City: Delhi / NCR

The spate of horrific news from schools across the country does not seem to subside. The most recent incident, of course, is the mysterious death of a Class 9 student in the school toilet in northeast Delhi's Karawal Nagar. It is suspected that the teen died of internal injuries resulting from assault by a group of friends. Earlier this year in Lucknow, Hrithik Sharma, a Class 1 student, was stabbed on the back, chest and left eye by a girl in Class 7, in anticipation of a holiday that the school would inevitably declare in the wake of such a…

“Urbanisation is our opportunity and priority,” said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his speech in Parliament, as he presented the Union Budget 2018, presumably the current government’s last big one before the nation goes for elections in 2019. Cities, per se, however did not see too much exclusive focus except in a few allusions to big-ticket schemes introduced by the current dispensation and a couple of city-specific allocations. Here is a quick round-up of what Budget 2018 had to say about the plans for India's urban future: Air pollution in Delhi and NCR Concern for the alarming levels of pollution…

The alarming air quality in the National Capital region (NCR), comprised of Delhi and adjoining areas, has found fresh mention in the Economic Survey 2017-18 tabled in Parliament on January 29th. It is well known by now that the average annual levels of PM2.5 – one of the most critical contaminants in the air we breathe – remain at above three times the prescribed level in this region. The Survey reiterates the four main reasons for Delhi’s worsening air quality – crop residue and biomass burning; vehicular emissions and re-destributed road dust; construction, industries, and power plants; winter temperature inversion,…

Media focus on the fire that broke out and killed four in Mumbai’s residential Mamoon Manzil complex has been less compared to that on the fire tragedy in the same city in the end of December. The cause of the fire in this building is yet to be ascertained but no one would be surprised if it was pinned down to faulty management and violation of rules. Barely a week ago, the Kamala Mills tragedy got the Bruhan Mumbai Corporation (BMC) on its toes, throwing them into panic-stricken knee-jerk reaction: suspending five officials, galvanising authorities, managers, health and medical experts…

If you were to ask any commuter in any Indian city about their daily pet peeve, it would be the time spent in traffic. And now, Ola, the new age mobility platform serving 110 cities with 8 lakh vehicles on the roads has presented a year-end glimpse of 'how India commuted' based on their records. Some highlights from the top seven cities - Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, and Chennai: Total average traffic speed dropped by a whopping 2.9km/hr with Bangalore registering the slowest at 17.2km/hour Ola Share has saved 4 times the fuel from last year, telling of the high customer adoption…

Once again it’s that time of the year when we are most prone to looking back and ahead at the same time. Taking stock of the year’s discourse on urbanisation in India, it is evident that some issues have consistently dominated the narrative and been on top of the minds of urban citizens in 2017. These are also issues that we need to sustain focus upon as we move into the new year, since they will continue to play an important role in determining the dynamics and direction of development in the country, and in particular in its cities. As…

It has been a year of discontent in the medical sector with patients losing patience, doctors threatening to go on strike and governments resorting to thrust-and-parry. At different points in time throughout the year, governments in different parts of the country were seen to lock horns with the medical system, beginning with Kolkata in June, going on to Bengaluru in November and most recently in Delhi this month. Delhi The latest flashpoint emerged in the capital city, the trigger being an incident at the Max Hospital at Shalimar Bagh, where a couple of doctors falsely declared the death of a…

It has been just over a week since Mumbai was lashed by the highest 24-hour December rain in a decade due to cyclone Ockhi. Temperatures dropped sharply, schools were shut, and companies issued advisories to employees. But when such a disaster strikes the city, the most vulnerable are invariably its homeless. Brijesh Arya, an activist working with the homeless in Mumbai, mentions many cases from Mumbai’s monsoon floods this year. One is the case of Anju Kharwa, who held her child on her shoulders for as long as the floods raged. The flood that lasted nearly two days had caused…

Rarely ever would runners anywhere have looked forward to rain as fervently as in the Indian capital over the second week of November. In fact, runners across the country preparing to run the popular Airtel Delhi Half Marathon at the end of the week knew that it was only rain that could save the marquee event that many consider among their most favourite races in the country. In the end the rain gods did oblige, so that on November 19th, thousands of runners participated in the half marathon on what was perhaps the least polluted day in the city in…

"So have you heard this one?" said my brother. "The Stephanians put a board outside the college, saying 'Dogs and Hinduites not allowed.'" "And you know how the Hinduites responded?" he asked with a mischievous smile. "Dogs are allowed, but not Stephenians!" Back when we were students, stories like these went far and wide, carried by nothing more than word of mouth—we didn't need Facebook or Google to know about the rather ridiculous rivalry between St. Stephen's College and Hindu College. For the uninitiated, Hindu College and St. Stephen's College are a part of Delhi University's North Campus, and stand…