This book explores the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of Right to Water and analyzes its values in the context of water policy frameworks of the union governments in India. It uses a qualitative approach and combines critical hermeneutics with critical content analysis to introduce a new water policy framework. The volume maps the complex argumentative narrations which have emerged and evolved in the idea of Right to Water and traces the various contours and the nature of water policy texts in independent India. The book argues that the idea of Right to Water has emerged, evolved and is being argued through theoretical arguments and is shaped with the help of institutional arrangements developed at the international, regional, and national levels. Finally, the book underlines that India's national water policies drafted respectively in 1987, 2002 and 2012, are ideal but are not embracing the values and elements of Right to Water. The volume will be of critical importance to scholars and researchers of public policy, environment, especially water policy, law, and South Asian studies.

Deepti Acharya is a political scientist and a researcher. For the last 15 years, she has been associated with the department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India, as Senior Assistant Professor of Political Studies. As a faculty and a guide, she is allied with different faculties, institutions and departments, including All India Services Training Center, The M.S. University of Baroda (2010-14), Faculty of Law, Department of Architecture and Faculty of technology of the M. S. University of Baroda, Vadodara (2010-13) and Department of Political Science, Parul University of Vadodara, India.She has presented several papers in the international and national seminars and have dozens of research papers in her credit.