Articles by Rishabh Shrivastava

As we saw in Part 1 of this series, many apartments in Bengaluru have been rushing to install rooftop solar panels in view of expected policy changes. These systems have helped apartments steeply reduce their monthly power bills for common areas. Here's a guide on how you can get a rooftop solar system installed in your apartment too, based on information from the Bangalore Apartments' Federation (BAF), a collective of nearly 500 apartment associations in the city. Also see: A guide to installing solar power in your home What is a rooftop solar system? In this system, solar panels are…

This article is part of our special series Environmental Sustainability & Climate Change in Tier II cities supported by Climate Trends. Climate change is not a new phenomena for the Himalayan State of Uttarakhand. In fact, the Indian Himalayan Region, comprising all the mountain states/UTs of India, has been at the forefront of climate change. Increased human activities, like unplanned construction, rampant tourism, increased waste generation, unsustainable transportation and more are resulting in rapid deterioration of the Himalayan landscape. The ambitious 900 km Char Dham all-weather highway project is the new addition to this list.  The “Char Dham project is…

Vishnu Gattupalli is a happy Management Committee (MC) member of his apartment, Trifecta Starlight, located at Mahadevapura. Their newly commissioned 84 kWp solar power plant helps them save more than 80,000 rupees each month on common area electricity bills. “We are extremely happy to have the rooftop solar power plant that has no direct emissions”, says Vishnu. The committee was inspired by the success stories of solar installations in other apartments. Vishnu who is also Secretary, Whitefield Cluster of Bangalore Apartment Federation (BAF), says over 30 apartments in the city have adopted solar rooftop. Rooftop solar systems are now an…

As Rajarajeshwari Nagar assembly constituency goes into bypolls today, how well is the administration prepared to control the spread of COVID? The Election Commission of India (ECI) had released its guidelines for elections in all states including Karnataka, on August 21. Inputs from political parties were considered while preparing these. Further, the ECI had allowed States to come up with their own guidelines. And as per this, Karnataka government released its guidelines on October 16. As per these documents, following are the measures that would be taken on polling day: The polling booth should be completely sanitised, preferably a day…

Launched in 2015, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), has come a long way. The programme made sure that cleanliness and sanitation found a place in India’s governance landscape. The programme was aimed at transforming the behaviour of the masses on issues of sustainable waste management.  To further strengthen and evaluate the performance of the mission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India (GoI) kick started India’s first and largest cleanliness survey, Swachh Survekshan in 2016. Since, then the survey has evolved significantly, engaging citizens, administrative systems and civil society towards creating a robust waste management system. Swachh…

When Bengaluru schools started online classes in June, many opposed it citing the lack of laptop access for large sections of students, health concerns etc. Soon after, the state government banned online classes for primary school children altogether. Shukla Bose, Founder and CEO of the non-profit Parikrma Humanity Foundation, however opposed the government ban on classes, even though her own students come from deprived backgrounds. Parikrma Foundation's schools cater to over 1800 students from slums across Bengaluru, with the aim of providing quality education and helping the children break out of poverty. At the time the government banned online classes,…

Having spent the first two months of the pandemic and nationwide lockdown in politicking, to first grab and then stay in power, the Shivraj Singh Chauhan-led BJP government has now launched a 15-day state-wide “Kill Corona” programme from July 1st. The programme includes door to door surveys in urban slums and low-income households having high population density and poor municipal management as a majority of positive cases in both cities have been reported from these areas. As per data from the government's smart city portal, Indore has the second highest slum population (30%) in the state, followed by Jabalpur (46%)…

It took just 13 days for Aarogya Setu -- the contact tracing app developed by India to combat the COVID-19 pandemic -- to amass 50 million users. The app currently stands with more than 9 crore downloads.  Designed by National Informatics Centre (NIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), the app was formally launched by PM Narendra Modi on April 2nd. It is available in 12 languages and can be downloaded by iOS and Android users. With 4.5 stars rating on Google play, the current version of the app is 1.1.1. According to reports, the app has alerted 1.4…

As coronavirus positive cases near the 6000 mark countrywide, with certain cities and districts reporting high numbers, an immediate end to the nationwide lockdown on April 15 is very unlikely. Instead, states are looking at containment strategies to keep under total lockdown areas which are seeing a big spurt in positive cases, while relaxing some curbs in districts which have reported very few or no positive cases.  The basic guidelines for such a containment strategy were listed in an official “Containment Plan for Large Outbreak” formulated and released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on March 6th…

As the coronavirus outbreak shows no signs of abating any time soon, the economy of every nation, first world and third world, is in virtual free fall. For India too, COVID-19 is not only a public health challenge, but also an economic challenge that needs to be tackled on a war footing by the Central and state governments. Restricted cargo movement, weak supply chains, lack of liquidity in the markets, heavy cross-border movement by migrant workers and many other factors have added to the pressure on the economy. With relief packages aimed at the middle class and the poor being…