City: Delhi / NCR

The BJP-led Union Cabinet recently gave a nod to the Kejriwal government’s proposal to give ownership rights to those living in 1,797 unauthorised colonies in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. A bill to legislate the move is likely to be introduced in the current winter session of Parliament.  Elections for the Legislative Assembly of NCT Delhi are due in January 2020. Ever since the cabinet nod to the regularisation came about, BJP has been making extra effort to engage with these communities and portraying itself at the forefront of  the decision. When we contacted them for this report, its…

The much-hyped 24-km BRTS (Bus Rapid Transit System) corridor in the city, on which Rs 329 crore has already been spent to create the required infrastructure, is now likely to be dismantled, at a cost of 40% of the money already spent on it. The “corridor of trouble”, as it has come to be known among commuters, residents and commercial establishments on its route, has seen 121 accidents and 21 fatalities between 2016 and 2018, according to official figures. Not to mention the traffic chaos it is causing. Launched in 2013 by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, the corridor from Misrod…

Diwali 2019 could well be the quietest festival of lights Delhi has ever seen. For a city which used to reverberate to the sound and smoke of crackers for a week before and after Diwali, last year’s Supreme Court crackdown on bursting of crackers, its order that only “green crackers” be sold and used, and a tight police vigil on cracker sales, has forced Delhi’s citizens to be satisfied with letting off only flower pots (anars) and sparklers (phuljaris) this year available in only two colours . The so-called atom bombs of old are out, as the concern is not…

With assembly elections due next February, the Arvind Kejriwal government is on a spree doling out freebies to Delhi voters. The freebies range from free electricity, free water and free WiFi to free bus rides for women. They all come with a catch, though. For instance, electricity will be free only for those consuming a maximum of 200 units every month. For those consuming 201 to 400 units, the subsidy was revised to a maximum discount of Rs 800 on the bill. Similarly, with regard to water subsidy, the limit is 20 kilolitres per month, with the consumer having to…

The timber mafia in Jharkhand. Rampant mining in Jharkhand and Goa. Overdependence on borewells and low groundwater recharge in Andhra Pradesh -- Deforestation, unsustainable land use practices and the slow but steady expansion of urbanised, industrial areas have led to nearly 30 per cent of India’s total land area undergoing degradation. Thus concern over desertification, which is expected to affect 900 million people in 100 countries (mostly in the global south) and which threatens almost 41 per cent of the total land area on the Earth, is a real concern for every citizen in this country. The 14th Conference of…

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar None of us can escape being a pedestrian. No matter which mode of transport you use, at some point of the day, you will be a pedestrian if you step out of home. But the moment you alight from any mode of transport or vehicle, and get on your own two feet in this country, you are perhaps the most vulnerable citizen on the street. In 2018, more than half of the fatalities on Mumbai streets were pedestrians; the numbers for Delhi and Bengaluru also do not look encouraging with 44% and…

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar It is not news that urban Indian roads are a nightmare, and Bangalore is perhaps in the contention for winning the award for the worst traffic scenario. But one needs to dig deeper to find the root of the problem. Our streets are extremely unequal, in more ways than one. The streets of our city are perhaps the most democratic of spaces we can envision. Protests against governments, demands of minority groups, gay pride parades all find expression on the streets. It is the one space that every citizen can share with…

It literally took an international outcry to force the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to step in and try to find a solution to the rising mountain of waste that is East Delhi’s Ghazipur landfill. At a time when Swachh Bharat is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s focus and debates rage over climate change, the PMO has stepped in to seek help from experts to grapple with the challenge posed by the country’s tallest mountain of waste. On July 10th, it issued a 12-page Global Request for Proposal (RFP) for tackling this problem. An IIT Kanpur alumnus and  Principal Scientific Advisor to…

On June 18, 2019, the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) sent a team of personnel and machinery to reclaim a 5-acre plot along the Dadri-Surajpur-Chalera (DSC) road in Sector 48 (Map 1 below). The plot, a part of the Barola village agricultural land, was acquired for developing NOIDA in 1976. The Authority claims that most landowners took compensation for the loss of their land. Since the official master plan of the city (NOIDA Master Plan 2031) shows the plot as a ‘green belt’, the marble market that sprouted there in early 2000s, alongside some old and new pucca residences,…

ON JUNE 18th, Upper Vaitarna, one of the few lakes that provide water to Mumbai, hit zero. Appeals of saving water trickled across the city and the Brihanmumbai Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) assured citizens that it would dip into its safety stock in other lakes. When monsoon finally arrived, it came with the decade’s highest 24-hour rainfall. Mumbai was flooded; trains, buses and flight services disrupted; and 32 people dead.   But no one was surprised. “It happens every year. A couple of days ago we barely had any water and now the city is waterlogged,” Prashant Patil, a resident of…