With the Lok Sabha elections right around the corner, Citizen Matters caught up with Prashanth Goutham of Arappor Iyakkam. In this freewheeling discussion with Meenakshi Ramesh, Prashanth details the roles and responsibilities of an MP and what voters must look for in deciding on the ideal candidate.
[Meenakshi Ramesh anchors the Chennai edition of Citizen Matters and is actively involved in many civic initiatives. She can be reached at meenakshi@citizenmatters.in]
There was a time when Harrington Road was exactly what it was meant to be: a quiet, tree-lined residential avenue, one of Chennai’s older and more established neighbourhood corridors. Families chose to live here because it offered something increasingly rare — space, calm, and a sense of community. Today, that same road tells a very different story. Along an approximately 800-metre stretch now stand eight schools, where there used to be three — three hospitals, three auditoriums, eateries and commercial outlets. Individually, each serves an important purpose. Collectively, however, they have created a level of activity that the road and…
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot/ With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot. These words of the Joni Mitchell classic Big Yellow Taxi filled a corner of Pushpa Narsee Park in Juhu on a bright Sunday morning in March. Though the song was released in 1970, the words resonate in 2026, especially for this park. There have been several attempts to convert Pushpa Narsee Park into a parking lot, only foiled by the vigilance of the locals, says Anca Florescu Abraham, co-founder of Love Your Parks Mumbai (LYPMumbai). This initiative advocates for the…