City: Mumbai

Ever since COVID-19 took over our lives, we have all been looking for ways by which we can save ourselves from getting the virus. Face masks and shields, hand hygiene – washing and sanitising, social distancing – avoiding people and staying home. A COVID-19 Viewpoint report by the University of Minnesota (30th April 2020) says, "we must be prepared for at least another 18 to 24 months of significant COVID-19 activity, with hot spots popping up periodically in diverse geographic areas. The report also says that given the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2, 60% to 70% of the population may need to be immune to…

Sultana Shaikh Akbar, 42, was the first to be informed when an elderly woman in her neighbourhood of Agarwal Wadi in Wadala, developed a fever. Sultana coordinated with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to get the patient admitted to a hospital. But soon after, another woman started complaining of breathlessness.   Sultana has had no time to waste the past couple of months. She has juggled caring for and hospitalising patients suspected of having the virus. In addition, she manages door-to-door ration distribution in her neighbourhood. “A lot had to be done,” she says, “some of us had ration cards and…

Both the Western and Eastern coastlines of Mumbai are in for a sea change. While a Rs 14,000 crore Coastal Road Project is being implemented on the Western coastline, different groups are proposing vastly varied ideas for the 21-km Eastern side that stretches from the Bombay Dockyard to Wadala. What Mumbai Port Trust wants to do The Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT), which oversees the planning for the Eastern Waterfront project has decided to commercially develop 25.63% of land, another 23.26% will be used for ecotourism and 10.76 % to rehouse local slum-dwellers. By ecotourism they mean cruises, a marina, promenades,…

"Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it." - Oprah Winfrey I was desperately trying to lose weight, but I wasn’t doing enough. While we all know that nothing is easy in life, I hadn’t applied it to my desire to get fit again.  About a year ago, I was introduced to running by a friend who is a part of the local Pinkathon group. I wasn't much of an athlete in my younger days, so formal running was new to me. The free training sessions were held just once…

Tulip Brian Miranda, a Corporator of Mumbai’s H-East ward's Kalina area, has been running a community kitchen since the enforcement of the lockdown. Every day, she distributes 1,000 food packets to needy families. But when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Maharashtra government decided to initiate food distribution, Miranda wasn’t consulted about the diversity of her ward. “I was simply asked to inform them what my requirements were,” says Miranda, a member of Indian National Congress party.   As the local area representatives, Corporators are imagined to be a citizen’s first point of redressal over an inaccessible MLA or…

During the day, they look like black plastic garbage bags blown onto trees by a strong gust of wind. As darkness falls, their arms unfold and they take off, flying between the multi-storied buildings in our Lokhandwala Township in Kandivali East. As you might have gathered, I've spent quite a few hours over the last few years watching bats, amazed at how similar they are to vampires in movies. Or maybe it's the other way round, vampires in movies are inspired by the wide black wings of bats. Hundreds of bats hanging like plastic bags. Photo: Arathi Manay Since the…

In India, a road accident happens every minute. Yes, you read that right, every single minute. Road accidents and India aren’t strangers. In fact, they are better acquainted than they should be. Sometime mid-July in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand six people were killed in two separate road accidents. Around the same time seven people died in five separate accidents in Gujarat. In Nashik, Maharashtra, five people were killed in two separate accidents in June. These are just a few instances from recent weeks of the thousands of road accidents that occur in India every year. Of course, since lockdown was enforced across…

Fountain Heights is a 187-flat apartment block, located in Lokhandwala Township, Kandivali East, in the Western Suburbs of North Mumbai. Like most residential complexes in our neighbourhood, we were totally dependent on municipal water to meet our daily requirement of approximately 140 kilo litres. The society has two borewells that were provided by the builder, but they provided no water during the summer and very little during the monsoon. With no alternative to municipal supply, buying water through water tankers was the only option left with us during times of water cuts. The costs were often exorbitant, given the high…

Mumbai, they say, is the city that never sleeps. A good reason for that are the local train lines that connect distant places within the city and certain neighbouring districts as well. From 30 July, entry to the Mumbai suburban rail network will be regulated by a QR-based Electronic-pass system.Local trains were shut for 84-days until 15 June, owing to the lockdown to curtail the spread of COVID-19. After which, they began to function in some measure. Currently, the Central Railways and Western Railways of the Mumbai suburban rail network operate only 350 services each daily. These were allowed to…

An interview with Kiran Dighavkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of G-North Ward. He received acclaim from the WHO which cited Dharavi as an example in how to manage the fight against the virus. By the end of March, three positive COVID-19 cases were reported in a two day period in Dharavi, one of the largest slum clusters in Mumbai. Soon after, on April 1, the first death from the virus was reported when a 56-year-old resident of Baliga Nagar in Dharavi died. The person had no travel  history. Within eight days of the first death, as the city reported 320 positive…