A two-day conference on ‘Beyond New Urbanism? Environment, Sustainability and the Small Towns in India’ was organised as a collaborative event between Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology (NIT) Meghalaya and National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru. The conference was held during December 12-13, 2025, at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Meghalaya campus in Cherrapunjee-Sohra. Over two days 45 academic papers were presented.

Background

NLSIU’s engagement with the Government of Meghalaya increased after the initiation of P. A. Sangma Fellowship that supports the governance in the state. The Fellowship was instituted in 2021 and so far 30 fellows are appointed in different government departments of Meghalaya.

About the Conference

For the conference, the faculty of the Master’s Programme in Public Policy at NLSIU facilitated two panel discussions:

The first panel discussion was on the question of sanitation in small towns. The panelists included Milind Mhaske of Praja Foundation, Rituparna Nath of Janaagraha and Aseem Acharya of Foundation for Inclusive and Sustainable Habitats. The panel was moderated by Tikender Panwar, former Deputy Mayor of Shimla. This panel deliberated;

• the technical capacity questions of solid waste management in small towns,
• questions of legacy waste,
• people’s participation in the processes of waste management,
• the state of affairs of city finance for waste management, and
• the role of bureaucrats and politicians in vision building for sanitation

The second panel aimed to show case the works of P. A. Sangma Fellows towards the environmental governance in Meghalaya. Five fellows were the panelists. They were: Bethelda Shadap, Chingreela A. Sangma, Dapbiang Warjri, Darikiman Syiemlieh and Marlehiki Langstang. This panel was moderated by Professor Sony Pellissery of NLSIU. The panel explored:

• how fellowship contributed to deepen the Public Service Act of Meghalaya,
• fieldwork based work of fellows towards accountability in benefit sharing of natural resources of water and land,
• interventions of fellows towards bringing equity and efficiency measures in tourism related legislations and programmes, and
• strengthening of community institution works through engagement between communities and government

Two doctoral students oat NLSIU, Meghashree Dev and Shefali Jain also presented their papers during this conference.