GENRE: Explainers

Chennai can be called a groundwater city. Almost 60% of our daily needs is met from Chennai's groundwater sources, both at the macro and micro levels put together. This groundwater source can be sustained only by harvesting rain. Rain can be harvested in only two ways: Collecting rainwater in masonry/plastic tank for immediate use and/or Putting rainwater into the soil which is known as recharge. Chennai's groundwater bank Groundwater should be thought of as a bank. Extraction of groundwater should be compared to withdrawing money from the bank and recharge to be depositing money in the bank. Recharge is of…

Poor quality roads, with stretches of potholes and uneven patchwork are a common sight in Chennai. Newly-laid roads are often dug up by government agencies shortly after. As a result, complaints pertaining to fixing roads take longer than needed as authorities perpetually shift the blame to other departments. This stems from the fact that citizens are generally unaware of the technicalities involved in laying roads in Chennai. Here is an explainer on the kind of roads laid in Chennai, where to complain about them, how we can escalate matters and how citizens can keep a watch.   Chennai roads and the…

Within weeks of the terror attack on a Jammu air force base using drones, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, on July 15th, released a new set of Draft Drone Rules, 2021. While inviting public comments on the draft rules, the ministry said that the new rules are built on a premise of trust, self-certification and non-intrusive monitoring and will replace the existing Unmanned Aircraft Existing Rules, 2021, which had been released in March 2021. The ministry has been working towards developing a world class drone ecosystem in India. But formulating the rules took time as drone technologies have constantly been…

As the third COVID wave appears imminent in the country, robust communication strategies by government agencies become increasingly important. Public health messaging — in both form and content — is an extremely critical component of the response to a pandemic. Access to information about COVID guidelines, vaccination centres and helpline numbers posed a challenge during the first and second waves for a large section of the population, especially the digitally illiterate, marginalised and senior citizens. The avenues of information in the form of trusted media sources and bulletins from government websites seem to be unreachable for these categories. “Only a…

It's snake time of the year! Flower pots, piles of garden leaves, rubble heaps and discarded pipes are a few of the places where snakes feel safe. During the rainy season, they leave their often water-logged hideouts to get some warmth in the sun, which is why we're more likely to see them in our urban habitats at this time. We often see the staff of Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC) working in areas where snakes are known to be found, and this was something that had been bothering us for a while. Whether sweeping the streets, or clearing the weeds…

Thanks to the pandemic, traditional big fat Indian weddings have now become small, muted family events. As social distancing and restriction of movement became the norm in the COVID era, weddings changed too. Many couples have still gone ahead with their matrimonial plans over the past few months, and more plan to tie the knot in the weeks and months ahead but even they must adhere to the current COVID protocol for weddings as laid down by the states.  Even though lockdown norms have been eased in Chennai, things are not entirely back to the old normal. Citizens must be…

After years of preparation and drafting, the union government has finally given the green light to a Model Tenancy Act (MTA) 2021, which aims to make rent laws more equitable for landlord and tenant, and smoothen the processing of renting a home. Such an act had become necessary to achieve the target of constructing 20 million houses for the urban poor by 2022 under the Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana. The 2011 census had recorded a total of 246.69 million households, of which 68% were rural and 32% urban, leaving 63.67 million urban and rural families without adequate housing. In India,…

The pandemic has not only been a health emergency, but also a huge blow on the economic front. Many people lost their jobs while many more have faced pay cuts. Some like R Sunitha stepped up to the challenge by starting their own business ventures. Sunitha, who lost her job, became a home chef during the lockdown. "I took it very hard initially when I lost my job. But I knew I had to pull my act together to earn during the pandemic. I applied for a trade licence and started my own food business and became a home chef,"…

In the run up to the monsoons, tree trimming or pruning in Mumbai is a regular affair. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Garden Department takes care of the trees on the roads and public spaces, and it used to do this in individual housing societies as well, on request. However, BMC recently announced that societies would now need to take the responsibility for the trimming of the trees in their premises, and bear the costs, after getting BMC permission. A few days ago, the exercise of "tree trimming " was carried out in the society where I live, Gitanjali Cooperative Housing…

According to experts, a mutant variant of SARS-Cov-2, B.1.617.2 — now named Delta variant — was a major reason that led to the devastating second wave across the country. First identified in October in India,  it is now the dominant variant in the country, responsible for 80% of new cases. “It travelled from south to north along the western states — from Kerala to Kashmir, before spreading to the central and eastern states,” says Dr N K Arora, chairman of the COVID working group under the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI). The Delta variant has mutations in its…