City: Mumbai

"I stay near Kapurbawdi, but travel to Kalyan, Bhiwandi or even Badlapur or Karjat for work", says Anil, a construction worker from Gulbarga, Karnataka. He's been a painter for the last 22 years. Anil is among hundreds of construction workers who gather at 7 am every morning at the labour naka (a stand or intersection of roads) at Kapurbawdi junction in Thane seeking work. The unskilled and semiskilled workers include masons, painters, plumbers, carpenters, tile polishers and loaders, among others. Mostly temporary or seasonal migrants from Maharashtra and surrounding states, they're informal workers who receive wages in exchange for short…

Durga has been setting up an all-night tea stall for the last seven to eight years. It was going good until COVID-19 disrupted everything in 2020 and 2021. On any usual night, she stands close to a 24x7 medical shop, piggybacking on its bright florescent light, with a large tea dispenser kept on a plastic stool, and tries to pull in new customers who are either passing by on foot or on their two-wheelers. Her husband, Sachin, helps her handle customers during the peak hours—12 am to 2 am. "Sir, chai, cigarette," she repeats in the hope of attracting customers.…

The lion safari in Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) was always a major attraction since its inception in 1975. However, it was discontinued earlier this year due to old, ailing animals. Now, things are about to change. With the arrival of two lions from Gujarat, through an exchange programme, the safari is all set to reopen. After the death of 17-year-old Ravindra on October 17th and of 12-year-old Jespa recently due to old age ailments, there were no lions left at SGNP. Jespa breathed his last on 27th November 2022 within two days after the arrival of the new pair…

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) is over, marking another close to global discourse on climate emergency. Amidst proclamations made on a global and national scale, Mumbai became the first Indian city to receive an 'A' on the CDP's 5th Annual Cities Report, which rates cities on the basis of their environmental action and transparency. To know and understand the details of this, Citizen Matters spoke to Saurabh Punamiya Jain, the former research and policy secretary to the former Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Aaditya Thackeray. He played an important part in drafting the Mumbai Climate Action Plan…

Police vehicles purchased for women being used as escort vehicles for Shinde govt MLAs Since July, vehicles purchased by the Mumbai Police under the Nirbhaya fund to combat crimes against women have been used as escort vehicles for MPs and MLAs of the ruling Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction. The fund is a corpus set by the Centre in 2013 for state governments to ensure women's safety in the aftermath of 2012 Delhi gangrape. In June, Mumbai police spent Rs 30 crore under the Nirbhaya fund and purchased 220 Boleros, 35 Ertigas, 313 Pulsar bikes and 200 Activas. Source: The…

Weeks before her daughter was born, a heavily pregnant Chandni Bibi boarded a train to Murshidabad in West Bengal, from where she had another hour’s journey to her native village. Had she decided to deliver her baby in Mumbai, she would have to navigate the waist-high tidal waters that flooded the area around her home twice every day. A single room built of wood and sheets of scrap metal in a slum, her home stands on uneven wooden and bamboo poles driven into the soft soil where land meets the sea.  Among an estimated 6,000 homes built on the coastal…

A mangrove is a shrub that grows along coasts and has roots that are usually found underwater. Mangroves store ‘more carbon per unit area than any other ecosystem on Earth’, and aid in the fight against coral bleaching. They act as natural barriers against storms and rising seas, saving ‘more than $65 billion worth of property damage each year’, according to conservation.org. They thrive in subtropical nations since they are adaptive, and are the best option for mitigating the effects of climate change, be it sea-level rise or the frequency of natural disasters such as cyclones and storm surges. However,…

For a conference sponsored by Coca-cola, it is not surprising that representatives of the most-polluting fossil fuel industries at the COP27 increased by 25% from last year, overshadowing the number of representatives from any global south nation. Moreover, COP27, which concluded recently, failed to highlight the irreversible damage caused by fossil fuels. The brief mention of fossil fuels was related to phasing out “inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies and not all fossil fuel subsidies. The pollutant’s very name was explicitly avoided in the final key decisions draft, despite India pushing for a Fossil Fuel phase-down. The slippery language used for the…

On December 1st, Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital became the first civic facility in the city to get approval for a 24x7 cardiac catheterisation lab. The approval comes a month after the announcement was first made in November. A cardiac cath lab functions as a centre for doctors to perform minimally invasive tests and procedures to diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease. It is the alarming rise in deaths due to heart attacks in 2021 that prompted Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) health officials to start a pilot 24x7 cath lab at KEM. Last year, Mumbai recorded a total of 17,880…

Worrying AQI levels call for an action plan Mumbai's average air quality index (AQI) has consistently been in the "Poor" and "Very Poor" levels this week. The stagnant winds, low temperature and high moisture accumulate and keep pollutants in the air longer. In response, the 24 wards have been asked to take remedial measures advised by Airavat Enviro Engineers and Consultants. The consultancy has suggested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) take the following steps: clean dust and sprinkle water on roads; introduce a ban on open garbage dumping and burning; monitor construction sites, heavy potholed roads and industrial areas; direct…