EDITORS' PICK

A fleet of trucks carrying fruits, vegetables and flowers arrive at 1 am at the Koyambedu Market. Within a few minutes, daily wage labourers unload these commodities and carry it to the respective shops in the market. One can see customers flocking the market as early as 4 am, to get the best of the goods at a wholesale price. Business flourishes till 10 am, after which it is somewhat dull till 2 pm. Towards the afternoon, customers from far away places such as Perungalathur reach the flower market, to strike the best deal with the wholesale vendors. By evening,…

Every day at the main city bus stand in Dimapur, just across the Nagaland State Transport office in the heart of the city, you’ll find a large number of people waiting for the city bus. As the bus arrives, people rush in, in hordes. One really needs to have the physical strength to be able to aggressively push his/her way inside. Although the city bus comes in at an interval of about 5-10 minutes, this is the scenario every time. It is not uncommon therefore to meet young working women like Chumbayala and Agnes, who have been waiting for quite…

One among the first 20 cities selected for redevelopment under PM Narendra Modi’s Smart Cities Mission (SCM) launched in 2015, Bhopal faces the loss of a major chunk of its green cover, thanks to the implementation of the smart city project. The number of trees that could literally go under the axe may run into thousands under the Rs 3400 crore development plan in the city, which is still grappling with the consequences of the world’s worst industrial disaster -- a gas leak that killed thousands in 1984. The area chosen for implementing the project, Tatya Tope Nagar (TT Nagar),…

Take a drive from Dehradun’s iconic Forest Research Institute (FRI) towards the city centre, the Clock Tower, and you will observe a clogged, toxic and dead Bindal river. Much of the uncollected waste from the city finds its way here. Next to the river are almost 30,000 slum dwellings harbouring a population of 1.25 lakh people. It is also a home to around 100 to 150 waste picker families. Apart from Bindal, large numbers of waste picker families live in the slums of Kanwali, Lakkhibagh, Premnagar and Kargi. Enter Bindal slum and one can see many homeless children carrying waste…

Buddha Nulla, or Buddha Dariya as it was once known, is a symbol of all that is wrong with Ludhiana, Punjab’s largest city. Old timers in Ludhiana remember a cool seasonal stream, a tributary of river Sutlej, that flowed through the city and rejoined the river 16 kms downstream. "It was I think in 1977 or 78, I was in class seven,” recalls Arun Chatwal, born and brought up in Ludhiana. “Both banks of the Buddha Dariya used to be a place for social gatherings. My father used to take all of us as kids there, and some of the…

The midday sun reflects sharply off the shiny red surface of the brand new bus that is on its way from Koyambedu to Kelambakkam. The new-look bus is part of the 300-strong addition to the MTC’s fleet in a phased manner. Half of the new buses commissioned that are operational now traverse the routes in the Old Mahabalipuram Road stretch that is not yet connected by the suburban train network or the metro rail and relies heavily on buses for connectivity. “The new buses were very necessary. The upgrade has made the rides more comfortable. This was long overdue as…

Milan Bhowmick has been farming on his two acres of land in the East Kolkata Wetlands for over thirty years now. He grows brinjals, cauliflower and other vegetables. His land lies close to the Dhapa dumping ground where the solid waste of the city is dumped. The 45-year-old says that the solid waste from Dhapa was composted to produce fertilizers for the farm even till a few years ago, but the increasing presence of plastic and other toxic waste in the dump has now forced him and other farmers to discard the practice. “A proper mechanism to deal with the…

‘Beat Air Pollution’ is the rallying call issued by China, which is hosting this year’s World Environment Day celebrations.  And China knows how to beat air pollution, for it has worked hard the past two decades doing just that. According to a report released this March by the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, 20 years of tough action has produced the following results: “the average concentrations of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and fine particle PM10 dropped by 93.3, 37.8 and 55.3 percent respectively in Beijing. The PM 2.5 content in the air reduced by over 40 percent.” United Nations…

Few citizens in Mumbai are seen wearing a mask outdoors; fewer are actively concerned about air pollution. “It’s not as bad as Delhi”, most say, and inevitably point to the winds that blow from the surrounding sea. The murky, grey and polluted water might make them reconsider their statement, but the feeling that Mumbai is better than the northern landlocked cities wins. But when winter arrived last year, the sea winds failed Mumbai. In the month of December, temperatures dropped in the city but pollutants remained trapped in the atmosphere. The overall air quality index (AQI) was reported to be…

Few citizens in Mumbai are seen wearing a mask outdoors; fewer are actively concerned about air pollution. “It’s not as bad as Delhi”, most say, and inevitably point to the winds that blow from the surrounding sea. The murky, grey and polluted water might make them reconsider their statement, but the feeling that Mumbai is better than the northern landlocked cities wins. But when winter arrived last year, the sea winds failed Mumbai. In the month of December, temperatures dropped in the city but pollutants remained trapped in the atmosphere. The overall air quality index (AQI) was reported to be…