They paved paradise and put up a parking lot/ With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot. These words of the Joni Mitchell classic Big Yellow Taxi filled a corner of Pushpa Narsee Park in Juhu on a bright Sunday morning in March. Though the song was released in 1970, the words resonate in 2026, especially for this park. There have been several attempts to convert Pushpa Narsee Park into a parking lot, only foiled by the vigilance of the locals, says Anca Florescu Abraham, co-founder of Love Your Parks Mumbai (LYPMumbai). This initiative advocates for the…

The Straight-cut Flood Escape Channel project at Uthandi in the southern part of Chennai along East Coast Road was conceived by the Water Resources Department (WRD) as a flood mitigation measure, with a budget of ₹91 crores. The plan proposes a cut-and-cover drain through the VGP Layout in Uthandi, to connect the Buckingham Canal to the Bay of Bengal. The drain is supposedly meant to divert excess floodwater in Buckingham Canal during heavy rains, when areas around the Pallikaranai marsh and Okkiyam Madavu face flooding.  Work on the project started immediately after its inauguration in August 2025. However, residents of…