City: Chennai

Madras week has not only been a celebration of heritage but also of the people who made the city. Over the years, many who called the city home have achieved remarkable feats in various fields to put Madras on the global map. One among  them is the mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan – The Man Who Knew Infinity. A walk through the Ramanujan Museum was organised this Madras Week by Rajith Nair a travel curator who regularly organizes heritage and cultural trips in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry. The walk was a celebration of the life and times of Ramanujan, who…

Did you know Crazy Mohan and Kamal Haasan met for the first time in a cemetery at St Mary's Road?  Can you even imagine that the Tamil Nadu capital had freezing temperatures during summer in 1815 due to weather changes that happened after Mount Tambora erupted in distant Indonesia? Only five localities in Chennai have a conducive environment for sparrows.  An establishment in Ebrahim Sahib street prints the cardboard tickets once used for travel and they are shutting down soon.  These are just the some of the facts around which questions were posed to participants in a quiz conducted recently…

Mahalakshmi street at T Nagar. Harrington Road in Chetpet. Station Border Road at Chrompet. The story is similar in all these localities. Once serene residential neighbourhoods, they now host a number of commercial and institutional establishments.  Let’s take the case of Mahalakshmi Street in T Nagar. A private bank is being operated from this primarily residential locality, which has no infrastructural support for commercial establishments. There is no designated parking space. Residents came to know about the bank only when it was being constructed.  It is not the conversion alone that is attracting eyeballs, but also the fact that residents,…

Private water tankers withdraw strike Tamil Nadu Private Water Tanker Lorry Owners Association has withdrawn its strike following assurances for licences to draw water and the release of seized lorries. The strike was announced over the seizure of water tankers by police, as many operated without licenses. The association members also alleged that many of the water tanker owners were booked under non-bailable sections of the IPC for not carrying a legal permit to draw groundwater and that they were harassed by the police. The association caters to a major chunk of Chennai's population who do not get Metro Water…

It will perhaps be a long time before Chennai can witness any spell of heavy rain without getting jitters over the nightmarish memory of December 2015. The 2015 floods that devastated the city exposed the state of urban planning in the city. The lack of resilience to natural disasters remains one of the greatest concerns of the people of one of India’s largest cities.  What should be noted is that certain parts of Chennai experienced greater flooding than others and this impacted rescue and relief efforts. Poor urban planning, coupled with an expanding population that requires more space, leads to…

It was in April 2018  that a bunch of enthusiasts banded together to make an increasingly chaotic Adyar, a more livable place. This led to a programme called 'Azhagiya Adyar' conducted last year at the KNRA Hall in collaboration with the Namma Ooru Foundation (NOF). The event was a big success and it encouraged the bunch to take the movement to higher levels.  It was around the same time that the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) announced plans to implement source segregation of waste, door-to-door collection and proper disposal by GCC of such segregated waste through composting, bio-methanation, recycling etc. We sensed…

Chennai holds the dubious record of topping road accident death charts in the state year after year. The figures released by the Transport and Road Safety Commissioner for January of this year shows that Chennai registered 689 accidents, the most among the 32 districts. It also led in terms of fatalities with 114 deaths, though there was a marginal decline in the death toll from the same time period last year. Various efforts have been undertaken by the state and citizens to address road safety. Late last year, the State Traffic Planning Cell worked with researchers from the Indian Institute…

Last week the consultants tasked with preparing the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the BRTS invited us to a meeting. A few of us from FOMRRA (Federation of OMR Resident Associations), representing citizens living and using OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road), went to the meeting. The show started with some short films on the "successfully implemented projects" in Pune, Amdavad, Hubli-Dharwad and others. As the consultation started more than an hour late, they breezed through a PowerPoint presentation. However, we, who follow the mass transit planning and development studies associated with OMR, found that most of the data presented was based…

Refer to my earlier post relating to the roads being resurfaced without proper milling: In continuation to what I had said in the above post, I would like to record the recent developments which could be of public interest. On the 15th of May 2019 I happened to pass through Kannabiran Koil Street ( North end of lane where Ayyappan Koil is located) and noticed some workers cleaning the surface of the road. I was wondering if the Roads were being swept clean by the Conservancy Sweepers Gang or if it was being prepared for resurfacing. Later in the evening…

September may finally see water crisis resolution With the Mettur dam fast filling up and discharge likely to increase in a few days, the Veeranam tank is expected to receive inflows in 10 days. Heavy rains in the adjoining states of Andhra and Karnataka have also brought respite to the water-starved city, creating a steady increase in the water levels at the reservoirs. Krishna water supply from the Kandaleru reservoir in Andhra Pradesh will help boost the storage in the city reservoirs. Chennai currently is managing with drinking water supply of 525 million litres on alternate days. The city is…