City: Chennai

A cycle and a loudspeaker accompany Ladoo as he makes his way around Chennai’s neighbourhoods, gathering old clothes. He turns off his loudspeaker around certain homes. "They don’t like the noise", he explains to me, as I stop him for a chat. Laddo has been in this business for twenty-five years now. "In all this time, people have not changed", he tells me philosophically. "Only my cycle and loudspeaker have". "They know me by my hat", he says. "You can ask anyone for the ‘bhai’ with a hat". I ask him why the name ‘Ladoo’? "I was a chubby child," he says,…

In the past few months, the Tamil Nadu Government has taken certain steps to create platforms for democratic participation in an urban setting. These include the formation of Area Sabhas and Ward Committees. They had been envisioned to function similar to Gram Sabhas, a constitutionally approved platform that exists in rural parts of our country, where people come together and deliberate on developmental issues. They also pass resolutions to achieve their developmental needs. Every village panchayat performs various functions as well as conducts social audits which are then approved by the Gram Sabha to ensure transparency and accountability. Area Sabhas…

If you have felt like Chennai's streets are turning increasingly cacophonous lately, the belief may not be unfounded. The city has been ranked the noisiest city among seven metros - Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Lucknow, Delhi, and Kolkata by the pollution watchdog, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) of India in their Annual Report 2020-21. Despite this, there is little attention paid to the problem of noise pollution in Chennai. "Noise pollution does not get the same attention as air pollution or water pollution," said Prabhakaran Veerarasu, an environmental engineer with the environmental collective Poovulagin Nanbargal. "This is because the impact…

COVID vaccine booster doses available at government hospitals The Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicines sent instructions to all deputy directors of health services to administer Covid vaccine booster doses to people in the 18-59 age group in all government centres on July 15. “Booster shots will be made available and mega camps will be held once every two weeks to complete vaccination in 75 days,” said health minister Ma Subramanian. This is on the heels of an announcement made by the Union Government on offering booster doses free of cost for those under 60. Source: The Times of India…

Many public services have moved towards contractualisation and casualisation of labour in the past few decades. The city has in recent years seen protests on this issue by workers of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and the Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB). Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), the Special Purpose Vehicle(SPV) created for the metro rail project, has also grappled with issues around the engagement of contract workers.  What has the recruitment model followed by CMRL been? How has contractualisation affected services, if at all? What are the long-term implications of such a move? Long wait for…

Two similar scenes were unfolding one after another in AGS Colony, Velachery West. A garbage collection worker was unloading unsegregated waste into a bin on the street. Ten metres away, Geetha Ganesh Karthik emptied segregated kitchen waste into her home composting set-up. But these two streams of waste will follow very different paths with different results. The former will end up in a dump yard while the latter will yield manure, enabling the growth of 200 plants. Geetha has been recycling her kitchen waste by composting it since 2016. If not for her terrace garden, she would be spending around…

“We don’t want to do this but it's not like we have a choice”, said Kannika* on having to use the playground near her home to relieve herself due to the lack of proper sanitation facilities in the vicinity in Doomingkuppam.  This is the reality for many who reside in the area despite having lived in the city for decades. The many rows of huts that dot the area opposite the scenic beach do not have proper toilets, forcing residents to defecate in the open. Doomingkuppam residents await toilets Doomingkuppam is home to many from the fishing community, with their…

Software engineer turned entrepreneur turned politician, Kiran Sharmilee has been elected councillor of Ward 107. Her foray into politics comes after a 4-year stint at HCL after which she set up a business along with her husband, who is also a politician. She got the opportunity to contest the local body polls held this year. Kiran Sharmilee hopes that her entry into politics, along with many more women who are part of the present council, will inspire other young leaders of the future. She feels that while earlier she had observed political developments from the sidelines, as a councillor she…

“In 2013, a woman called Geetha came to our studio. She thanked us profusely for making her life peaceful as her husband had stopped drinking because of the work of Anna Community Radio,” recalls Malliga Kaliappan, who has been an RJ at Anna FM for 22 years. "Geetha's husband had learnt about the ill-effects of alcohol consumption due to the anti-liquor awareness programmes we carried," added the RJ. Airing at 90.4 MHz, Anna FM is a social initiative taken up by the Educational and Multimedia Research Centre (EMRC) of Anna University since 2004. The community radio has touched the lives…

Drones on vigil in Marina after rising crimes To stem crime happening on the Marina in Chennai, drones are to fly across the beach from Light House to MGR Memorial for three hours in the mornings and evenings. Weekends will see the increased duration of surveillance due to more crowds frequenting the area.  Apart from this, the police will also employ facial recognition software (FRS) to inspect people sleeping on the beach. They have received intelligence that history-sheeters have been hiding on the beach and have committed robberies in the area. With three robbery cases in the last month on the beach,…