It will focus on institutional arrangements and assessment strategies including estimation, amelioration and providing compensation for impacts. It will study specific environmental management systems and standards. It will provide an evaluation of selected impact assessment and environmental management programmes and scoping exercise for an impact assessment problem or an environmental management system.

8. Systems Analysis and Environmental Modelling

The course introduces environmental science and develops tools to model the natural world using mathematics. The emphasis is on understanding complex natural systems by using simplified models. Students will develop intuition for the relative importance of different factors and the scale of natural phenomena. They will use real datasets of environmental parameters, such as rainfall and temperature, to evaluate correlations and periodicities. They will practice statistical techniques to evaluate their own and others' models and analyses. The course will also provide an understanding of the use of models for environmental decision support under uncertainty.

9. Urban Development and Human Ecology

This will be a live case study, with each unit combining theory, readings and practice. The course will provide a perspective of urban history, geography and land use. It will provide an understanding of urban poverty, livelihoods and resource conflicts. It will look at contemporary approaches to housing and human settlements. It will focus on contemporary challenges such as urban services like transport, energy, water and sanitation in the context of institutional and financial appropriateness. It will highlight citizen's participation and accountability systems under local governance.

Elective Courses

Each student will choose a total of 8 credits from the cluster of courses on offer in any year.

A.            Natural Resource Management
                Biodiversity, Forests and Conservation
                Land Management and Water
                Energy Resources and Technology Management
                Pollution: Law, Institutions and Policies

B.            Politics, Poverty and Environment
                Poverty and Sustainable Livelihood Debates
                Environmental Governance and Institutions
                Displacement, Resettlement and Rehabilitation
                Disaster and Risk Management
                International Dimensions of Environment

C.            Environmental Management
                Corporate Responsibility and Business Ethics
                Business Practices and Sustainable Development
                GIS in Environmental Management
                Environmental Education and Communication

Research Course Work

Students will be exposed to a range of thinking on research methodology that extends from philosophy of social sciences, tools for research design, qualitative and quantitative methods and logical frameworks to participatory methods of research, project design and evaluation. Specific topics will include Understanding and Interpretation; Truth and Validation; Objectivity in Social Sciences; Fact and Value; Nature of Social Theory; Research Design - central question, hypothesis and thesis; Techniques of Data Collection and Analysis; Qualitative Data Analysis - case studies, ethnographic studies; Field research and challenges; Research Tools - sampling and survey; Data Analysis - descriptive, inferential and co-relational; Factor Analysis, Regression Models; Logical Framework; Participatory Methods - PRA, Planning, Social Audit, Monitoring and Evaluation, and Report Cards.

Seminars/Workshops

Seminars and Workshops will be run throughout the programme and will include credited workshops that provide an understanding of policy and the basics of organization and project management.

Summer Internship

The Internship will be scheduled during the summer between Semesters 2 and 3. This is meant as an opportunity to bridge theory and practice. Each student will be attached to an organization to work on a development problem.

Research Project

Each student will take up a research project at the end of Semester 2. The research project will lead to a dissertation which will be submitted during Semester 4.

The following experts contributed to the design of the MA Environment and Development:

Professor C.R. Babu, Dr Amita Bhaviskar, Professor Kanchan Chopra, Dr Rohan D'Souza, Dr Gitanjali N. Gill, Dr Sumi Krishna, Dr Ajit Menon, Professor Manoranjan Mohanty, Professor M.N. Murty, Dr Suhas Paranjape, Mr Rajesh Ramakrishnan, Professor Mahesh Rangarajan, Dr Krishna Achuta Rao, Professor N.H. Ravindranath, Professor Sudhakara Reddy, Dr Ghazala Shahabuddin, Dr Satyajit Singh, Dr Jaswant Sokhi and Professor V.K. Srivastava.