EDITORS' PICK

The onset of Mumbai's monsoon is loaded with a lot of speculation. Its arrival is forecasted as the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) tracks the seasons’ advance from the south. The forecast also indicates the quantity of rainfall expected across the months of June-September, leaving aside the rainfall pattern, which is harder to predict in advance. Mumbai receives an average 2,500 mm of rainfall in the monsoon months. The city depends on this rain to fill the lakes that supply water for the year. And while this year, Maharashtra expects to surpass its average by 6%, the focus will ultimately be…

The Perambur railway station is the second oldest railway station in the city after Royapuram. The ISO 9000 certified station sees a footfall of 80,000 passengers every day with close to 80 Express Trains stopping at the station. But users and commuters have over the years noticed glaring issues in amenities available at the station. Members of Perambur Neighborhood Development Forum & Community Welfare Brigade, a citizens welfare group comprising residents in the area, had an opportunity to visit the Perambur Railway Station to conduct an audit on the infrastructure and the passenger amenities on offer. After carefully reviewing all the…

Jaspreet Sachdev is a mother to eight-year-old Jasman, who has autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). After two years of online learning, he is back to school after the Maharashtra government allowed offline classes to begin in February. Jasman loved going to school and was really fond of his teachers and peers. School kept him busy and happily occupied for a major part of the day. But when schools started in February, Jaspreet had multiple meetings with Jasman’s teachers about some behavioural issues such as impatience, aggression and inability to focus, all of which had worsened during the COVID…

“I was in the fourth standard when I began to see things, hear voices, often my jaw used to get locked. Everything appeared foggy. I used to feel as if I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to break out but couldn’t because it was untouchable. When I shared my thoughts with my mother she just told me not to be frightened and not to listen to those voices. I tried but failed. I shared with my friends they thought I was making it all up and trying to frighten them by narrating ghost stories. As a…

On April 24th, the popular account @RoadsOfMumbai held a poll on Twitter asking a simple question, ‘Will wrong-side driving ever end in Mumbai?’ The response was overwhelmingly negative; over 80% of respondents believed they would just have to live with it. The poll came nearly two months after the Mumbai police started a crackdown on traffic violations and road obstructions. They were particularly targeting offences of driving on the wrong side of the road and parking of defunct vehicles, ‘khataras,’ on the road. From March 6th to May 15th, the police claimed to have registered 12,390 wrong-side driving cases and…

Rows of colourful plastic pots lined up before tanker lorries and a sea of people waiting near hand pumps had become defining images of Chennai’s water crisis in the summer of 2019. While the city has seen good monsoons and sufficient water in storage in the years since, little has changed in terms of regular supply for many residents of low-income communities across the city. “The water crisis we face is an all-seasonal issue and summer only worsens our living conditions,” says L Kamala, a 32-year-old resident of Pulianthope. She starts her day as early as 5 am. She cooks…

With school admissions in Mumbai for the new academic year in full swing, parents from different socio-economic backgrounds are scrambling to secure seats for their children in the best schools. The opportunities for those from financially and socially disadvantaged backgrounds, however, are not equal. This is where the Right to Education (RTE) Act was supposed to come in - allowing more children a chance at equal education. Introduced in 2009, Section 12 (1)(C) of the Act mandates 25% reservations in private, unaided, non-minority schools for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and economically weaker sections. This includes students with disabilities, those from…

Rakhi Sahu, a kindergarten teacher in Bhopal, is pleased that children are happy to be back in school. But where she sees worrying learning gaps from the two years of school closure is in basic manners or etiquette. “It has been difficult to teach them basic manners like sharing toys with other children or how to sit or conduct themselves in classrooms,” says Rakhi. “The children who are coming to school now after the lockdown have a blank slate in terms of social or behavioural skills”. “Many children have had a hard time adjusting to being back in school full time,”…

On a typical summer day in Mumbai, crowds of workers from different professions descend onto local train platforms in the city, waiting for the next train to fight their way into. Some of them are street vendors who are headed for the area where they will set up shop, on the streets, under large umbrellas or under the shades of trees. But there are also others — construction workers among them, who have no choice but to work while being directly exposed to the sun and hence face uniquely challenging conditions.  Gopal Ahlawat, one such worker, has to meet his…

Private and green sewage treatment plants (STP) are slowly gaining prominence. With the growing threat of water scarcity, climate change and pollution, Mumbai is grappling for ways to meet current and future demands of water in the city, and one avenue that has emerged is recycling the water from sewage treatment plants (STP). They treat wastewater at the source and replace as much as half the water requirement of a housing society. How much fresh water is wasted daily for activities that can be carried out using recycled water?" asks Prasad Khale, senior conservation officer at the NGO Conservation Action…