EDITORS' PICK

Meenakshi (name changed), migrated from Tamil Nadu to Bengaluru 18 years ago and now lives in a steel shed in Laggere. During rains, she collects the water leaking through her roof in pots to prevent flooding in the house. The situation is the same with almost all of her neighbours.  “I used to cover the roof with tarpaulins but they wear off soon. And I can’t afford to change them often,” Meenakshi said. She complained that the shed gets unbearably hot during summers and chilly during rains. “I spend most days of summer outside the house as it would be…

On June 28th, Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (PNLIT), the first citizens' collective in Bengaluru to formally maintain a lake, celebrated its 15th anniversary. Puttenahalli lake, also called Puttakere because of its relatively small size, was waste-ridden and nearly dry in the 2000s. In 2008, Usha Rajagopalan, writer and resident of an apartment near the lake, launched a campaign to revive it. Other interested residents in the area soon joined in, and they formally registered themselves as PNLIT. Their first major success came in 2010 when BBMP started reviving the lake in response to their campaign. The next year, PNLIT…

Across urban India, environmental awareness is increasing, and one of the ways people practise their commitment to minimise their environmental footprint is by reducing their plastic waste. In restaurants, where the sale of plastic bottles and free “filtered water” are both ubiquitous, the decision regarding which water to consume contributes to the growing plastic waste among citizens. Opting for filtered water instead of bottled water, which is served free of cost, seems like a win-win choice that is environmentally conscious and safe. However, the actual safety of this free filtered water remains a question. To answer this, Ashoka Trust for…

The Indian government has churned out multiple codes and schemes for making buildings climate-friendly in the past two decades, but with little success. Though several states have adopted codes such as the Energy Conservation and Building Code (ECBC), this has hardly translated into practice. But some cities like Hyderabad and Ahmedabad have made better progress. These measures are urgent now, as more people are falling prey to heat-related deaths and diseases, including inside poorly ventilated buildings. In the summer of 2024 alone, the Indian government reported 360 heatstroke deaths. Cities like Ahmedabad have seen devastating heat wave impacts much earlier,…

Anthony Ammal, a 43-year-old fisher from the coastal hamlet of Pulicat in Chennai, begins her day long before the sun scorches the concrete beneath her feet. Her mornings are occupied with preparing her two daughters for school and ensuring they are fed before she steps out. She then makes her way to the Pazhaverkadu fish market, where she labours for approximately 15 hours each day. As she settles into her allocated spot to clean the day's fresh catch, the sun begins to blaze overhead, and the humid breeze offers little relief. Her sunburnt skin stings each time the salty sweat…

Every afternoon, Nanda Kumar makes a difficult choice. He parks his bike outside his home in Chennai and suspends work, losing up to ₹800 a day. The 27-year-old Ola and Uber rider isn’t on a break for leisure, though. A brutal heatwave and a recent heat stroke that landed him in the hospital for two days cost him over ₹10,000 in medical bills and lost wages. Since then, he has been forced to stay off the roads during the afternoon hours. “I can’t ride between 12 and 4 pm in the summer months. The heat is just unbearable,” he says. …

If you ask those who grew up in Mumbai in the 80s what they associate with Vihar Lake, most likely they will say the Humpty Dumpty statue and the annual school picnic on the lake’s banks. Vihar and six other artificial lakes, built over the past two centuries, still meet the majority of Mumbai’s water demand.According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which undertakes the humongous task of water provision to the city, its water supply system is the largest in Asia. BMC distributes around 4,000 million litres of water per day (MLD) to over three million Mumbaikars. Yet, many…

Catching a glimpse of the Indian Eagle Owl is not a rarity for birders and nature enthusiasts who frequent the Nanmangalam Lake and the surrounding forests. Yet, this privilege is under threat as the lake's once-thriving ecosystem faces severe environmental degradation. Fed by rainwater from the hillocks of the Nanmangalam Reserve Forest, the lake — spread over 200 acres — is now ravaged by encroachments, illegal water extraction, sewage and garbage disposal. Chennai has two significant reserve forests: the Pallikaranai Wetland and the Nanmangalam Scrub Forest. Located along the Tambaram-Velachery Main Road, Nanmangalam Forest is one of the last remaining…

“Air pollution is never recorded as a direct cause of death. It’s always a contributing factor,” says Dr Aparna Birajdar, a consultant pulmonologist in Pune. She adds that it is difficult to get data on the impact of air pollution in India because doctors are overworked and have little time to research, while most lung infections are multi-factorial. This is why air pollution and its health consequences are rarely addressed with the urgency they demand.  Moreover, studies of air pollution's effects largely focus on adults, with data on children scarce. In 2019, air pollution caused about 6.7 million deaths globally,…

The rise of fast fashion, coupled with citizens’ limited awareness about waste disposal, has led to a textile waste challenge in Bengaluru. The city generates 220 tonnes of textile waste everyday, which accounts for 4% of its municipal waste. Managing urban textile waste goes beyond collection, sorting, and recycling — it should also take into account the needs of the frontline workers, the waste picker community. To address this challenge, waste pickers, with support from NGOs, have developed multiple solutions. In the past few years, they have set up Bengaluru’s first textile waste processing centre, a decentralised system to provide…