GENRE: Explainers

As Indian cities move towards electric vehicles (EV) for public and private transport, the question of easy and convenient electric vehicle charging in cities becomes paramount. The latest union budget has chipped in to hasten this by announcing a battery swapping policy and interoperability standards. The policy is to ensure all EV manufacturers use standardised, removable/disposable batteries while reducing the cost of EV ownership by negating the need to purchase a new battery, the most expensive component of an EV. This, it is hoped, will incentivise improving electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure across the country. Currently, India is the world’s fifth…

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), also called the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), is India’s richest civic body. With an annual budget of Rs 45,949.21 crore for the year 2022-23, the BMC governs a population of over two crore people. Established in 1888, it is one of India's oldest municipal corporations with a vast administrative structure. Like any city corporation, BMC too consists of a deliberative wing comprising elected representatives i.e. the Corporators who represent the local wards, and the administrative wing composed of appointed officials. Officials including the Municipal Commissioner and Additional Commissioners, along with the staff of…

Rupees 10 crore may seem a small number. But the cause that prompted the Delhi government to allocate this sum is at once extraordinarily human, and extremely rare. Building a boarding school for children whose home generally are the pavements, road dividers, under flyovers and outside stations and temples. It is a miniscule part of the Rs 75,800 crore total Delhi budget, presented by Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia. Efforts to bring these street kids into the mainstream education stream have failed so far. A boarding school for them will be a small step in that direction, Sisodia hopes, and that…

On Friday, March 18th, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister, Palanivel Thiaga Rajan presented the budget in Assembly for the 2022-23. Environmental sustainability, increased connectivity, focus on access to services and promotion of Tamil learning were some of the prominent aspects of the budget. As for what was in store for Chennai, the budget mainly comprised of a number of development projects related to easing traffic congestion, expansion and construction of highways, flood mitigation, disaster preparedness of the city, climate change and increasing green cover. Finance Minister PTR Thiagarjan. Source: Wikimedia Commons by Avenuesmadurai Read more: Sustainability needs a people-centric approach; is…

Modern lifestyles in cities often see most of us buying more, despite the acclaimed ‘Refuse, Reuse, Reduce, Repurpose and Recycle’ mantra. When tired of the clutter, we repurpose pre-owned belongings like old clothes and toys by passing them on to domestic help. But, a step further could help support underprivileged communities throughout the country. There are many organisations in Mumbai supporting local communities in need by distributing pre-owned items in the city and rural Maharashtra. “We can’t say we’re solving the poverty crisis, but there’s a need and we’re filling it,” says Pradeep Tripathi, founder of Green Yatra, a foundation…

With different electoral constituencies in Mumbai for national, state and local elections, finding which one you belong to can be a little confusing, but is important to know before exercising your democratic right to vote for an elected representative at different levels of government. What is a constituency? A constituency refers to a geographical area which votes for an elected representative. Each constituency corresponds to a seat in a government body, depending on the election. Given there are three levels - national, state and local - of elections in India, each place falls into three constituencies of different sets. What…

With a growing population of over 12 million, Mumbai generates 2,700 - 3,000 million litres of sewage everyday. But just as water needs to be purified before it is fit for drinking, sewage needs treatment before it re-enters the water cycle. Untreated sewage is a dangerous mix of bacteria and organic matter, making it an excellent breeding ground for diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, gastroenteritis, hepatitis B, etc. Once in water, it also wreaks havoc in the environment of marine organisms, stealing from their oxygen stores, suffocating and eventually feeding on them. At present, sewage treatment in the city is divided…

Municipal councillors in Mumbai are elected officials for a city’s municipal corporation. They play a critical role in the development and functioning of the city as the primary facilitator between citizens and the state government.   What does a councillor do within their constituency? Councillors in Mumbai execute various developmental procedures in their constituency through the Rs 1.5 crore per annum of local area development fund granted to their local ward by the Brihanmumbai Mumbai Corporation (BMC). A further Rs 60 lakhs of discretionary funds are allocated to every councillor to be spent on their constituency for work they deem as…

Have you ever looked closely at the plastic packaging waste that you place in your recycling bin? Whether the bags, containers, bottles, wrappers, toys, packaging materials are branded or unbranded? What are the brand names? How are they classified? Do you know what the numbers on the packaging mean? Do all plastic waste actually get recycled? According to Sowmya Raghavan, Member, Solid Waste Management Focus Group, Bangalore Apartment Federation (BAF), “All recyclables are not recycled, and all items in the recycle bin are not recyclable." So have you ever thought about conducting an audit of your plastic waste? If yes,…

To clear the air over speculation on the status of cryptocurrencies, Budget 2022 imposed a 30% tax on income from virtual digital assets (VDA) and announced the launch of digital rupee later this year. But, a few questions remain unanswered, especially on the definition of cryptocurrency. And what terms like blockchain and NFTs mean. The concepts of fungible and non-fungible have been around for some time now. In economic terms, fungible tokens or assets are products which are non-unique and interchangeable with something of equivalent value. They are transferable, tangible in nature and their value remains constant. For example, a…