CITIZEN JOURNALISM

Bengaluru’s water supply is met either by pipelines that draw water from the Cauvery river several kilometers away, or by pipelines that are sunk several feet underground. It wasn’t always like this. In the past, Bengaluru’s water needs were quenched by the many lakes built across the city. Lake water was used for drinking, agriculture, washing cattle and other purposes. But in recent years, the city’s lakes have become infamous for catching fire, frothing, and becoming dump sites. Many lakes are heavily polluted as the city’s sewage, industrial contaminants and untreated wastewater enter them via stormwater drains, rendering them unusable.…

As the entire world saw an upsurge in the number of COVID-19 cases during the first and second waves, the necessity for credible information was paramount. In March 2020, I started Covid19Chennai on Instagram and Twitter (rebranded as News of Chennai in 2021) to publish cross-verifiable, fact-checked information such as important helplines, home-based food providers, where to get tested, what to do if someone tests positive and curated FAQs related to COVID-19 from reliable news agencies.  This also gave me an idea to create chennaicovidhelp.in — a web app where all information would be collated. The advantage of a web…

Chennai has made strides in cycling in the recent years. The promising start has seen many new riders take to cycling during the pandemic. Recognising the need to make the city safe for cyclists, dedicated cycling lanes have been piloted in parts of the city. While these steps augur well for the future of cycling in the city, there is a long way to go in making cycling mainstream. Cycle lane in ECR  A proposal for creating more happy streets - closure of streets for activities by citizens - came from the cycling community and has been taken up with…

Bengaluru has been steadily growing vertically with more and more highrise apartment complexes being constructed. Gardening enthusiasts lament the loss of green cover and space for growing their own flowers and vegetables. But green-thumbed residents of Ittina Anai apartment at Bellandur have shown that they can create their own paradise on their terrace. Apartment resident Aditya Rao, who is part of this terrace garden initiative, shares their story. Having grown up on a farm with lots of trees and abundant vegetable patches, apartment living was an adjustment. Whilst I craved to recreate our childhood experiences of living amongst greenery, space…

The COVID-19 pandemic, a global public health crisis resulting from a virus of potential animal origin has put the spotlight on the idea of One Health. One Health is an approach that is based on the fact that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and our shared environment. It brings focus on the interactions between people, animals, plants and the environment. Health risks have increased with trade globalisation, global warming and changes in human behaviour, providing pathogens multiple opportunities to colonise new territories and mutate. While zoonotic transmission (transmission of pathogens from animals to…

(All persons and events mentioned in this piece are real and will be named when needed) August is the cruellest month. The month that reminds me of the repeated betrayal of the promises made when freedom dawned on our country at midnight in 1947. I remember the sunny morning in August 1990, when I was winging my way back to Bengaluru after a nine-year break. Seated next to me was the Chief of the Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices, whose days were passed among the country’s leading industrialists. “You know you are going to the most corrupt city in…

I remember being on the school bus, on the way to school and looking out the window on the final stretch to see a large and empty ground. I did not concern myself with its origin, assuming that it was a wasteland. Then, one day, I noticed some activity taking place on this wasteland. I could not make out what was happening. Till one day, a great change took place: the land was suddenly blue with water! This ‘great change’ did not take place in a day, of course; the project that transformed the land and restored the original water…

One night on a stroll through Santacruz, Mumbai, I noticed a tree with a larger than usual trunk right in the middle of SV road, a major road that connects the city’s suburbs. A friend I was with remembered the tree from his childhood; he would wait to pass by it every time he returned home on a scooter with his father. Another friend, an ecologist, identified the tree as a Baobab tree. Since I stumbled upon the history of the baobab tree, it made me look at trees around me differently. The Baobab is native to Africa, and was…

The onset of COVID -19 cases and the subsequent lockdown that gripped the nation almost two years ago demonstrated the vast inequalities present in our society. While the pandemic disrupted the lives of every individual, the predicaments of already stigmatised/marginalised communities were aggravated. They have had to survive as financial burdens increased and opportunities for work deteriorated. India’s nine lakh sex workers, who were out of work, steeped in debt and at risk of contracting the virus, faced the brunt of the pandemic explicitly. The stigma and discrimination during the pandemic added to their existing challenges that included violence, abuse…

The whirlwind that was 2021 has left us with many takeaways for how Chennai can be governed better and why citizens must play an active role in it. The city received record rainfall and an almost unwelcome deja vu of the 2015 floods. It goes into the new year without an elected local government, the sixth year in running. With  the promise of local body elections around the corner and some exciting developments in terms of urban projects, we step into 2022.  On the pandemic and Singara Chennai 2.0 Chennai, like the rest of the country, was badly hit by…