City: Delhi / NCR

To explore any workable solution to the problem of air quality in Delhi, one needs to first understand Delhiites themselves. Delhiites have two unique behaviour patterns. One, all laws, rules and regulations apply only to others, not to themselves. A Delhiite caught breaking a rule would call the relative of a relative of a relative to bail him out rather than obey the rule. The second is whatever goes wrong, like the very poor air quality that the capital is facing right now, is always someone else’s fault. Never their own. No way will they not take out their personal…

Six months after Minister for Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) Nitin Gadkari introduced the much awaited vehicle scrappage scheme in the Lok Sabha, the Delhi government on September 27th announced its new policy to scrap all 15-year-old diesel vehicles in Delhi and the NCR. “Diesel vehicles older than 15 years will be impounded and sent to the scrapping yard if they are found plying on city roads or parked in public places,” said Delhi Transport Commissioner Ashish Kundra. The scrappage policy announced by Gadkari is a government-funded programme to get old vehicles off the roads. This is expected to reduce pollution,…

It is that time of the year in when winter smog sets in and air pollution spikes in Delhi. Delayed withdrawal of rains and consequent deferment of stubble burning this year had made October one of the cleanest in the last few years. But the onset of winter conditions – cool and calm wind, temperature inversion, rapidly increasing farm fires and overall trapping of regional pollution – has created conditions that may trigger the season’s first smog episode soon.   The SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research) programme of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology had already predicted…

It is not every day that the citizens of Gurgaon leave work on a Tuesday morning to congregate at the approximately 45 m-high Bandhwari landfill, shared by Gurgaon and Faridabad, where over 2000 tons of mixed waste is dumped every day. On the morning of August 31st, however, rain could not deter close to 200 residents of villages from Mangar, Bandhwari, Gwal Pahari and the city of Gurgaon, who gathered there to attend a public hearing called by the Haryana Pollution Control Board (HSPCB). The hearing sought citizen’s thoughts on the proposed expansion of the Waste to Energy Plant (WtE)…

As a former capital of many important kingdoms and sub-continental empires, Delhi is a city of outstanding historical significance. The sites that mark important dates and periods of its past are scattered around the city and its hinterland, and widely visited and studied. The architectural breadth of monuments at these sites, and the town planning concepts evident in places around them, have also received a lot of attention. But there is another, less known, side. Diverse historical, cultural, and environmental exigencies, over hundreds of years, have given the city a unique syncretism of cultures. As each dynasty and ruling establishment…

Susheela Kumari was a quiet, average class 5 student studying in a school run by one of Delhi’s three municipal corporations. Now, authorities in two schools are looking for her. Susheela has not violated any law. And she is not the only student for whom there is such a close — almost police-like — hunt! This scenario playing out in the national capital could be described as bizarre — teachers in both municipal corporations schools and schools run by Delhi government are in a race to locate students like Susheela who have passed the 5th class. The reason given is that these…

City authorities tell us that over 50% of Delhi’s urban area is regarded as “open” and more than 20% is “green”. Yet, those keeping a keen eye on the city and its development say “we are far from providing universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces”. This is one of the many issues of concern in India’s capital that is sometimes boasted of as being world class — thanks to iconic British era structures, Mogul monuments and the Delhi  Metro — and yet very difficult for the average Delhiite to be comfortable in. Will that change? More importantly,…

For opaqueness and unsolved mysteries, no other government project comes close to the Central Vista Redevelopment Project (CV) currently underway. The strong push, particularly from the prime minister, for timely completion of the new parliament building before his second term expires, is resulting in brazen violation of building laws as mentioned in the Delhi Master Plan (MPD). The over Rs 20,000 crore project will witness the construction of a triangular-shaped new parliament, new residences for the prime minister and vice-president, a new central secretariat building and demolition of existing buildings along Rajpath. These include some which are just 10 years…

These are no ordinary trees. These are the birds, the butterflies and the bees. These are where our kids sat immersed with books, stories and workshops in the annual children’s book festival. A fellow mom asks me, Where will kids have beautiful story sessions now? True, it wasn’t just the books but the magic of being in the lawns of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) each spring season, frolicking and giggling under these angel guardians. And yet, 1,838 of these trees in and around the IGNCA campus, and the road in front of National Archives, are…

Cities, past and present, have been often created in the image of its rulers. Indian cities, in particular, have been witness to the rise and fall of dynasties and empires, reflected in their ever shifting character. However, amongst all its grand constructions for the people, there exists within the urban fabric a continuous patchwork of creations by the people.  While the concept of a planned city traces its roots to ancient civilisations like the Indus Valley, Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations, the scale of modern cities is unprecedented. Burgeoning populations and rising densities created the need for a visionary document to…