EDITORS' PICK

Smart, enthusiastic and brave -- that’s how those who loved Pavithra (name changed) will always remember her. Pavithra had an army of friends. Always curious, she used to ask questions about everything under the sun. Bright, vivacious, energetic. Until a traumatic incident changed her life.  Four years ago, Pavithra was sexually assaulted by her neighbour -- a college-going student. The 13-year-old girl withdrew herself from the world. ‘Why did it happen to me?’ is the only question she asks her mother these days. “She used to be brave even as a child. The incident has shaken her so much that…

A chartered accountant by profession, Snehal Gokhale takes pleasure in what used to be a hobby – watering her plants, watching the flowers bloom and the butterflies flitting from one flower to the other. “I took up gardening to nurture an eco-system where all creatures big and small had a place of their own,” says Snehal, who has a garden in her ground floor Paud Road flat. “And we take pleasure in eating what we grow and watching the birds and butterflies and insects in a symbiotic relationship with each other”. The nature of urban gardening is being transformed, perhaps…

“We have been in the business of dry waste management for years but nobody gives us a salary or respects us,” says Nayan Mohammad, a local waste picker in Velachery. Time and again, local waste pickers have been denied recognition for the vital work they do. They lack any kind of safety net and continue to operate informally on the fringes of waste management and are not given an opportunity to step into the formal fold.  This time too, with the Indo-Spanish partnership ‘Urbaser-Sumeet’ bagging the waste management contract with Greater Chennai Corporation, waste pickers in many parts of the…

You walk up to the counter and pick up your serving of piping hot sambar rice and sit in a neat row of chairs under colourful umbrellas. You make a mental note to pick up some coffee from the small kiosk on the premises on your way out. After polishing off your meal, you pay Rs 5, a fraction of what it would cost you anywhere in the city, as you have just eaten at Amma canteen 2.0. This could well be the future of the ubiquitous, government-run, low-cost eateries as its management has been turned over to a trust…

There was a time when you could build a long. successful career by focusing on one narrow domain in which you were an expert. For example, you could start in accounts, move up to finance, then to the board and may be the MD’s suite. That changed some decades back when managements began to realise that an ‘I’-shaped knowledge base was not enough in a changing world. Companies started rotating people from finance to manufacturing to marketing before considering a person suitable for the corner office or the ‘C’ suite. In line with this, business schools created the ‘T’ shaped learning…

How to enhance green cover in Chennai -- this is a question being mulled over for decades now. But despite various attempts in that direction over the past two decades, the conversation around greening Chennai really gained momentum only after Cyclone Vardah uprooted thousands of trees in December 2016. Organisations working on biodiversity conservation initiated research projects on the city’s shrinking greenery, the number of tree plantation drives rose sharply and nodal agencies of tree management in the city were seen teaming up with organisations and individuals to find effective solutions.  Nevertheless, there seems to be a huge disconnect between…

A deadly plague. A committed and determined municipal commissioner. An aware and active citizenry. That was the beginning, in 1994, of Surat’s remarkable 25 plus year journey: from being the country’s dirtiest city with zero basic infrastructure, to the second-best managed city with well-maintained civic infrastructure. “The biggest success of the then commissioner S R Rao was that he changed the mindset of an entire population” says textile industrialist, Indravadan Mahadevwala. “Till then, we had a municipal corporation only by name.” Surat citizens were always known to be the happy-go-lucky types. Its decentralised textile industry had prospered enough to profit…

“At some point of time, we may die of starvation and the sole reason will be this road link.” Muhammad Sultan, a fruit seller who plies his cart at the busy Lal Chowk in the heart of Srinagar city, could be excused for this dire prediction. But he is one of many whose livelihood has been seriously impacted by the closure of the 300-km Jammu-Srinagar road, the only road link that connects the valley to the rest of India and a lifeline for over 6.5 million people living in the Valley. “There was no supply of fresh fruit in the…

Elections, our festival of democracy, are around the corner in Tamil Nadu. A good indicator of election season of late has been the flurry of activity by the civic body across the city. Roads that citizens have complained about for years with no response get a facelift, potholes are fixed, pavements are laid and any and all grievance is addressed with a swiftness that makes one wish election season lasted longer.  Several infrastructure development projects which had been put on the back burner over the past five years will now be taken up on a war footing and completed in…

“Marina beach has been our home for almost 40 years. We have done different kinds of business here to support our families. Whether during the rains or the harsh Chennai summers, we continued our trade to feed our kids. If we are forced to leave this place, what shall we do?” says a distraught S Kalyani, as she slices fruits to be sold at her stall on Marina beach. At present, the beach accommodates more than 2430 carts used as vending stalls and even has 200 inactive spots. The majority among the vendors belong to the fishermen community, while some…