GENRE: In Focus

Every morning, Samidha Dhumatkar travels from her home in Mumbai’s western suburbs to Churchgate, where she works as a telephone operator at a university campus. Her journey involves taking a rickshaw, boarding a train, and walking to her workplace, similar to thousands of other Mumbaikars who commute daily. However, as a person with a visual disability, Samidha’s commute is fraught with threats to her safety. In their book, Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets, writers Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan, and Shilpa Ranade, argue that spaces are not neutral. Moreover, they are not designed equally. “Across geography and time,…

Over a fire of burning newspaper and cardboard, Madhuban Pawar, in her mid-60s, sits on the cold stone floor brewing tea. It is 11 pm, and her husband waits beside her for their only meal of the day: a single glucose biscuit and a glass of tea. In the wake of the December 2, 2025, demolition drive in Mumbai's Borivali, a lone cooking utensil is all the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) left her with. Madhuban, like many from Borivali's Chikuwadi, has inhabited the slums for over 20 years. "I work as a sanitation worker. During monsoons, our job is to…

Commuters passing through Ambattur Industrial Estate inevitably find a layer of dust coating their vehicles, faces, and hands. For Lalitha*, a domestic worker employed at a high-rise apartment near Padi flyover’s Saravana Stores, the last two weeks of December have been especially unbearable. "Dust, dust, dust everywhere," she says, coughing through a persistent cold. At 6 pm, when the rush hour begins, it takes her nearly 30 minutes by bus to cover the 5 km journey home. The ride to the Dunlop area is punctuated by pollution, blaring horns, and endless traffic snarls. “It should take 15 minutes usually, but…

Bengaluru is racing to bridge the gap between first-mile and last-mile connectivity in public transport, but for people with disabilities, the journey is riddled with obstacles. Inaccessible bus stops and terminals in the city keep them excluded. “I have been travelling on muscle memory alone. There are no supportive facilities or infrastructure in bus stops or terminals,” says Mohan Kumar, a visually-impaired person who has been commuting in Bengaluru buses since 2012.  The exclusion starts at the bus stop. “Even if buses are inclusive, it is nearly impossible to reach the bus stops in Bengaluru due to poor design and…

76-year-old Bela Nag, a retired school teacher in Kolkata, finds urban life increasingly isolating. “Young people have no patience with the elderly,” she says, “Availing basic services has become a challenge due to technological advancements and wide scale adoption.” Bela’s sentiments only reflect what is reality for many seniors across urban India who are constantly grappling with the pressure of adapting to exploding cities, migration and rapid digital change. Their predicament brings to the fore larger questions around the effect of city living on the mental health of seniors, especially those who live alone. What affordable, stigma-free, accessible solutions can…

Dr Sanjeevani Rajwade (60) from Mumbai's Vile Parle fractured her foot this rainy season after stepping into a hidden pothole. She walks to her clinic daily, a 10-minute commute from home. “I’ve tried all kinds of footwear to avoid falling,” she says, “but with broken footpaths and uneven roads, nothing really works. Every day, just walking safely to my clinic is a struggle.” Earlier this month, Siddesh Narvekar (31) had his leg trapped in a 10-centimetre-wide drainage hole near Jogeshwari Metro station. The fire brigade took nearly four hours to free him using chipping hammers and cutters, working cautiously as…

Fifty-five-year-old Gnana Bharathi, a scientist at the Central Leather Research Institute and a wheelchair user for over two decades, rarely takes the bus anymore. Chennai’s bus stops and termini, he says, are designed in a way that makes independent travel “nearly impossible”— from reaching the stop safely, to getting onto the platform and finally boarding the bus — without physical risk. So, when the Greater Chennai Corporation declared the Vivekananda House Bus Stop on Kamarajar Salai as an accessible, ‘model bus stop’, he decided to try it.“When I arrived at the location in my wheelchair, I couldn’t even access the…

In Chennai’s Perumbakkam resettlement site, residents working as domestic workers leave home at 9 am and return only after 6 pm. For them, the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) seems almost impossible to navigate. A community worker from the area observes that in earlier voter roll verifications, households received a simple part-number booklet. Now, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) set up camps instead of going door-to-door, asking residents to collect the forms themselves. The new form asks for additional details such as parents’ voter IDs, which many residents do not know, she adds. With low literacy levels,…

On a normal day, fatigue is a persistent challenge for Smitha Sadasivan, Senior Adviser at the Disability Rights India Foundation and a person living with Multiple Sclerosis. Yet, it is manageable with rest periods, nutritional supplements, hydration, and some mild activity. But heatwaves worsen her symptoms. "During heatwaves, none of these measures help. Only limited nutrition and hydration offer some relief,” says Smitha. Extreme climate events, such as heatwaves, floods, or cyclones, pose problems for everyone. Yet for people with disabilities, the challenges are far greater, as daily barriers to safety and mobility become worse during such crises. Smitha explains…

The constant tug of war between legally registered property owners and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), now the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), over stormwater drain (SWD) and lake encroachment clearance is not new to Bengaluru. The city remembers one of the most prominent instances of this face-off that surfaced in August 2016, when the BBMP demolished 10 structures in Shubh Enclave Layout on Haralur Road. City authorities claimed that the layout had encroached on a secondary drain connecting Kasavanahalli and Kaikondarahalli lakes.  In November 2024, BBMP, now restructured as GBA, declared that they had cleared up all SWD encroachments, despite…