City: Mumbai

Aman moved to Mumbai the same year that I did. He had turned 9 that year, I was 22. I’d moved because I’d just got my first job- a fellowship at an NGO, where I was expected to teach less privileged kids. Aman had moved because his dad used to drive a rickshaw here and had saved up enough to bring his family to the city from a small village, somewhere in Uttar Pradesh. They lived in a chawl in Goregaon- a tiny room, shared by the family of four, and he’d often be late to school because there was…

The business and busy-ness of surviving in Mumbai leaves little time for city-based trivia. However, learning about how the city's streets and neighbourhoods are named isn’t solely about familiarization. By understanding our past, we can attempt to make better sense of our present. With the help of two rare and rather forgotten books, I did a cursory study of names of different spaces in Bombay. One book looks at the meanings of local names ordained to nooks and corners in Bombay. The other conducts a formal investigation into the official story of how this archipelago came to be. My short…

Was Mumbai's power outage a cyberattack? A New York Times article last week cited a cybersecurity report to claim that Mumbai's major power blackout last October may have been a cyberattack from China. But the Central and State governments are now in disagreement about what happened, Boom reported. Maharashtra's Energy Minister confirmed the Chinese cyberattack, while Central government chalked it up to a human error and not an attack. Source: Boom After BMC Chief, Aaditya Thackeray talks about the need for a single authority in Mumbai Aaditya Thackeray, Photo by Amit Chivlikar, Unsplash Maharashtra minister and Shiv Sena leader Aaditya…

In the mid 19th century, Bombay got its water from 136 public wells and tanks such as Gowallia Tank, Babula and Byculla, Nagpada, Framji Cowasji and Cowasji Patel Tanks. Most of these were built by citizens, writes Mariam Dossal in her book Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City. By 1845, trade flourished in Bombay, the population doubled (from what it was 25 years ago), and the scarce water resources came under severe stress. These water sources were dependent on rain, and whenever the rain failed, water supply diminished. Like tankers today, the British government would ply…

For the first time, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has gathered a team of experts and citizens to frame and implement a parking policy for the city of Mumbai. The committee of 15 members was set up in 2019, but was defunct during the lockdown but has been reconstituted and met for the first time on January 18, 2021. This committee will envisage the setting up a new body - the Mumbai Parking Authority. All civic policies are usually conceived and drafted by civic officials or elected representatives. Also read: Mumbai, this is how you can tackle traffic jams Mumbai Parking Authority…

When a new government came into power in Maharashtra in 1995, and changed the name of India’s financial capital, we were told that the city was going to get 80 new flyovers to solve its traffic woes. The flyovers did come up, but we all know how the dreams of lesser traffic turned out.  Sixteen  years later, Mumbai is being promised a mega infrastructure project with the exact same promise! The Rs 12,000-crore Coastal Road Project that is reclaiming land from the Arabian Sea promises a smooth and effortless commute from the southern part of the city to its northern…

With consumption demands growing like never before, industries are rising in every corner of the world to meet our ever-growing wants. Of course, it is nice to be able to afford and enjoy everything we desire. All seems good till we cast a glance at the enormous amounts of waste generated by the intensive consumerist process. In India, many of the socio-cultural and religious practices we follow often result in a lot of waste and mess. As we leave the January festival season behind, we find spring fast approaching. Colours and joy Holi, the festival of colour, is one of…

Cost of riding autos and taxis increases After six years, the base fare for auto rickshaws has been increased from Rs 18 to Rs 21 and for taxis, it has increased to Rs 25 from Rs 22. In 2015, the base fares were increased by Rs 1 each for both autos and taxis, the Indian Express reported. The fare hike, applicable for the entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region, will be effective from March 1. For rickshaws, the charge for every additional kilometre over the base fare has been hiked by Rs 2.21 per km to Rs 14.2, while for taxis, the…

Last year, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo launched her re-election campaign, making the idea of a "15-minute city" one of the key pillars of her manifesto. The concept, which simply refers to an urban neighborhood where all essential needs can be accessed within a 15-minute walk or bike ride, was proposed by Sorbonne professor Carlos Moreno in 2016. It has resurfaced to wide interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has been included by the C40 Cities, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and UN-Habitat in order to improve the quality of life in the context of COVID-19 and beyond. The idea has…

In 2019, Praja Foundation, a city-based non-profit working towards better urban governance, raised an alarm. They collected data through the Right to Information (RTI) Act and showed that enrolment numbers in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) schools had dropped 10% from 3,43,621 in 2016-17 to 3,11,663 in 2017-18. The number used to be 4,04,251 in 2013-14. If this trend continued, the non-profit warned, BMC would “have no students by 2028”. Praja also commissioned an organisation called Hansa Research to conduct a household survey, which found that 56% from the non-affluent sections of the population would prefer sending their children to a…