Bridging the gap between people and policies:

Public policy is rarely ever 'truly' public. It remains within the domain of powerful elites. NCAS tries to bridge the wide gap between people and policies by conducting in-depth analysis of policies and disseminating this widely through its extensive network.

Learning from advocacy campaigns:

As NCAS believes that the theory and practice of advocacy should come from actual experiences, it has made detailed documentation of more than 60 campaigns so far, covering a spectrum of issues of human rights, women's rights and consumer rights. NCAS has brought fragmented experiences together, leading to broader understanding and wider support for isolated campaigns. The regularly updated and published records of these campaigns also make up a very distinctive information base. Process documentation of advocacy campaigns is part of the NCAS learning experience. Currently NCAS is engaged in documentation of five ongoing campaigns relating to Right to Water, Food, Land(anti-SEZ), Safe Environment and Livelihood (against Sponge Iron plants) and the Implementation of Forests Rights Act.

Providing Facts and Figures:

Information is the life line of advocacy. NCAS meets the critical information needs of social change groups through the publication of Info Pack, collations of information and analysis on specific policy issues like land acquisition, patterns of voting and election manifestos. Advocacy Internet brings the huge information benefit of the internet to the grassroots level, across the world.

Studying systems of governance:

NCAS has published studies on issues covering working of parliamentary committees, the police commission report, access to justice and informal justice system institutions, and under the Globalisation project on agricultural policy, the agrarian crisis, ecotourism and its impacts on the tribals. There are another 20 publications forthcoming under the project. NCAS has also done pioneering work in budget analysis. (See NCAS Publications.)

For more information: Contact
 

Sandeep Kumar Patnaik:
Sandeep is a Programme Officer and has been working with NCAS since 2000. Sandeep was with the capacity building unit before joining the research unit where he worked on the research project ‘Globalisation, Governance and Grassroots.’ Sandeep has participated in the 2007 Human Rights Advocacy Programme (HRAP) at Columbia University’s Center for the study of Human Rights (CSHR) in New York from August to December 2007.

Shirish N. Kavadi:
Shirish joined as Coordinator of the Research Unit at NCAS in June 2008. He was associated with NCAS as Research Consultant since 2002. He has degrees in History and Political Science from the University of Bombay. His career, since 1980, has straddled both academia and the non-government sector. Shirish has over the years authored/edited several research reports and evaluation studies on health care, child labour, non-formal education, livelihood issues and access to justice for international development organisations and government agencies some of which have been published. His academic research interests cover health policy, politics of health and social history of medicine on which he has presented papers in national seminars and international conferences. His articles have been published in the Economic and Political Weekly, and he has contributed chapters to edited books. Shirish has been a recipient of research grants from the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Mumbai, the Rockefeller Archive Center, New York and the Wellcome Trust, London.

Amit Narkar:
A post-graduate in Economics, Amit has been associated with the left and progressive movement in Maharashtra. He has been active in the students’ movement, literacy and science popularization movements and with groups working for universalisation of elementary education and environment protection. He has taught Economics to social work and management students. He occasionally writes for newspapers and magazines on issues of social concern. He has experience in audio-visual material generation. He joined NCAS in November 2009 and works as Programme Officer in the Research Unit.