Articles by Priyanka Thirumurthy

Fifty-five-year-old Gnana Bharathi, a scientist at the Central Leather Research Institute and a wheelchair user for over two decades, rarely takes the bus anymore. Chennai’s bus stops and termini, he says, are designed in a way that makes independent travel “nearly impossible”— from reaching the stop safely, to getting onto the platform and finally boarding the bus — without physical risk. So, when the Greater Chennai Corporation declared the Vivekananda House Bus Stop on Kamarajar Salai as an accessible, ‘model bus stop’, he decided to try it.“When I arrived at the location in my wheelchair, I couldn’t even access the…

Thirty-year-old Yallamma Shankar migrated to Bengaluru from Koppal district in northern Karnataka 14 years ago. She settled in Sumannahalli, in the western part of the city, and took up free-roaming waste work to make ends meet. Initially, she was glad to work outdoors in a city known for its good weather. Every day, she left her home at 5 am and worked till 2 pm, walking up to 10 kilometres a day to collect waste. “But in the last decade, summers have become unbearable. I feel giddy, dehydrated, and often lose three days of work each month because I fall…

Two summers ago, even with the fans on, sweat would trickle down Rupali Devi’s face and body relentlessly.  Now, she can sit home and eat a meal in peace, without having to wipe sweat off every few minutes. Rupali, 23, lives in a 128 sq ft house at Nargis Dutt Nagar slum in Mumbai’s Bandra West with her parents and five siblings. With an asbestos sheet for a roof in a congested neighbourhood, summers felt hotter than they actually were. According to a study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), between the decades of 2001-10 and 2014-23, Mumbai’s…